Be careful what you wish for – how the indirect impacts of culture came to overshadow its inherent value

Recent turmoil at the Australian National University has raised a serious issue about the way we view and discuss creativity and culture. For many decades there were profound attempts to explain how arts, culture and creativity in general had immensely broad impacts across society, including in the economy – attempts that I was part of. That was, and remains, extremely important, but, partly as a result of these attempts, the inherent long-term impacts of arts, culture and creativity have increasingly been ignored and only the broader flow on impacts, often the more immediately practical ones, have been emphasised. In a neo-liberal universe that knows the price of everything and the value of nothing, understanding and managing this complex balance is crucial.

Even though I am a long-running Adjunct with the University of Canberra and over the course of my career have worked closely with a number of universities, I don’t in any way claim to be deeply knowledgeable about higher education – I just recognise its value. For me arts, culture and creativity are my focus and higher education and arts training only figure in relation to this.

‘It was apparent that for too long there had been a narrow emphasis on ‘art’ at the expense of ‘culture’ and on ‘excellence’, as counterposed against participation and involvement. The whole community arts and community cultural development movement, from which I sprang, was predicated on breaking down this artificial dichotomy.’

These issues are rearing their head in the national capital at the only national university in Australia, but they resonate everywhere, as culture and education, learning, research and innovation become battlegrounds in a world that, in the words of Oscar Wilde, knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

During my working life, as I moved through involvement in different parts of the cultural sector, it was apparent that for too long there had been a narrow emphasis on ‘art’ at the expense of ‘culture’ and on ‘excellence’, as counterposed against participation and involvement. The whole community arts and community cultural development movement, from which I sprang, was predicated on breaking down this artificial dichotomy.

On the one hand conservatives loved the elitism of art, on the other hand, as part of the culture wars, they used accusations of ‘elitism’ to beat the ‘elites’ – not their elites, the real elites which rule the world, but those they identified as bringing progressive politics to the fore.

Absent without leave - ocean crossing in an (almost) post-pandemic world

I’ve been a little out of touch with what’s been happening in the world of Australian creativity and culture because for all of February and early March this year I was visiting Aotearoa New Zealand, on a journey that originally started in November 2016 and was then resumed over six years later. While I was away the Labor Government announced its new National Cultural Policy and soon after I arrived back I received bad news of a loss from the tight group of friends and colleagues who had helped form my cultural world-view so many decades earlier – when we spoke the language of community, the language of culture and the language of changing the world for the better.

All at sea in a floating library
I started my trip in a floating library, that is on a Viking cruise from Sydney to Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand. Viking ships are full of quiet corners crammed with books, a welcome way to pass time at sea – when not in a Scandinavian spa and sauna and pool unlike anything else I’ve ever seen. The cruise was originally a river cruise from Amsterdam up the Rhine to Basel in 2020, before the world went to shit. It was meant to follow my first ever cruise – from London to the furthest point North in Norway, way above the Arctic Circle, then down to beautiful Bergen. As the global pandemic rolled on, this follow up voyage was postponed several times and finally converted to a cruise to New Zealand when Viking started to operate in Southern waters. It was certainly a superb way to travel to New Zealand.

 

From the time when everyone played in a garage band and was famous amongst a few people they knew for all of five minutes. Of course we wrote our own songs. In our day jobs we were even more serious.

In an inspired move on the way to Melbourne I had booked the Alexander McQueen exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria. I walked off the ship and headed into the city to see it. It was popular and packed and I wore my face mask throughout, but it was excellent and not-to-be-missed.