Arts in the UK post-Brexit

[Beef Oven!]

Exactly! That's the point!! That's why your comment about the Elgar & Brahms Threads isn't pertinent on this occasion: the Hosts rarely get complaints about Threads in general - we always do about "political" ones in general and Brexit ones in particular.


No I don't; I have spent quite enough time on this matter and I have reached my decision as made clear in #153.

We seem to be saying the same thing. People are very selective when they complain about the repetitive nature of threads. You and two others have posted your ideas about Groundhog Day etc in this thread, but not on other even more boring threads that we have on the forum.

[eighthobstruction]

....I personally believe that fhg/ferney should be given Judge Dread type controls over the cosmos....the mere idea of a Bolton boys hand hovering over 'the' button would settle quite a few folk down....but of course there wil be those who.....

My goodness we've made the man change fonts and size....

[Pulcinella]

And if people have already left, they can't have placed much value on being here in the first place.

I do hope that you regret and will apologise for such an outrageous suggestion.

Perhaps these people felt threatened by the xenophobic and racist comments they were subjected to (which I know you would condemn), or perhaps they couldn't get their property remortgaged because the bank decided that they might not have the job security they needed.

[Richard Barrett]

I think people should admit that really nobody has a clear idea of what's going to happen in terms of "collateral damage" (or otherwise) to the arts post-Brexit. I use that formulation in order to underline that, as usual, political decisions are made without the slightest inclination to admit what an important role art and culture in general play in very many people's lives. As usual this is treated as an embarrassing anomaly that needs to be made to look insignificant, because its celebration of the human imagination runs so counter to the priorities of the joyless philistines who make the decisions (even suppressing whatever artistic enthusiasms they themselves might have when making political calculations).

[french frank]

what an important role art and culture in general play in very many people's lives. As usual this is treated as an embarrassing anomaly that needs to be made to look insignificant

I think also the point that aeolium made earlier (which I did understand) is relevant. The arts can be treated as 'insignificant' precisely because the 'very many people' currently excludes a still greater number. These last may also be treated with contempt but the arts get lost in the resulting battles.

[ahinton]

I think people should admit that really nobody has a clear idea of what's going to happen in terms of "collateral damage" (or otherwise) to the arts post-Brexit. I use that formulation in order to underline that, as usual, political decisions are made without the slightest inclination to admit what an important role art and culture in general play in very many people's lives. As usual this is treated as an embarrassing anomaly that needs to be made to look insignificant, because its celebration of the human imagination runs so counter to the priorities of the joyless philistines who make the decisions (even suppressing whatever artistic enthusiasms they themselves might have when making political calculations).

Hear, hear!

[Serial_Apologist]

I suppose those who object to strongly-worded political disagreements in a forum such as this, where the political can't very well be excluded from discussions on matters musical and artistic without evoking the concept of heads buried in sand, feel in some way entitled to define themselves as immune from political consequences in general, and for other people to have their discussions elsewhere so as not to remind them of uncomfortable realities over which their censoriousness has no bad effects. One seemingly obvious reason matters political tend to raise more hackles than disagreements over this opera production or that Breakfast presenter is that the consequences of politics can be and often come in terms of life and death, whereas Proms or Radio 3 scheduling quite obviously do not. There is a long history of dictatorships coming in on tides of censorship of free speech and writing while "silent/moral majorities" turn and look the other way. Do we really want them to shut us up? I think I'm more annoyed by sometimes quite polite regulars on the forum who seem intransigently fixed in their views than those resorting to verbal rough-and-tumble, which, unlike a row with neighbours, hurts no one, and at least shows a degree of care and concern about Important Matters that clearly don't affect the complainers.

[Richard Barrett]

I suppose those who object to strongly-worded political disagreements in a forum such as this, where the political can't very well be excluded from discussions on matters musical and artistic without evoking the concept of heads buried in sand, feel in some way entitled to define themselves as immune from political consequences in general, and for other people to have their discussions elsewhere so as not to remind them of uncomfortable realities over which their censoriousness has no bad effects. One seeminly obvious reason matters political tend to raise more hackles than disagreements over this opera production or that Breakfast presenter is that the consequences of politics can be and often is in terms of life and death, whereas Proms or Radio 3 scheduling are not. I think I'm more annoyed by sometimes quite polite regulars on the forum who seem fixed in their views than those resorting to verbal rough-and-tumble, which, unlike a row with neighbours, hurts no one, and at least shows a degree of care and concern about Important Matters.

On the subject of life and death and the imagination, here is a beautiful passage from David Graeber's essay "Revolutions in Reverse" which I hereby recommend: "Right and Left political perspectives are founded, above all, on different assumptions about the ultimate realities of power. Te Right is rooted in a political ontology of violence, where being realistic means taking into account the forces of destruction. In reply the Left has consistently proposed variations on a political ontology of the imagination, in which the forces that are seen as the ultimate realities that need to be taken into account are those (forces of production, creativity…) that bring things into being."

