«Description
Culture is at the heart of what it means to be human.
But twenty-five years ago, the British government rebranded art and culture as
'creative industries', valued for their economic contribution, and set out to
launch the UK as the creative workshop of a globalised world.
Where does that leave art and culture now? Facing
exhausted workers and a lack of funding and vision, culture finds itself in the
grip of accountancy firms, creativity gurus and Ted Talkers. At a time of
sweeping geo-political turmoil, culture has been de-politicised, its radical
energies reduced to factors of industrial production. This book is about what
happens when an essential part of our democratic citizenship, fundamental to
our human rights, is reduced to an industry.
Culture is not an industry argues that art and culture
need to renew their social contract and re-align with the radical agenda for a
more equitable future. Bold and uncompromising, the book offers a powerful
vision for change.
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Mais daqui: «(...)Where does that leave art and culture now? Facing exhausted workers and a lack of funding and vision, culture finds itself in the grip of accountancy firms, creativity gurus and Ted Talkers. At a time of sweeping geo-political turmoil, culture has been de-politicised, its radical energies reduced to factors of industrial production. This book is about what happens when an essential part of our democratic citizenship, fundamental to our human rights, is reduced to an industry. REVIEWS:
‘Imaginative culture – art, stories, decoration, styles – is how we anticipate the future and feel our way into it: our antennae. Treating culture as an industry subject to the crude rules of neoliberalism doesn’t make any more sense than treating healthcare the same way. Justin O’Connor’s brilliant book argues for a holistic, ecological vision of culture in which it is seen as an essential part of the maintenance of a functioning society.’
Brian Eno
‘Culture is not an industry radically remakes the case for culture and cultural policy in the twenty-first century. Rejecting the trend for culture’s depoliticisation and the illusions of the “creative industries”, O’Connor proposes a dynamic new approach where culture is recentred as foundational to citizenship, democracy and a new kind of economy.’
Mark Banks, Professor of Cultural Economy, University of Glasgow
‘A passionate and well-argued “corrective” that seeks to rebalance the cultural scales away from the economic to a larger sense of social purpose. The book’s central argument is that we must reclaim art, give it place and recognition in all and every society that wishes to live well and without fear. I’ll buy that.’
Josephine Burns, Co-Founder of BOP Consulting
REFLECTIONS:
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Excerto:
«(...)Long period of
decay
The invention
of the creative industries, which attached the arts to a bigger phenomenon made
possible by digitisation, appeared to give them a larger role in the national
economy. But since 2010 the arts have experienced a long period of decay, while
even the creative industries have recently ceased to grow. The present Labour
government must find a solution to what O’Connor describes as an “interregnum”,
as neoliberalism decays. Culture has become part of the consumer economy while
the public sphere, to which the arts supply the means of thinking about
society, has been shattered. Postmodernism has dissolved any idea of cultural
authority. Value is only expressed through the cash nexus. Art has no critical
edge.
New Labour’s
utopian invention of the creative industries, O’Connor argues, transformed our
language, but “creativity” has no clear meaning. It is there in science as much
as the arts. The cultural economy has been taken over by corporations and
“platform capitalists”, and the arts are as badly off as they were in the
1980s. The claim that culture was an industry was unsupported by a
corresponding industrial strategy, while the “New Public Management” (a term
describing a process developed during the 1980s of making culture more
“businesslike”) privatised the public service the arts supplied. The new
definition of the arts appeared more democratic—but it was the pseudo-democracy
of the market.
Since the
Covid-19 pandemic, O’Connor continues, the claims that the arts would benefit
if seen as a creative industry have proved false. We have a new precariat of
middle-class start-ups; individual artists are worse off. Creative autonomy has
declined, and the sense of a common public culture has disappeared. That needs
to be rediscovered as a social necessity and the site of freedom, giving real
control over our lives. Culture must be promoted not as a personal
gratification for those in the know, but as a fundamental part of citizenship
and a human right.
But how to
achieve this? O’Connor draws on the ideas of the Foundational Economy
Collective, a loose group of international researchers, who argue that as much
as 70% of a national economy is local, as opposed to the international economy
that obsesses capitalism and national governments. Culture must reassert its
role alongside health and education as a means to liveability, not GDP. This is
a radical transition, but once culture is seen as essential to life, not just
as a pleasurable personal compensation for its pains, it is possible.
