Arts Funding Cuts
Just wrote to our MSPs about the terrible arts funding cut yesterday. Does any body else want to?
Dear Mr Mundell,
I am a community musician and creative living in Torthorwald. I work for Feis Rois, teaching music in primary schools across D&G, and run a children's music group in Dumfries.I write regarding yesterday's announcement of the closure of Creative Scotland's Open Fund for Individuals. This is a hugely damaging outcome.
As a community artist and creative it will severely limit what is possible to provide to the community. It is already very difficult to provide economically sustainable cultural experiences that are affordable for most people. This closure will make most high-quality projects impossible.
Please can you advocate in parliament for the funding that has been withheld from Creative Scotland to be renewed?
Culture is so important. Time and time again school teachers tell me how valuable music tuition is in helping children to learn even the most basic of skills - to listen in class! They tell me that music dramatically changes how the children listen and communicate, helping them to pay attention more, engage in class, listen, and come up with ideas more easily. They also report that arts engagement helps them feel happier and more well, enabling them to do their other work better.
When I teach 7 year olds in primary school, many of them have never seen real musical instruments before. Many of them do not know the Scottish songs that are their inheritance. Engagement with the arts helps people to be well. Damage to the cultural sector damages cultural cohesion and mental health.
There are so many benefits to a healthy cultural sector. Tourists are drawn to the area by Scotland's cultural reputation. Most people listen to music on the radio to help get through their day. Artists and Musicians teach and perform in schools, nursing homes, youth clubs, hospitals etc, contributing vital community engagement and mental health improvement. The Open fund is one of very few means by which artists can develop high-quality and innovative creative work that is attractive to people - this is the high quality work that fuels and inspires the domestic and international engagement with culture.
Almost all of the theatre shows that are popular and profitable at the Edinburgh Fringe have been funded by the Open fund for individuals - to support essential and unprofitable research and development.
Scotland's cultural sector is built upon an interconnected ecosystem of grassroots artists and community groups who all pay each other using Creative Scotland funding. The open fund for individuals is a vital part of sustaining our cultural wealth. Artists are often struggling to make ends meet. Many artists work as individuals but they can't be selfish.They pay their peers when they receive funding. Painters need a gallery. Musicians need a venue. Dancers need a touring manager. Funding makes it possible to make work and sustains the quality of the culture and the health and wealth of the nation.
All of the flagship National arts organisations rely on the grassroots creative community to provide the world-class talent that we all enjoy ( BBC Television, BBC Radio Scotland, Scottish Opera, Scottish Ballet, BBC Symphony Orchestra). Artists spend decades developing their craft, supported by the community, and we all get to enjoy the creme-de-la-creme. This is a vulnerable and important part of our society that we all need and enjoy.
Without funding none of this is possible. Please can I ask that you advocate for a useful solution to funding the Creative Scotland Open Fund for Individuals.
Please may I ask that you work to ensure that the wealth of culture that we have is supported financially. It is deeply important and our society needs your advocacy.
With thanks and Regards
Rory Comerford
On Using
You can only use something if it is dead to you.
If I use a spanner, do I revere it as something that is alive?
I if I use another human being, If I manipulate them, am I truly connecting with their humanity? With their aliveness?
I think, to use something it must be dead to me.
Or rather, I must be dead to it. Part of me must be numb, dead, desensitised.
Audre Lorde wrote:
“use without consent of the used is abuse”
Can the dead consent?
In the mind of western objectivity the answer is probably not.
Maybe everything is alive?
I intuit that everything is alive.
If everything is alive,
and you can only use that which is dead to you,
no consent is possible when we use things,
and
all use is abuse.
...