ARTS FACILITATION AND CREATIVE COMMUNITY CULTURE:
A STUDY OF QUEENSLAND ARTS COUNCIL
by
Michael John Richards ADVA, MA.
Submitted to the Faculty of Creative Industries at Queensland University of Technology, in support of an application for admission to the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, January 2005.
1
LIST OF KEYWORDS
Civil Society
Community Arts
Community Cultural Development
Community Revitalisation
Community Engagement
Creative Class
Creative Industries
Cultural Industries
Cultural Policy
Excellence
Elite(s)
Knowledge Class
Meritocracy
Regional Arts
2 ABSTRACT
This thesis adopts a Cultural Industries framework to examine how Queensland’s arts council network has, through the provision of arts products and services, contributed to the vitality, health and sustainability of Queensland’s regional communities. It charts the history of the network, its configuration and impact since 1961, with particular focus on the years 2001 - 2004, envisages future trends, and provides an analysis of key issues which may be used to guide future policies and programs.
Analysis is guided by a Cultural Industries understanding of the arts embedded in everyday life, and views the arts as a range of activities which, by virtue of their aesthetic and symbolic dimensions, enhance human existence through their impact on both the quality and style of human life. Benefits include enhanced leisure and entertainment options, and educational, social, health, personal growth, and economic outcomes, and other indirect benefits which enrich environment and lifestyle.
Queensland Arts Council (QAC) and its network of branches has been a dominant factor in the evolution of Queensland’s cultural environment since the middle of the 20th century. Across the state, branches became the public face of the arts, drove cultural agendas, initiated and managed activities, advised governments, wrote cultural policies, lobbied, raised funds and laboured to realise cultural facilities and infrastructure.
In the early years of the 21st century, QAC operates within a complex, competitive and rapidly changing environment in which orthodox views of development, oriented in terms of a left / right, or bottom up / top down dichotomy, are breaking down, and new convergent models emerge. These new models recognise synergies between artistic, social, economic and political agendas, and unite and energise them in the realm of civil society. QAC is responding by refocusing policies and programs to embrace these new models and by developing new modes of community engagement and arts facilitation.
3 In 1999, a major restructure of the arts council network saw suffragan branches become autonomous Local Arts Councils (LACs), analogous to local Cultural Industry support organisations. The resulting network of affiliated LACs provides a potentially highly effective mechanism for the delivery of arts related products and services, the decentralisation of cultural production, and the nurturing across the state of Creative Community Cultures which equip communities, more than any other single asset, to survive and prosper through an era of unsettling and relentless change.
Historical, demographic, behavioural (participation), and attitudinal data are combined to provide a picture of arts councils in seven case study sites, and across the network. Typical arts council members are characterised as omnivorous cultural consumers and members of a knowledge class, and the leadership of dedicated community minded people is identified as the single most critical factor determining the extent of an LAC’s activities and its impact on community.
Analysis of key issues leads to formulation of eight observations, discussed with reference to QAC and LACs, which might guide navigation in the regional arts field. These observations are then reformulated as Eight Principles Of Effective Regional Arts Facilitation, which provide a framework against which we might evaluate arts policy and practice.
4 ARTS FACILITATION AND CREATIVE COMMUNITY CULTURE A STUDY OF QUEENSLAND ARTS COUNCIL
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preliminaries List of Keywords 2 Abstract 3 Table of Contents 5 Statement of Authorship 8 Acknowledgements 9 List of acronyms, abbreviations and specialised terms 10
1. Introduction 12 1.1. Introduction to QAC and the project. 12 1.2. The Research Questions. 13 1.3. Methodology 15 1.3.1. Research Paradigms 16 1.3.2. Data Collection 20 1.3.2.1. Qualitative Methods 20 1.3.2.2. Quantitative Methods 23 1.3.3. The Case Studies 24 1.3.4. Inside and Outside the Whale 25 1.4. Map of the Thesis and Key Findings 29
