of Scotland’s larger towns - especially those with areas which score highly on the Index of Multiple Deprivation. In my own field of cinema, I was alarmed to appreciate that, outside the seven cities, the ten most populous towns in Scotland have little or no access to local cinema. At best some half a million people have available to them only an edge-of-town multiplex, with high prices, a limited programme and transport issues. Many don’t even have that. Yet the irony is that many of these communities do have access to town centre venues, often rather handsome ones, such as Motherwell Concert Hall. But, in the absence of specialist programming staff - such as do exist in, for example, Fife Cultural Trust - these venues play host only to amateur work - an utterly vital role, of course - and a succession of tribute acts, most of them second rate at best. So, in relation to cultural democracy, there is a very substantial proportion of the population with little or no access to the arts provision for which they pay through their taxes, and to which they are therefore surely entitled. That issue of venues is at the crux of the matter. Francois Matarasso’s wonderful short book Where We Dream tells the inspiring story of West Bromwich Operatic Society, and what its inclusive activities, over many decades, have meant to one of the most economically depressed areas in the country. But a leitmotif of the story is the recurrent need to change venues over the years as, one by one, theatres, most of them publicly owned, were closed, converted or demolished. That physical infrastructure, and the human resource that should go with it, are surely fundamentally enabling parts of our cultural commons. It’s easy to get political about this situation, and certainly I believe that it is within the devolved powers of the Scottish Government to do something about this, to make Scotland a beacon of cultural democracy. Here are some suggestions: • Develop indicators of ‘cultural deprivation’ to be included within the Index of Multiple Deprivation.
democracy in action than the hundreds of concerts promoted each year by Live Music Now Scotland, yet it must reapply to Creative Scotland each year, presenting its work each time as a new ‘project’, because of Lottery rules. • Put local communities as much as artists at the core of Creative Scotland’s mission. • Build productive partnerships with those national agencies focused on community development and town centre regeneration, and put culture at the heart of their strategies. There is also, I believe, another fundamental issue at stake. Most local cultural activity is generated within the community, even if that community energy ultimately results in a multi-million pound arts centre, like An Lanntair in Stornoway. But it is a geo-demographic issue - a postcode lottery, if you like - as to which communities have the ability to self-organise in this way. It’s hardly rocket science to appreciate that the more a community is hit by the effects of multiple deprivation the less likely it is to generate spontaneously the voluntary effort to achieve appropriate cultural access. Yet we know from many examples, from Easterhouse to Wester Hailes, that, if you start with culture, much else that is beneficial will follow. So, if we’re going to be really serious about cultural democracy, we’re going to have to give some communities a helping hand, to develop tools and models that can stimulate and support community-based efforts to develop better cultural access. And we need to ensure that the physical and human infrastructure is in place to host and to support community-generated cultural activity - and not simply out-housed to unaffordable, inaccessible, privately owned ‘campus’ schools. The alternative is accepting a shameful cultural deficit that is unworthy of any truly progressive nation.
• Formulate a distinctively Scottish model of ‘event cinema’ which would allow the best of Scottish cultural product (especially by the national companies) to be relayed to cinemas and centres across Scotland, at affordable ticket prices. • Make arts provision a statutory duty of local authorities (before it’s too late. For some LAs it may already be too late). • Reduce the dependency of Creative Scotland on National Lottery funds to support core cultural activity. There are few better examples of cultural
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