Support the arts in Yarra – an open letter to City of Yarra councillors

Support the arts in Yarra – an open letter to City of Yarra councillors

We, the undersigned, urge the City of Yarra to re-instate the public arts funding cut at the March council meeting. Further, we urge the City of Yarra to re-affirm the central place of public art in a fair and vibrant community, including the role of local government in funding public art. We are particularly concerned that this funding cut sets a precedent for slashing arts funding, at a time when the arts are more necessary than ever.

We sign this letter for the following reasons:

The arts are popular
• In 2001, a survey commissioned by the Australia Council’s Visual Arts/Craft Board, ‘found that approximately 31 per cent of respondents had visited a contemporary visual arts or craft venue in the previous two years’.
• The figures are significantly higher in Yarra. The 2007 Community Indicators Victoria Survey found that 57.1% of Yarra residents had ‘participated in at least one of the selected artistic and cultural activities in the previous month, compared to the Victorian State average of 46.6%’.
• In contrast, in Victoria 6.3% of men and 0.4% of women played outdoor cricket and 6% of men and 1.3% of women play outdoor football (Yarra figures not available).

Supporting artists addresses poverty
• ‘82% of arts practitioners have (sic) a gross income from all sources of less than $15,000 with negative income from their art…’.
• The level of artists’ incomes is dropping and ‘a substantial proportion of practitioners were earning below the poverty level’.

Art strengthens the economy
• There are over 700 artists who live or work in Yarra, and over 44 commercial galleries. Artists buy materials and services in Yarra; galleries employ people and generate business for other businesses, whether art suppliers or cafes.
• Arts festivals and events have flow-on benefits for many businesses. For example, in recent years, three National Gallery of Victoria exhibitions alone generated over $64 million, which benefited the tourism, travel and hospitality industries.
• For each $100 spent on creative arts goods and services, Australia’s GDP increases by $155 dollars.

Art strengthens social inclusion, a sense of worth and health
• Participation in community arts can reverse social alienation. For example, involvement of at-risk young people in the Artful Dodgers Studio has ‘resulted in a pattern of reengagement which sometimes includes a return to formal education’.
• VicHealth has found that, ‘There is repeated evidence in the literature that participation in the arts strengthens and diversifies personal networks [a determinant of good mental health]. In addition, there are consistent findings that arts activities build social capital and enhance social cohesion within communities.’
• The European Union states that involvement in the arts is ‘a very important tool in the activation and reintegration of those individuals and groups who are most distant from the labour market and who have the lowest levels of participation in society.
• For community art to thrive, the broader arts must thrive, including cutting-edge art.

Supporting the arts addresses gender bias
• Art is one of the few areas in public life where women dominate, as ‘consumers’, producers and administrators/entrepreneurs. Women are more likely to be employed in commercial art galleries than men.
• ABS data shows that ‘compared to the general population, attendees at art galleries are more likely to be female, younger (18-29), have a higher level of education, have higher incomes, and have no children’. This describes a significant part of the population in Yarra, which has a higher than Metropolitan average of younger women. Funding art is a way of increasing gender equity, ie addressing the over-representation of men in funded activities and facilities eg sporting grounds.

Public art builds a sense of place and identity
• Arts and culture ‘contributes directly to that “sense of place” which attracts both residents and business… Arts and cultural events and celebrations form part of a diverse mix of commercial, hospitality and community activity creating an active street life and generally making a place feel “alive”.
• Public art counters the saturation by advertising of public spaces, carving out a public space outside the market place.
• The arts allow us to explore our identity, both personally, and as a group, including as Melburnians and Australians.
• At a time when community members have less disposable income, public art such as billboard art provides access to free entertainment and art.

The arts celebrate difference and innovation
• Artists ‘value difference and therefore contribute to social tolerance and open-mindedness regarding cultural diversity....Artists also allow the unfamiliar and the exploratory to become valued’.
• Art can ‘transcend borders of age, sex, race, language and culture, allowing artists and audiences to communicate on a fundamental level, and presenting images of society which can inspire, provoke or challenge’.
• Art inherently values innovation: it relies on ‘experimentation, a questioning of tradition’; it ‘encourages new ways of looking and thinking’, characteristics increasingly recognised as the cornerstone of a knowledge economy.

Yarra’s own policy recognises the crucial role of the arts
• ‘Creativity and the imagination are fundamentally a part of what make us human: informing our beliefs, decisions and actions and how we relate to other people around us. The arts play an important role in celebrating, exploring and forming the diverse living cultures in this city.’

For these reasons, and many more, we believe that support for the arts should be a key element of the City of Yarra’s investment in a vibrant, fair and living city.

Yours sincerely,