2. Key Concepts and Definitions 32 2.1. The City and The Bush 32 2.2. Art and Culture 35 2.3. Cultural and Creative Industries 39 2.4. Community and Identity 44 2.5. Configurations of Power 47 2.5.1. Hierarchies, Networks and Systems 47 2.5.2. Elites, Excellence and The Arts 52 2.5.3. Embracing Excellence 59
3. The Arts in Regional Queensland 62 3.1. The Origins and Birth of the Arts Council Movement. 62 3.2. The Role of Government and the Question of Subsidy 67 3.3. Models of Arts Facilitation – The Orthodoxies 72 3.4. Convergence Models 80
4. Fluctuating Fortunes 84 4.1. The Measures 85 4.2. Network Growth and Decline 87 4.3. Before Arts Council 90 4.4. Arts Council Delivers 94 4.5. The Evolving Cultural Environment 101 4.6. Not Just a Bus Company 109 4.7. Competing Paradigms 112 4.8. Dancing on the Roller Coaster 120
5 5. Brave New World 124 5.1. Crisis and Restructure 124 5.2. Taking Stock 128 5.3. The New Agendas 133 5.3.1. Arts Access Statewide 133 5.3.2. QAC as an Arts Touring Company 135 5.3.3. QAC as an LAC Support Organisation 140 5.3.4. Policy and Program Innovation at QAC 144 5.4. The New Critical Role of LACs 146
6. Case Study Profiles 151 6.1. Gympie – Cooloola Community Arts Council Inc. (CCAC) 151 6.2. Maryborough – Maryborough Regional Arts Council Inc.(MRAC) 156 6.3. Hervey Bay – Hervey Bay Council for the Arts Inc. (HBCFA) 161 6.4. Biloela – Biloela Arts Council Inc. (BAC) 166 6.5. Moranbah – Moranbah Arts Council Inc. (MAC) 171 6.6. Tablelands – The Arts Council Tablelands Inc.(TACTIC) 177 6.7. Tambo – Tambo Arts Council Inc. (TAC) 183
7. Case Study Demographics 188 7.1. Comparing the Case Studies 188 7.2. Catchment Demographics – Lifestyle & Labour Sites 191 7.3. Community Population and Membership 199 7.4. Attendance and Membership 201 7.5. The ‘Typical’ Arts Constituency 209 7.6. The Cultural Omnivores 215 7.7. The Fragmented Community 218
8. The LAC and The Community 222 8.1. Four Attitudinal/Policy Vectors 222 8.2. The Attitudinal/Policy Vectors in Action 226 8.3. LACs – The Strong, The Weak and The Willing 234 8.4. The Volunteers 243 8.5. Local Cultural Leadership 248 8.6. Melding the Fragments 254 8.7. The Relationship with QAC 259
9. Summary and Conclusions 263 9.1. Introduction 263 9.2. Cultural Networks and Creative Community Culture 264 9.3. Transitional Findings 269 9.4. Facilitating Regional Arts – Eight Observations 274 9.4.1. Ob #1: (Local Autonomy) 277 9.4.2. Ob #2: (Ubiquity of Benefits) 283 9.4.3. Ob #3: (Plurality of Practice) 286 9.4.4. Ob #4: (Diversity of Stakeholders) 288 9.4.5. Ob #5: (Specificity of Benefits) 291 9.4.6. Ob #6: (Integration into Community) 294 9.4.7. Ob #7: (Contribution of Elites) 297 9.4.8. Ob #8: (Planning and Investment Timeframes) 299
6 9.5. A Framework for the Future 302
Appendix A: Table of Branch/LAC Formation & Recession, 1961-2004 306 Appendix B: Statement by Sir Robert Garran - the ideals of CEMA 311 Appendix C: QAC Strategic Plan, 2004-2006 314 Appendix D: Seven Principles of Community Cultural Development compiled by Don Adams and Arlene Goldbard 317 Appendix E: Sample Extracts from Research Journal 318 Appendix F: Sample Discussion – E-Mail Exchange 323
BIBLIOGRAPHY 328
A General Note on Data Sources 355
LIST OF TABLES
7.1 Case Studies – Characteristics of Lifestyle and Labour Sites 193 7.2 Case Study Sites – Host Town & Catchment Populations 194 7.3 Case Study Sites – Distribution of Gender within Communities 196 7.4 Case Studies – Catchment Population and LAC Membership, 2003 200 7.5 Attendance and Membership Trends, 1991-2000 203 7.6 Educational Qualifications in Community and LAC Membership 214 8.1 Four Attitudinal/Policy Vectors 223
LIST OF GRAPHS
4.1 QAC: Trends in Number of Branches, Participation and Total Activities, 1965-2003 88 7.1 Case Study Sites – Average Attendance at QAC Touring Events, 1991-2000 205 7.2 Case Study LACs – Average Number of Members, 1991-2000 206 7.3 Gympie – LAC Membership and Av. Attendance at QAC Touring Events, 1991-2000 207 7.4 Moranbah – LAC Membership and Av. Attendance at QAC Touring Events, 1991-2000 208
7
STATEMENT OF ORIGINAL AUTHORSHIP
This work contained in this dissertation has not been previously submitted for any graduate or post-graduate qualification. To the best of my knowledge it contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference is made.