[oddoneout]

I think also the point that aeolium made earlier (which I did understand) is relevant. The arts can be treated as 'insignificant' precisely because the 'very many people' currently excludes a still greater number. These last may also be treated with contempt but the arts get lost in the resulting battles.

A number which is increasing at a disgraceful rate as far as I can see as a consequence of the current, apparently deliberate, policy to exclude the arts from state education.
Nicholas Hytner referred to this in his piece about potential post-Brexit problems
“It is that the downgrading of the arts and humanities in our schools has a really chilling effect. Private schools are spending more and more on arts facilities, state schools are spending less.
We won’t have the audience of the future but, more particularly, we won’t have people who know that they might want to train as actors, they might want to train as musicians, they might want to train as technicians. They just don’t know. That is happening now.”
The secondary school my son and daughter attended had an ambitious longstanding programme of arts and foreign exchange activities which, in a rural county, expanded horizons and gave opportunities to pupils who otherwise would have had no access. Pupils who had maybe struggled to find success academically were given the chance to experience and possibly shine at singing,playing an instrument, acting, writing, set design, graphic arts etc, giving them an incentive to stick with schooling. The partnership with several European schools meant that at least once a term there would be foreign students in school or the UK ones would themselves be in schools abroad, all being hosted by pupils' families, and an annual Artsfest rotated between 3 of the schools, involving individual and collaborative projects which were then presented/performed to the host school pupils and parents.
Cuts in education funding, exacerbated by academy formation distractions, have eviscerated 20+ years worth of effort and success, such that considerations of Brexit effects on future funding and activities are, in many respects, irrelevant. EU grants were useful, but it was the funding of the arts within the school that enabled it to establish a framework that could support a 'think big' approach.Such ventures enriched not just the individuals(pupils and staff) but the school and the wider community. My children were so fortunate, but I am saddened to think of all those who will now not have the opportunities they did to develop their potential and widen their horizons. In difficult times access to and involvement in the arts becomes more, not less, important in my view.

[MrGongGong]

A number which is increasing at a disgraceful rate as far as I can see as a consequence of the current, apparently deliberate, policy to exclude the arts from state education.
Nicholas Hytner referred to this in his piece about potential post-Brexit problems
“It is that the downgrading of the arts and humanities in our schools has a really chilling effect. Private schools are spending more and more on arts facilities, state schools are spending less.
We won’t have the audience of the future but, more particularly, we won’t have people who know that they might want to train as actors, they might want to train as musicians, they might want to train as technicians. They just don’t know. That is happening now.”
The secondary school my son and daughter attended had an ambitious longstanding programme of arts and foreign exchange activities which, in a rural county, expanded horizons and gave opportunities to pupils who otherwise would have had no access. Pupils who had maybe struggled to find success academically were given the chance to experience and possibly shine at singing,playing an instrument, acting, writing, set design, graphic arts etc, giving them an incentive to stick with schooling. The partnership with several European schools meant that at least once a term there would be foreign students in school or the UK ones would themselves be in schools abroad, all being hosted by pupils' families, and an annual Artsfest rotated between 3 of the schools, involving individual and collaborative projects which were then presented/performed to the host school pupils and parents.
Cuts in education funding, exacerbated by academy formation distractions, have eviscerated 20+ years worth of effort and success, such that considerations of Brexit effects on future funding and activities are, in many respects, irrelevant. EU grants were useful, but it was the funding of the arts within the school that enabled it to establish a framework that could support a 'think big' approach.Such ventures enriched not just the individuals(pupils and staff) but the school and the wider community. My children were so fortunate, but I am saddened to think of all those who will now not have the opportunities they did to develop their potential and widen their horizons. In difficult times access to and involvement in the arts becomes more, not less, important in my view.

Having spent a large part of the last few years working on a large scale pan EU project with multiple partners I think it is far too simplistic for some folks (and I don't mean you) to simply say "these things happened in the past, they will carry on" when the reality is that they simply won't. What has been interesting with the EU funded project that i've been working on is how schools which were a bit "closed" to the idea of a music project became enthusiastic when they saw how it connected their students with those in Greece, Norway, Germany. Portugal, France and so on (and YES the Norwegians are part of this by paying into it). The reality of the situation for this and other projects is that come March everyone else will carry on and we will stop. We could carry on being part of this and continue to work in schools, with teachers (both specialist music ones and non-specialists) BUT without paying into the EU to be part of it we can't. The EU money is a catalyst for much much more. I'm tired of having to argue this with people who simply have decided that the world is different to how it really is. The collaborating partners on the project I'm working on aren't going to set up a special extra one for the UK when they have a perfectly good and successful programme of work involving concerts, festivals, educational initiatives, publishing etc etc.

[aeolium]

I think also the point that aeolium made earlier (which I did understand) is relevant. The arts can be treated as 'insignificant' precisely because the 'very many people' currently excludes a still greater number. These last may also be treated with contempt but the arts get lost in the resulting battles.

