Cultural Rights and Agency Deliberation Dublin Castle, 29 09 2014
Draft Submission Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht (AHG) Statement of Strategy 2015 to 2018
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Summary Facts 1. There are systemic reasons why the Arts favours citadels not citizens. 2. €250 million spent annually has to deliver a radical participation. 3. We need to re-focus on the capacity for culture not consumers. 4. Poor people with lower levels of educational attainment are ‘many times less likely’ to participate in cultural events than their better-off counterparts. 5. The Arts and Disadvantage Oireachtas Committee hearing never reported. 6. The Arts Council’s 2014 review highlighted the ‘disconnect’ between the arts and ‘significant cohorts of the population’ but no changes have ensued. 7. Community arts are now a well-established aspect of international cultural life, reflecting an increasing concern about inclusiveness and equality but not in Ireland. 8. We need a Community Culture Strategy that guarantees targeted inclusion measures for disadvantaged individuals and groups.
Case Study On 31st October 2014 (Halloween) last, Fatima Groups United and the Rialto Youth Project, its partners in A Local Imagination - The Rialto Arts Plan 2012-2016 made their cultural worker redundant after 15 years. This situation has arisen due to the pressures and difficulties involved in securing arts specific funding from any cultural institution in the current economic climate. Arts and culture helped catalyse community spirit and the aesthetic capacity oof children, young people and the wider community. The loss of a cultural coordinator after a period of over 15 year’s engagement with the Fatima Community Regeneration process weakens the experience of continuing to develop a new model of Local Arts Development for the Rialto area and its links to so many dedicated individual and organisational collaborators. Why has community cultural provision, built over the last two decades, never found any commitment by the bodies responsible for the Arts in Ireland?
Evidence of a Culture Shock 2
There are clear 'pressures' on the State’s arts, cultural, heritage armature in the current economic environment with its combined threats and opportunities. It seems no longer enough to advocate only with arguments on public good for the arts, heritage and culture or its impact in terms of economic, employment and tourist activities. These approaches i.e. ‘economic value’, a ‘cultural value’ or indeed ‘intrinsic values’ policy falls short of the type of ‘ecology’ that is now required in Ireland. Today artists and cultural players are at the fore of creative work with e.g. children, families, migrants, people with a disability and refugees. Such arts and cultural activity is often nested in global ethical initiatives of activists and community organisations seeking equality and social justice. These contexts provide a typology of practice ("dialogical art", "community-engaged" or "community-based public art," “social engaged art practice”). This practice is an interface between communities as producers and artists as interdisciplinary collaborators. Works from this genre can be of any media and are characterized by interaction or dialogue with the community. These communal artistic processes act as a catalyst to trigger events or changes within a community or even at a national or international level. The term "community art" refers also to field of community, neighbourhood and public art practice with roots in social justice and popular and informal education methods. Community arts now needs to build a new interface between the capacity for BEAUTY (artists and arts institutions) and the capacity for a new ECOLOGY (activists and activist organisations) in the economic, social, environmental and cultural domains.
The Macro Evidence for a Shift National arts and cultural institutions are tired. In The Art of Life, the former Danish Minister of Culture advocated that “We need new ideas, we need new ways of doing things and we need a whole new way of approaching each other.1 A recent EU Expert Task Group highlighted that the challenge in the arts is located on the ‘demand side’ (among citizens) not on the ‘supply side’ (among arts organisations). 1
S. Wright et al (2013) The Art of Life: Understanding how participation in arts and culture can effect our values. UK: Mission Models Money and Common Cause. Accessed 10 October 2014 online at http://rethink.missionmodelsmoney.org.uk/blog/art-life-how-arts-and-culture-affect-our-values 3
It advocates for new strategies on the capacity for culture rather than the form of culture e.g. grand opera or soap opera. The focus on the capacity of individuals and communities as producers of culture is also evidenced in the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. In its deliberations on the scope and meaning of “cultural life” in Art 15, it concluded “Culture is no longer an expression of knowledge or demand for recreational activities as consumer goods, but reflects a way of being and feeling, in short, the community’s way of life and thought.”2 Article 15 must also be read with reference to Article 1 of ICESCR which states that “all peoples have the right of selfdetermination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their (…) cultural development.” The concept of ‘selfdetermination’ is an important element in promoting, respecting and fulfilling cultural rights. Self-determination focuses on the capability to have agency over the creation and production in one’s cultural life rather than just consumption. It raises the issue of having the capability to directly shape the means by which one takes part in a cultural life.