Signed: …………………………… Michael John Richards
Date: ……………………………
8 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This thesis results from a research partnership between Queensland University of Technology and Queensland Arts Council (QAC), funded by an Australian Research Council Strategic Partnerships with Industry – Research and Training grant that provided the writer with an Australian Postgraduate Award Industry scholarship.
Thanks are due to many people, so many that – faced with the dilemma of appropriately acknowledging every contribution over more than three years, and wary of inadvertently offending some by omission – I do not name those to whom I owe thanks, other than those few whose contributions have been so crucial that the project could not have been completed without them.
Foremost is Professor Rodney Wissler who gave me the opportunity to undertake the study. Rod’s knowledge of the field is deep and textured, and his grasp of pertinent issues frequently surpassed my own. He has an exceptional ability to maintain focus and follow tenuous threads of argument over extended intervals. Always fair and reasonable, he encouraged me to moderate my more tendentious assertions, and neutralised my inclination to write for dramatic impact at the expense of clear argument. Also at QUT, Doctor Christina Spurgeon has been constantly encouraging, offering pertinent insights, and suggesting immensely valuable thematic connections. When I was so immersed in a quagmire of data that I could not see my own feet, Chris unerringly nudged me towards solid ground. Her advice has been particularly valuable in helping me understand the policy implications of my work.
QAC provided office facilities, logistical support, and access to management and staff, and most importantly to members across the regional network. As a corporate organism – comprising directors, management and staff – QAC showed considerable courage and candidness in offering to my scrutiny. Particular thanks are due to CEO Arthur Frame who constantly and generously supported the project with grace and good humour, even when he must at times have been inwardly dismayed by my more idealistic and radical propositions. Arthur brought a valuable pragmatism to the project, helping me to understand the magnitude and complexity of issues with which he deals in steering a cultural organisation with a multi-million dollar budget through turbulent tides.
QAC staff welcomed me warmly into their workplace and were invariably friendly, helpful and patient, indulging my persistent and at times highly inconvenient requests for information and advice. I was deeply impressed by their professionalism and dedication, as I was by the professionalism, dedication and extraordinary skills of the many contracted arts-workers and artists whose work I was privileged to enjoy, and who, although not highly visible in this thesis, constitute the lifeblood of the arts council network, express most essentially what it is to be human, and who so immeasurably enrich our lives, and ultimately sustain us all.
Most importantly I thank the hundreds of arts council members and others living in regional Queensland who contributed by sharing their thoughts and their lives with me. I most particularly appreciate the generosity and warmth shown by those who gave me shelter and bed, fed me, entertained me and otherwise provided the hospitality for which those who live in regional Queensland are so well known.
9 ACRONYMS, ABBREVIATIONS & SPECIALISED TERMS
The Seven Case Studies
BAC: Biloela Arts Council, Biloela. CCAC: Cooloola Community Arts Council, Gympie. HBCFA: Hervey Bay Council for the Arts, Hervey Bay. MAC: Moranbah Arts Council, Moranbah. MRAC: Maryborough Regional Arts Council, Maryborough. TACTIC: The Arts Council Tablelands Inc, Atherton. TAMBO: Tambo Arts Council, Tambo.
Other Acronyms
ACA: Australian Council for the Arts, which later became the Australia Council – a statutory organisation responsible to federal government, and not to be confused with the Arts Council of Australia, which was for a time the parent body of Australia’s various state arts councils. ACROC: Arts and Culture Regional Association of Councils. ABC: Australian Broadcasting Corporation. APAI: Australian Postgraduate Award (Industry). ARC: Australian Research Council. Artlink: A scheme operated by QAC after 1993 which offered branches a menu of performances, workshops and other activities from which they could choose. Superseded by Ontour byrequest. ARTS: Arts Regional Touring Service – established 1994 – funded by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland, and managed by QAC, to tour the state’s major performing arts companies into Queensland’s regions. ARTS/TRANSIT: An extension of the ARTS program which focuses on Queensland’s regionally based performing arts companies – commenced in 1997. BLiPS: Branch Live Performance Scheme, operated by QAC from 1980-1982. BDO: Branch Development Officer (QAC staff position, 1989-1999). CA: Community Arts. The community arts movement evolved into a broader concern for community cultural development (CCD), and I sometimes conflate the two as CA/CCD. CAB: Community Arts Board of the Australia Council. CCB: Community Capacity Building. CCD: Community Cultural Development. CCC: Creative Community Culture. CCDB: The Community Cultural Development Board of the Australia Council. CEMA: Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts, founded Sydney, 1943. CEMA became FACA in 1947. CI: Cultural Industries – also used for Creative Industries. Country CAPS: Country Community Arts Projects Scheme, funded by the Australia Council for the Arts, and inaugurated in 1981. CSO: Civil Society Organisation.