I would contrast the vision of those who rebuilt Europe from the ashes of 1945 with that of the politicians of today. The former sought consciously to create a more equal society in every respect, including access to and subsidy of the arts as well as many other public goods which had in most cases never before (perhaps in human history) been so extensively available to all sections of the population. Indeed, most measurements of levels of equality in Western Europe by the end of the post-war Keynesian period, roughly the mid-1970s, showed what had been achieved since 1945. All of that achievement has been eroded, as far as I can see, and we seem to be heading back, here at least, to a dark age of huge inequalities, with public services starved of funds, widespread job insecurity and low pay, inequality of education, an arts world in which access is educationally restricted by those same inequalities and lack of social mobility. And this is the result of a flawed and morally bankrupt economic philosophy which overthrew the post-war vision, and which despite the widespread evidence of its clear failings still survives in societies of increasing discontent and political volatility.

[Beef Oven!]

Having spent a large part of the last few years working on a large scale pan EU project with multiple partners I think it is far too simplistic for some folks (and I don't mean you) to simply say "these things happened in the past, they will carry on" when the reality is that they simply won't. What has been interesting with the EU funded project that i've been working on is how schools which were a bit "closed" to the idea of a music project became enthusiastic when they saw how it connected their students with those in Greece, Norway, Germany. Portugal, France and so on (and YES the Norwegians are part of this by paying into it). The reality of the situation for this and other projects is that come March everyone else will carry on and we will stop. We could carry on being part of this and continue to work in schools, with teachers (both specialist music ones and non-specialists) BUT without paying into the EU to be part of it we can't. The EU money is a catalyst for much much more. I'm tired of having to argue this with people who simply have decided that the world is different to how it really is. The collaborating partners on the project I'm working on aren't going to set up a special extra one for the UK when they have a perfectly good and successful programme of work involving concerts, festivals, educational initiatives, publishing etc etc.

Can't this type of project be developed on a global basis so that Jamaicans, Israelis, Turks, Indians, Argentinians et al be involved?

[Constantbee]

It is a "problem" because the Hosts get the complaining PMs and e-Mails: the Thread I closed last week had led to eight e-Mails and four PMs that I had to deal with - in a week when I was on my only holiday this year, and only had access to a Tablet rather than my Laptop. I found myself on what should have been a pleasant, relaxing walk up Mam Tor thinking instead about how I could sort out the Threads - and then realized what a mug I was being, and decided to just delete the Thread and get on with my life. It was an enormous relief - and now that I'm back, I feel - no; I have decided - that that should be how I handle Threads generally. As soon as the PMs and e-Mails start clogging up, the Thread gets shut. End of "problem".

Every sympathy. I think of you often. For those with the stamina here's a link to a survey of 992 arts and culture organisations dated 20 February 2018 commissioned by the Arts Council about the likely impact of the EU on the arts and culture sector. The executive summary is as follows:

"ICM conducted a survey of 992 arts and culture organisations to understand the impact of EU exit on their businesses. The survey offers new detail on issues including:

64% of organisations currently work inside the European Union, with ‘touring exhibitions’ and ‘sending UK artists abroad’ being the most popular types of activity.

40% need to regularly move equipment and objects between the UK and the EU.

Nearly half believe it is important to their organisation that both EU and UK citizens can work at short notice in either jurisdiction for short periods.

A third of organisations employ EU nationals, however this rises to over half in art forms such as Dance
The vast majority (89%) of organisations reported that artistic development was the most important reason for working across borders."

Remember, this is ALL we know at present, it's already out of date, and given the likely imperfections in the survey methodology, should be taken with a hefty pinch of salt. However, some interesting points are emerging, eg the differential impact in the Dance sector. Why's that?

The full report can be found here:

https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/publication/impact-brexit-arts-and-culture-sector-2018

[Beef Oven!]

Every sympathy. I think of you often. For those with the stamina here's a link to a survey of 992 arts and culture organisations dated 20 February 2018 commissioned by the Arts Council about the likely impact of the EU on the arts and culture sector. The executive summary is as follows:

"ICM conducted a survey of 992 arts and culture organisations to understand the impact of EU exit on their businesses. The survey offers new detail on issues including:

64% of organisations currently work inside the European Union, with ‘touring exhibitions’ and ‘sending UK artists abroad’ being the most popular types of activity.

40% need to regularly move equipment and objects between the UK and the EU.

Nearly half believe it is important to their organisation that both EU and UK citizens can work at short notice in either jurisdiction for short periods.

A third of organisations employ EU nationals, however this rises to over half in art forms such as Dance
The vast majority (89%) of organisations reported that artistic development was the most important reason for working across borders."

Remember, this is ALL we know at present, it's already out of date, and given the likely imperfections in the survey methodology, should be taken with a hefty pinch of salt. However, some interesting points are emerging, eg the differential impact in the Dance sector. Why's that?

The full report can be found here:

https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/publi...re-sector-2018

Scary reading. Can't these people see beyond the narrow confines of Europe?

I come from a time when we used to think globally.

[Constantbee]

AND my favourite pub in the area was closed all that week for "refurbishments"!

More sympathy for this At least it was only closed for refurbishments. Too many of our locals are closing and/or going into change-of-use