O’Connor
outlines how this can be delivered, beginning with the household and leading to
a reconstruction of the public sphere and recognition of the public value of
culture. But that value must be re-formed as a democratisation and localisation
that rediscovers its social, not its economic, roots. Market failure will no
longer be the only justification for subsidy. This does not mean a greater
economic role for government—where in any case UK cultural spend is 0.5% of its
total—but a rethink that builds from the local, and includes the commercial.
We have a new
Labour government, but the signs are not good. The prime minister, Keir
Starmer, may speak of the pleasure of learning the flute, but institutional
arrangements militate against change. The secretary of state for culture, Lisa
Nandy, has no experience in the field. The arts have been given to Chris Bryant
as part of the creative industries. The neoliberal thinking remains. Yet the
new government has faltered with its emphasis on the glum times ahead. Surely a
rethink of the field of the arts would show the government on the front foot.
The arts are struggling, the broader culture, of which they are a part, is in
the hands of international corporations. We need a new ode to joy».
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Constatação: ninguém no nosso País está a olhar para a «Cultura» à luz do que decorre do acima exposto. O autor vem da Academia, e pegamos nisso para chamar a atenção da nossa, e em particular das Escolas de Economia e Gestão. Sim, a Sociologia é fundamental mas não substitui aquelas. Por outro lado, «novos normais» são reclamados pelo paradigma DESENVOLVIMENTO SUSTENTÁVEL. Necessariamente, as ADMINISTRAÇÕES têm um papel que ninguém pode desempenhar em seu lugar. Não o poderão fazer enquanto não tivermos um MINISTÉRIO DA CULTURA digno desse nome. Vivendo nós uma democracia assente em PARTIDOS facilmente se concordará que hoje as suas narrativas em torno da Cultura e das Artes - o que não aconteceu, foi acontecendo - estão longe do que organiza a obra de Justin O´Connor. Com o devido respeito, é tudo muito panfletário. Instrumento a que também se poderá recorrer para espalhar os assuntos, mas que só produzirão efeito saudável se por detrás houver trabalho sólido. A nosso ver, e ilustrando, basta olhar para o que acontece nas idas dos Governantes da Cultura ao Parlamento para se concluir que é o casuistico que domina. É evidente que os assuntos isolados, concretos, que afectam as populações e em especial os agentes culturais têm de ter atenção, mas se não formos à essência, numa visão de desenvolvimento cultural, estaremos longe do necessário. E, contudo, há uma riqueza imensa na atividade cultural e artística que os nossos criadores e demais profissionais do setor, cada um ao seu jeito, nos proporcionam através de uma OFERTA diversificada. Assim, justifica-se que se reclame junto das diferentes FORÇAS INSTITUCIONAIS que cumpram a sua parte ...
Mas é bom termos pontos de partida para fazer o que não está a ser feito. Alem do livro, mais este video:
Então, sem preconceitos, discutamos!
É verdade, eventualmente,
já nem saberemos
como fazê-lo.
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Entretanto, quando íamos publicar este post caiu-nos no computador isto:
Donde:«(...)"Esta minha decisão faz parte da estratégia que estamos a preparar há mais de um ano para o futuro próximo", garante Luís Montez, reagindo às notícias publicadas há dias sobre o fim da ligação entre a sua promotora e o festival que há anos movia meio Portugal e muitos estrangeiros para o Meco. "Foi há quase 30 anos que lancei à Super Bock o desafio de patrocinarem um festival de música — uma iniciativa cultural completamente nova e, por isso, nessa altura com alguma dose de risco para a minha empresa" —, recorda, apontando que agora essa ligação chega ao fim. (...)».
De facto, a nosso ver, ajudará no debate a fazer, nomeadamente para «separar águas» e compreendermos o SETOR CULTURA onde caberá a «INDÚSTRIA» e o «SERVIÇO PÚBLICO». Como se verifica para o «inventor» o Super Bock/Super Rock é «uma iniciativa cultural».