10 DCITA: The Federal Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts. EDO: Ethnic Dance Officer (QAC staff position, 1989-91) FACA: Federal Arts Council of Australia. CEMA evolved into FACA in 1947. The various state branches of CEMA then became state divisions of FACA. FACA was later disbanded and has been superseded by Regional Arts Australia. LAC: Local Arts Council. LIG: Local Initiative Grants – a scheme through which QAC distributed federal funds 1987-1992. MAR: Member / attendance ratio, used in reference to participation at arts council events in regional centres. MDECA: Maryborough and District Entertainment and Cultural Association. MWB&B: Maryborough Wide Bay and Burnett (region). NARPACA: Northern Australian Regional Performing Arts Centres Association. NGO: Non-government organisation. OCA: Open College of the Arts. It offered education in the arts, following a British model, largely by correspondence, to those unable to attend conventional institutions, and was operated by QAC for several years from 1994. OTBR: Ontour by request, one of QAC’s three major programs streams. It offers a menu of events from which LACs can choose. OTIS: Ontour inschools, QAC’s main touring program for schools. OTOS: Ontour onstage, QAC’s main touring program for community audiences. QCAN: Queensland Community Arts Network. QAC: Queensland Arts Council. QCWA: Queensland Country Women’s Association. QUT: Queensland University of Technology. PCAP: Priority Country Area Program. RADF: Regional Arts Development Fund. A scheme implemented by the Queensland State Government in 1991 to fund arts activity in regional Queensland in partnership with local government. RAA: Regional Arts Australia. RAF: Regional Arts Fund, funded by DCITA. RSL: Returned Services League. SPIRT: Strategic Partnerships with Industry – Research and Training Scheme, funded by the ARC. UNESCO: United Nations Environmental, Scientific and Cultural Organisation. V1,V2,V3,V4: Four attitudinal vectors that shape arts policy and practice. (See chapter 8.1) WCCD World Commission on Culture and Development WCED World Commission on Environment and Development
11 Arts Facilitation and Creative Community Culture: A Study of Queensland Arts Council
1.1 Introduction to QAC and the Project
Australia’s arts councils evolved out of a volunteer organisation called The Council for Encouragement of Music and the Arts (CEMA) founded by Dorothy Helmrich in Sydney in 1943. Helmrich and her supporters were driven by a missionary conviction that the arts were essential to civilised life. CEMA aimed to foster appreciation of and participation in the arts, and focused mainly on touring artistic productions and exhibitions into the country, and into schools. A Queensland branch of CEMA was formed in 1946. In the following year CEMA became The Federal Arts Council of Australia, and the Queensland branch of CEMA became the Queensland Division of the Arts Council.
The Queensland Division became increasingly independent. It adopted Queensland Arts Council (QAC) as its trading name, and registered as a company in1964. By 1970 QAC was regularly touring drama, dance and music performances for adults to around 50 Queensland country towns, and performances for children to schools in more than 150 towns. QAC also encouraged locally initiated and managed activities in the 43 towns where branches had been established.
During the early 1990s QAC managed the largest arts touring program in Australia, presenting around 7,000 individual performances a year to an audience of over 1,000,000. The organisation’s total annual budget was over $3 million, and by the end of the decade it had exceeded $4 million. But between 1993 and 1999 seven successive years of losses totaling more than $600,000 precipitated a financial crisis. At the same time QAC came under attack from other organisations and individuals in the regional arts sector, and was criticised as a colonial remnant, overly centralised and top-heavy with metropolitan administrative staff.
A major organisational review in 1997 led into an extended period of restructuring and reform. Peter Dent, who had been at the helm for 26 years, managed the initial reforms. After Dent moved to another position interstate, reform was accelerated and
12 intensified by new CEO Arthur Frame, who closed several departments, pruned activities to focus on core business, and worked to build a new corporate image. One key reform – initiated under Dent’s stewardship and completed under Frame’s – was a refurbishing of the branch network which saw each branch became an autonomous Local Arts Council (LAC) incorporated under Queensland law.
