Without water, one dies in nine days, yet one can live for five years without human touch. Is the latter a luxury?

The title is a quote from Justin O′Connor’s book “Culture is not an industry – Reclaiming art and culture for the common good”. Before I get into it, two episodes from my professional life come to mind.

In 2016, Access Culture found out about a working group constituted the year before by the Portuguese government to tackle the refugee crisis. The following sectors where represented in this group: Directorate-General for European Affairs/Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Foreigners and Borders Service, the Social Security Institute, the Institute for Employment and Vocational Training, the Directorate-General for Health, the Directorate-General for Education and the High Commissioner for Migrations. Culture was not invited to be part. Our association wrote to the Ministry of Culture and we were informed that the group was almost completing its task and that the Ministry would pay more attention in the future. More attention to what…? Noone considered that Culture had anything to do with the arrival of refugees to a small country – not even the Ministry of Culture and perhaps also quite a few cultural professionals.

Four years on, the pandemic hits and, as we try to deal with the uncertainty this experience brings to our lives and to the sector, funds for the “Culture for All” programme are diverted, as Culture is not considered to be “essential” at that point. And yet, so many of us turned to music, films, TV series, livestreamed theatre, we sang at our windows, we applauded health workers from our balconies, we looked at our neighbours in the eye and, when we asked “How are you?”, we really expected to hear an answer. Yet, culture was not deemed “essential”.

In his book, O’Connor analyses this “strategic failure of the cultural sector” after embracing, in the late 90’s, its rebranding into “cultural and creative industries”. A bit of history:

“In 1997, Chris Smith, head of the newly established Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), prepared to get approval for his new budget (…); [needing] to convince the Treasury to reverse two decades of cuts to arts and culture. His team suggested rebranding: Culture, as coupled with ‘art’, was inevitably seen as elitist. Creativity was democratic, modern and energetic (…) It too was economically productive (…) [and would] open the door to political influence and resources. The ‘creative industries’ would provide jobs to replace those lost in the manufacturing and, hitched now to a new ‘knowledge economy’, opened up exciting vistas of social mobility and meaningful work.” (p.35)

By now, we know that this rebranding did not live up to its promises and this became all too clear especially during the pandemic, when we all saw how fragile the sector is. And it also has a lasting effect, one that still keeps the sector trapped to other agendas. As Culture Action Europe’s recent report “State of Culture” puts it, questions like “what do we contribute to the economy, how can we make cultural institutions carbon neutral and how do we contribute to health and wellbeing” are very relevant, but, instead of struggling to answer them, we should make space for our own questions:

“Where is our political argument concerned with how we see humans in our society? In other words, how people relate to each other in communities and how they can not only enjoy the ‘negative freedom’ to consume, to vote and to ‘like’, but also the ‘positive freedom’ to make informed choices, build communities, take political responsibility and lead a life that allows for meaning making?” (Lars Ebert, General Secretary of Culture Action Europe, in the forward, pp.4-5).

In his book, Justin O’Connor writes about the positive freedom to do, to become; a freedom that “is not simply about desires and wants, but about deciding who we ought to be and what we ought to do.” (p.10). He refers specifically to the de-politicising of culture as a result of its rebranding into cultural and creative industries. Right from p.1, he reminds us that we have to re-politicise it, because “Culture is central to what it is to be human, to live in a social world. (…) [it should be moved] back into the sphere of public responsibility alongside health, education, social welfare and basic infrastructure.” He advocates for “a new framework for cultural policy, where social infrastructure – that which makes social life possible – becomes a distinct part of basic needs (p.24). And he defends that access to culture should be considered “a fundamental part of citizenship” and, by this, he means “those things we cannot do without if we are to fully participate in society and realise our potential”. (p.126)

One of the most essential parts in this book for me is the discussion around what should be considered essential in a person’s life. In 1976, the Industrial Assistance Commission in Australia reported to Gough Whitlam, who had just established the Australia Council for the Arts, that the performing arts “provide psychological, emotional or intellectual stimulation and other forms of personal satisfaction to individuals. However, [these] … do no, of themselves, justify public assistance.” (p. 41) Thus, it is more of a personal choice for individual satisfaction, the choice of an elite which knows how to appreciate “the arts”. Still today, many people question whether we should fix health, education, housing, transport, food, energy, water, basic communication systems before we get to culture (p.109). “The history of working class popular culture suggests differently”, says O’Connor (p.132) and he also makes another very relevant remark:

“The social foundations, then, must include the basic human desire for recognition, respect, purpose, and meaning derived from the social world in which we live. (…)The accordance of respect and recognition means allowing the working class to pursue aspirations of ‘identity, affiliation, participation, creativity and experience’ just as much as the professional-managerial class. To fail to see this is to radically misunderstand the explosions of working-class ‘populism’ in Brexit, Donald Trump, Bolsonaro and the ‘gilets jaunes’.” (pp.113-114).

“Freedom for what? Culture for what?” was the title of my intervention last year at the University of Coimbra, in a series of debates organised as the Portuguese revolution was approaching its 50th anniversary. I was questioning at the time what it meant for our society, what it said about the culture, the fact the pregnant women could die in this country because of lack of health services where they live; the fact that modern slave owners answer their critics that this is how it is if we want to eat cherry tomatoes; the fact that a Roma girl in this country can stay out of school because a judge confirms that this is the tradition in her community; the fact that police keeps killing and brutalising black citizens; etc., etc. At the same time, I questioned how many of us, working in this field, and how many citizens in society at large see the role Culture might have in all this. How many see Culture as something more than scheduling artistic and cultural events and activities, but without a vision of who we are and who we wish to be? Or as something more than the distribution of “cultural facilities” (i.e buildings for museums, theatres, libraries) in different parts of the country?

A bit before he died at the age of 35, Christos Grammatides, a Greek lawyer and social media persona said in an interview: “Don’t leave people alone. Dignity lies in togetherness”. It is this “togetherness” we should be looking to build, this culture of care, solidarity, respect and recognition of everyone’s potential and everyone’s right to contribute to what our life in common is and should be. Not only when a tragedy or a pandemic strikes, but as a way of being, of living a life worth living.

Originally published on Musing on Culture , 2.11.2024