The Micro Evidence for a Shift The Arts Council’s 2014 review highlighted a potential ‘disconnect’ between the arts as funded by the Council and ‘significant cohorts of the population’ as it places ‘little emphasis on engagement and participation as a fundamental and valued aspect of the Arts in Irish society’.3 There is an under-participation of people from lower socio-economic backgrounds. While there remains a lack of data about the resources dedicated to cultural inclusion,4 there is evidence to indicate that people from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds with lower levels of educational attainment display equal levels of interest in the arts but are ‘many times less likely’ to participate in cultural events than their better-off counterparts.5
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E/C.12/1992/SR.17, General Discussion on the Right to Take Part in Cultural Life as recognized in Article 15 of the Covenant, 11 December 1992. 3 Arts Council (2014) Inspiring Prospects: Arts Council Strategic Review 2014 – Report of the Steering Group, Dublin: Arts Council, pp.4-5. 4 National Economic and Social Forum (2007) The Arts, Cultural Inclusion and Social Cohesion, Dublin: NESF, p.13. 5 P. Lunn and E. Kelly (2008) In the Frame or Out of the Picture: A Statistical Analysis of Public Involvement in the Arts, Dublin: Economic Social Research Institute, p.8. 4
Both the National Action Plan for Social Inclusion6 and Towards 20167 recognise the need to address a cultural deficit and enable marginalised people to participate in cultural activities. Income generated by the National Lottery accounts for the majority of funding allocated to the arts through the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht (AHG) and the Arts Council.8 However, the regressive nature of this funding, due to the higher numbers of people from lower socio-economic groups playing the National Lottery, is not offset by the allocation of this funding to arts initiatives as they are less likely to participate in, or benefit from, these activities.9 At local government level, while the existence of local arts officers and arts centres has the potential to widen access to the arts, the data show that awareness is also heavily skewed towards those in more advantaged groups.10 Hence, at present, these components of the arts infrastructure reflect, rather than counter, the bias towards the better-off. Despite an Oireachtas (Parliamentary) Committee hearing in 2012 to consider how best to support and ensure the participation of disadvantaged groups in cultural life, no recommendations or actions have been issued.11 Community arts are now a well-established and growing aspect of international cultural life, reflecting an increasing concern about inclusiveness and equality.12 However, community arts have not been adopted as a domain for policy in Ireland. The Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht has taken no positive actions to combat disadvantage in the Arts. There is no human rights and equality proofing mechanism applied to policy or the allocation of resources by public bodies (including, for example, the Arts 6
Government of Ireland (2007) National Action Plan for Social Inclusion 2007-2016, Dublin: Stationery Office, p.70. 7 Government of Ireland (2006) Towards 2016: Ten Year Framework Social Partnership Agreement 2006-2015, Dublin: Stationery Office, p.36. 8 Department of Public Expenditure (2013) 2014 Revised Estimates for Public Services, Dublin: Stationery Office, p.228. 9 F. Crowley, J. Eakins and D. Jordan, ‘Participation, Expenditure and Regressivity in the Irish Lottery: Evidence from Irish Household Budget Survey 2004/2005’, Economic and Social Review, Vol. 43, No.2, Summer, 2012, pp.199-225. 10 NESF and ESRI (February 2008) In the Frame Out of the Picture Seminar Report. Dublin: NESF pp. 11,25. The Report is available to download here: //files.nesc.ie/nesf_archive/nesf_seminar_series/NESF_seminar_report_1.pdf 11 Although no report has issued (as of October 2014) please refer to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Environment, Transport, Culture and the Gaeltacht, Utilising the Arts to Combat Disadvantage: Discussion, 13 March 2012, http://bit.ly/JOCDebateArts Accessed 10 October 2014. 12 D. Mills and P. Brown (2012) Arts and Well Being. A guide to the connections between Community Cultural Development and Health, Ecologically Sustainable Development, Public Housing and Place, Rural Revitalisation, Community Strengthening, Active Citizenship, Social Inclusion and Cultural Diversity. Australia Arts Council. (Accessed 10 October 2014 and available to download here: http://issuu.com/bluedrum/docs/arts_and_well_being__arts_council_o 5
Council and local authorities) that control the development and resourcing of culture and the arts at national and local level.
Community Culture Strategy: A Case Study It was into this historical context that in 2013 the Community Culture Strategy was developed by Blue Drum initiative and involved the active support of the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht and the Minister for Children. The time line was as follows: -April and December 2013: Joint ministerial meetings in Dail Eireann; -April–December 2013: Steering Group established to produce the Strategy including representatives of the DAGH and TUSLA. -March 2014: Decision not to fund the development phase.
The Department of AHG rejected the Strategy making it clear that ‘much of the programmes aimed at community arts fall outside its remit and the Arts Council’.13 There is a perception that the Department of AHG has deflected any attempt to adopt this practice in its policy. There is an absence of a nationally coordinated response to policy-making or resource allocation to supporting and developing the practice of community arts and the realisation of cultural rights of communities. To this end Blue Drum and the Equality Rights Alliance have highlighted the ‘gap’ as a failure on the part of the Irish government in fulfilling progress under the International Covenant of Social, Economic and Cultural Rights. We have organised and published proceedings as follows: -May 2014: Public Deliberation on Cultural Rights in the EU Commission Offices. -Joint Submission with the Equality and Rights Alliance to the Shadow Report on ICESCR. -September 2014: Follow-up Public Deliberation on Cultural Rights in Dublin Castle.
It is our contention that the Department of AHG should consider inserting into its Statement of Strategy its responsibility to ensure that disadvantaged individuals and groups are able to access and enjoy their cultural rights through targeted inclusion measures. Current systems of policy making and spending are not fit for purpose and
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Letter from former Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht Mr Deenihan TD to community arts organisation Blue Drum dated 4 March 2014 in response to the Community Culture Strategy, which looked to renew, refresh and reinvent Community Arts. Accessed 10 October 2014 and available to download at http://bit.ly/CommunityCulturalStrategy 6
there are real systemic problems with the way arts, culture and heritage funding favours its citadels but not the citizens. In summary
Cultural rights are denied to the most marginalised and disadvantaged groups in Irish society; Barriers to access arts and culture as consumers are significant and have not been addressed; The opportunity to create arts and culture has been limited, and to better resourced groups and communities, and is increasingly restricted; Community arts practice has been marginalised and remains outside Government remit, policy and resourcing; The Department has a new responsibility to apply equality and human rights impact assessments in their policy-making and resource allocation. 0----0
Ed. Carroll October 2014. www.bluedrum.ie
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