Changes within the LAC/QAC network are ongoing. At the same time, the external environment evolves rapidly as broad scale industrial and demographic changes, largely driven by global forces, transform regional communities. Technological change impacts on every aspect of individual and community life. Ideologies, policies and strategies pertinent to the arts evolve constantly. This complex fabric of multi-dimensional change at the beginning of the twenty-first century provided the catalyst for the research project informing this thesis.
1.2 The Research Questions
This project aimed to advance understanding of artistic planning and implementation in regional locations and to provide “a model of efficient entrepreneurial arts product delivery”. It also aimed to contribute to the evolution of strategies and methodologies for research into the creative arts – a relatively new area of research – and provide a best-practice model of team-based research in a field where collaboration is essential to development and production. (Wissler, 2000)
The project identified three domains for investigation: QAC’s management processes, QAC’s working relationships with regional branches1 and schools, and the reception of QAC tours by regional audiences. It was envisaged that findings would have immediate application for QAC, informing planning and implementation, the refining of existing programs, and the development of new programs, as well as having relevance for other arts touring companies in Australia and possibly overseas, and more generally for the creative arts sector and the broader field of regional development.
1 Branches had become incorporated as Local Arts Councils (LACs) by the time this project commenced. I generally use LACs as an inclusive term to embrace the full historical trajectory of branches which became LACs, and use branches when referring specifically to the time before incorporation (that is: before 2000).
13
As the project progressed, the research was more precisely focused on the question: How can Queensland Arts Council and the Local Arts Council network most effectively facilitate arts activities in regional communities, and what contribution can they thereby make to the quality of individual and community life?
This formulation foregrounded Queensland Arts Council at the core of the study, but in a way that did not obscure the core stakeholders in QAC, those whom the organisation is dedicated to serve – regional arts council members – whose interests do not necessarily coincide, at all times and in all respects, with those of the organisational body of QAC.
Earlier statements of research objectives, which had foregrounded QAC, may have been understood to imply active central governance and passive regions, and to attribute historical or germinal priority to QAC, as though it had sown the seeds of the arts around the state, and that where these had fallen on fertile ground, LACs had grown. Such a formulation would, in all likelihood, have tended to obscure issues and outcomes germane to answering the research question.
Thus, as the project evolved I adopted more neutral terms such as Queensland’s arts councils, the Queensland arts council network, or the Queensland arts council movement. These allow that the arts council movement in Queensland was not necessarily driven exclusively by the outward missionary thrust of metropolitan champions penetrating into disinterested and passive regions, but was to some extent driven by the hunger of people in the regions, and by their self-generated attempts to satisfy that hunger by reaching out to access QAC services.
I have thus striven to ensure that my acquired metro-centrism2 did not unduly direct the course of my investigations or my interpretation of results. An essential aspect of this was recognition that the arts council movement in Queensland comprises a diverse range of stakeholders – later described as a disparate and tenuous mutuality
2 I grew up in North Queensland and subsequently lived for extended periods in several regional towns, but have now been resident in Brisbane for some 20 years.
14 – representing a range of specific individual and group interests. Preeminent amongst these stakeholder groups are regional members.
Other internal stakeholder groups and individuals, which partially overlap and merge, include LAC office bearers, regional directors, metropolitan directors, CEO Arthur Frame, QAC program managers and professional staff, and artists and other touring and casual staff contracted to QAC. There are also many external individual and group stakeholders, including cultural producers, governments, and arts workers and artists. None of the stakeholder groups is homogenous, and individuals within these groups have divergent interests.
I began, knowing little about QAC. The sub-questions that drove my inquiry can be phrased very simply: What sort of organisation is QAC? What are its structures, policies and procedures? What is its purpose? How well is it fulfilling that purpose? How can things be done better? How can QAC best meet the challenges brought by the current climate of change?
I later came to focus the inquiry so as to foreground the interests of regional constituents with the very basic question: What benefits can the arts deliver for people living in regional Queensland?
Queensland’s arts council network is both a devolved product of and an active agent in the cultural social and political history of Queensland. Attitudes and perceptions within the network have evolved and become entrenched over many years, so that to some extent they may not today be justified by any extant circumstances, but merely perpetuated because that is the way it has ‘always’ been. One of my objectives has been to unravel these attitudes and the extent to which they shape attitudes, limit options and pre-empt decisions and actions.
1.3 Methodology
This project was conceived as descriptive research, and accordingly began without a clear hypothesis. There was an initial period of familiarisation during which I built a mental map of the regional arts field and QAC’s place within it. The project’s focus
15 changed to reflect growing awareness of complex interlinked and overlapping issues, and research questions evolved accordingly. Research thus progressed through a cycle in which early data and analysis guided refinement of the research questions, shaped subsequent research and guided further data collection.
The study was both cross-sectional and longitudinal – cross-sectional in so far as it located seven detailed case studies within analysis of the arts council network across the state – longitudinal in so far as it incorporated a historical review of QAC and the evolution of its structures, policies and programs, and also in so far as the three year term allowed the planning and implementation of ongoing structural and strategic changes to be studied and their results to be evaluated over time.
Interim findings – raw data, analysis and interpretation – were intermittently reviewed and discussed with QAC management and staff. To the extent that this contributed to QAC’s routine cycle of policy, process and program development, evaluation and review – which in turn informed and shaped ongoing research – the project embraced elements of action research.
1.3.1 Research Paradigms
Lincoln and Guba (2000: 175) note a growing shift towards new paradigms which reject the positivist insistence on an absolute distinction between research and social action. Moreover, genres of inquiry are rapidly blurring and these new research paradigms cannot themselves be seen as absolute or entirely discrete. (ibid: 164) Thus: “The researcher-as-bricoleur-theorist works between and within competing and overlapping perspectives and paradigms.” (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000: 6) In an era when “we stand at the threshold of a history marked by multivocality, contested meanings, paradigmatic controversies, and new textual forms” (Lincoln & Guba, 2000:185), it behoves the researcher not to erect a fortress of dogmatism, but to advance in a spirit of intellectual humility.
Overall paradigms framing both research project and thesis have been essentially phenomenological, constructivist and inductive: phenomenological (and naturalistic), in that they study and seek to make sense of phenomena ‘naturally’ occurring in the
16 world of human activities and affairs; constructivist in that they do not interpret these phenomena within any grand plan which defines their significance, but seek to allow significance to emerge out of an understanding of these phenomena in the broader context of human affairs; and inductive in that they do this, not by applying any theory to be proved or disproved, but by apprehending phenomena in a spirit of critical curiosity which seeks significant configurations within the data and generates theories according to them. Potter describes the process very simply:
With grounded theory, researchers do not begin with a theory and deduce hypotheses to be tested. Instead, researchers begin with an area of study, then make observations within that area. After observations are made, the researcher looks for patterns and explanations to emerge. (Potter, 1996: 152)
It is of course impossible to begin with a completely open mind. Every researcher brings a bundle of values, attitudes, behaviors and sensitivities, through which they negotiate their relationships with the world. At best we can seek to be cognisant of these – or at least of the possibility of them, as we are unlikely to be consciously aware of many of them – and be on guard against the most likely distortions, and against those most likely to be severe, as we tread the meandering pathways of substantive or grounded theory.
In selecting a field of human activity as worthy of study, and in seeking to define that field and establish parameters for the study, a researcher is inevitably making, albeit tentatively, initial judgments about the field, what is likely to be encountered within it, and what research outcomes may be. As research begins, these early presumptions need to be acknowledged and interrogated.
Assumptions implicit in the founding of this project were that the arts are important, that they are important to the people of regional Queensland in particular, and that Queensland’s arts council network offers a series of gateways into the field of regional arts and is a phenomenon worthy of study in its own right. As to the relative merits of various models of arts facilitation, and the effectiveness of the arts council network in relation to alternatives, I had no particular views, and views that I
17 developed during the course of research remained in flux until they assumed concrete form during the writing of this thesis.
The constructivist approach has been variously described. May (1997: 147-149) follows Howard Becker in describing a four step process. I prefer to identify five stages: definition of the issues, problems, research questions and indices; data collection (May does not distinguish this as a separate step); trawling of the data to identify frequencies and configurations or patterns; construction of explanations, models or theories; and confirmation of relevance through establishing links to the broader world. These stages are not entirely discrete and sequential, but interrelate through feedback loops.
QAC operates in a field occupied by many competing organisations and individuals, driven by a range of ideological, political, social and financial imperatives, and competing for audience, attention and patronage. As the largest player in the field and the recipient of substantial government funding, QAC has been criticized, and its legitimacy challenged, by those who wish to see resources directed elsewhere. Oppositional arguments have been important to this study which has sought to identify and understand the many extant points of view, and the mutualities and the tensions generated between them.
In such a diverse field, it is appropriate to embrace contemporary notions of ethnography which eschew the notion of definitive or unitary truth, and acknowledge the inevitable partiality and incompleteness of any cultural analysis (Frow & Morris, 2000: 326, 327), and insist on a multi-perspectival approach and redundancy of data gathering to provide a textured understanding. (Stake, 2000: 443, 444). Thus the traditional notion of validation through triangulation is less useful than the concept of a multi-faceted crystal, in which what we see depends on our angle of approach, and one interpretation may be as valid as another. (Richardson quoted in Lincoln & Guba, 2000: 181)
However, if we intend our findings to have some practical application in the world of human affairs, it would be self-defeating to accept this openness as a license for unfettered relativity. I have been guided by the notion of the constructivist or
18 interpretive bricoleur (Denzin and Lincoln, 2000: 4) who makes meaning out of a diverse range of data and strives to meet the five authenticity criteria advocated by Lincoln and Guba (2000: 180) – fairness, ontological authenticity, educative authenticity, catalytic authenticity and tactical authenticity. I have sought to satisfy these five criteria by careful and continual monitoring of process. Monitoring has been achieved through observance of rigorous ethical protocols, transparency and documentation of process, and continual review of process through personal reflection and through discussion with supervisors, QAC management and professional staff.
I have been mindful throughout of the essential question Lincoln and Guba pose (2000: 180): “How do we know when we have specific social inquiries that are faithful enough to some human construction that we may feel safe in acting on them, or, more important, that members of the community in which the research is conducted may act on them?”
In recognition of the highly political nature of the sector I have taken what might be considered a cultural studies approach, guided by six principles laid down by Grossberg, who says of such an approach: (1) it makes a disciplined search for intellectual authority in the face of relativism; (2) it is interdisciplinary and reaches beyond culture for relational validity; (3) it is self-reflective in terms of institutional and relational structures; (4) it is driven by political rather than theoretical concerns; (5) it acknowledges the necessity of theory but does not confine itself to theoretical terms; and (6) it is radically contextual. (Grossberg, 1997: 7)
In relation to these six principles, this project has aimed to: (1) exami ne conflicting value frameworks and unravel the diverse interests of stakeholders to identify unambiguous common interests; (2) embrace a range of disciplines, and relate cultural outcomes to other fields such as health and community sustainability; (3) remain constantly aware of its own structures, relationships and processes, reflect upon them and expose them to stakeholder review; (4) consider real life social and political contexts, configurations and impacts; (5) examine the dynamic relationship between theory and praxis; and (6) remain firmly grounded in the life of regional
19 Queensland communities, but to consider these in broader national and international contexts.
1.3.2 Data Collection
Essential to the inductive research cycle is a broad body of data, both diverse and redundant, which can be compressed and intensified into a rich matrix of possibilities. This matrix both enables and limits the nature and extent of findings. Thus we require a huge mass of data which is unwieldy and difficult to organise or apprehend in its totality, much of which will ultimately be found irrelevant and extraneous. Only with such an excessive body of data can we be sure to generate every relevant possibility. In order to have enough data, we will almost certainly gather far too much. That has been the case here.
Qualitative methods used include participant observation, historical and archival study, interviewing, and the use of open-ended questions attached to quantitative surveys. Quantitative methods have been applied to the analysis of demographic data relating to regional populations and arts participation, and to the demographic and attitudinal characteristics of arts council members. Qualitative and quantitative data were treated as complementary, and were reviewed and analysed together. Quantitative data was used to verify findings extracted from qualitative data, and to confirm representative frequency; qualitative data was used both to direct quantitative investigation, and to color and add texture to findings that emerged from quantitative analysis; and both were used to generate findings in their own right.
1.3.2.1 Qualitative Methods
Induction and participant observation are highly compatible processes, as the latter is a highly flexible mode of inquiry which makes “no firm assumptions about what is important” but “encourages researchers to immerse themselves in the day-to-day activities of the people whom they are attempting to understand.’ (May, 1998: 133)
20 The methodology of participant observation involves a flexible, open- ended, opportunistic process and logic of inquiry through which what is studied constantly is subject to redefinition based on field experience and observation. (Jorgensen, 1989: 23)
By providing “access to the world of everyday life from the standpoint of a member or insider”, participant observation provides insight into the subjective realities of human existence, and encourages the researcher to understand those realities according to the values and norms of research ‘subjects’. The researcher needs to achieve the intimacy that facilitates this understanding without entirely losing objective criticality or “going native.” (Jorgensen, 1989: 21, 62)
Jorgensen (ibid: 21) describes various modes and degrees of involvement, and notes: “It is highly desirable for the participant observer to perform multiple roles during the course of a project, and gain at least a comfortable degree of rapport, even intimacy, with the people, situations, and settings of research.” Jorgensen also notes that the participant observer should use multiple procedures and forms of evidence, and that the greater the involvement the more reliable the findings.
May (1998: 140) differentiates three degrees of involvement for the participant observer, complete participant, participant as observer, and observer as participant. May’s participant as observer mode, whereby the researcher “attempts to form a series of relationships with the subjects such that they serve as both respondents and informants” describes the nature of my involvement at QAC. I discuss this further in Chapter 1.3.4.
Interviews can be characterised along a quantitative-qualitative dimension according to the degree of structure applied, with increased structure implying repeatability and a degree of quantitative validity, while less structured interviews are essentially qualitative. (May, 1998: 110) Interviews conducted for this project were generally unstructured. Each began with the researcher explaining the history, context and purposes of the research candidly and at some length, and inviting interviewees to interrogate the researcher further, so as to provide a sense of empowerment and establish partnership and trust. Any sense of equality thus generated is fictional
21 (Lindolf, 1995: 177) but it can nevertheless be conducive to candour in interviews, and thus highly productive. It is proper ethical conduct according to established protocols which ensures that the trust of participants is not abused.
Interviews began in conversational mode, with the researcher asking open-ended questions or, in some cases, making an observation as a conversational gambit, and allowing interviewees to respond, or express themselves, in their own way. The researcher occasionally nudged conversation towards issues of particular relevance or interest, but at other times – keeping in mind that any constriction of data risks closing off possible revelations or suppressing insights – allowed conversation to ramble without discipline or focus. As Lindolf notes (1995: 170), it is one of the strengths of the unstructured interview that it is “informal, conversational and spontaneous.” The unpredictability these qualities provide can open unexpected paths of research and lead to insights not to be otherwise gained.
Such unstructured discursion “provides qualitative depth by allowing interviewees to talk about the subject in terms of their own frames of reference” and “provides a greater understanding of the subject’s point of view.” (May, 1998: 112) I have accepted deviant views as valid, relevant, and even essential to developing a fully textured understanding of key issues. (Lindolf: 1995: 171) In the interpretation of interview data, I remained cautiously aware of what Mills (in May, 1998: 127) called “vocabularies of motive”, regarding interviews, in Lindolf’s terms, not as delivery of complete cognitions or insights but as “a struggle to produce and repair meaning”. (Lindolf, 1995: 174)
Focus group discussions or group interviews were also conducted informally and with minimal direction, allowing conversation to flow as naturally as possible within the constraints of the situation. This also provided observational insights into the dynamics of interaction within cohorts of key interest to the investigation. (May, 1998:113)
Analysis of a large quantity of historical material from QAC archives provided both quantitative and qualitative data. Among the most valuable sources were QAC corporate publications, including annual reports for every year since 1961, strategic
22 plans, product and service directories and menus of events, members newsletters and public relations and advertising material. Other documents included: annual reports provided by branches and LACs, quarterly and annual reports provided by regional directors, draft papers and planning documents, membership and branch audits, letters, memos, and various other informal documents as well as many current communications. Official documents from other sources such as the Australia Council, and federal and state government policy statements and annual reports provided valuable background and context.
1.3.2.2 Quantitative Methods
Quantitative methods were applied in the analysis of data relating to demographic characteristics of community, arts participation and arts council membership, and to the evaluation of members’ attitudes harvested by written questionnaires.
Data relating to the demographic characteristics of communities was sourced through Australian Bureau of Statistics census figures for 1996 and 2001, augmented by more locally specific data from state and local government websites and publications.
The demographic characteristics and attitudes of arts participants were gathered through survey by written questionnaires, distributed and collected by hand, to people attending QAC touring performances and other arts events at case study sites. The numbers involved were not large, typically 30-40 respondents per event, but this was sufficient, when supported by observation, the results of membership surveys and other data, to provided unequivocal outcomes.
The demographic characteristics and attitudes of members were harvested through written questionnaires in three separate surveys: a survey of 262 LAC committee members statewide in August 2001 (144 respondents); a follow up survey of a smaller cohort of committee members in 2003 (150 respondents); and a simultaneous survey of 1,197 members and recently lapsed members, in case study sites (380 respondents).
23 Simple analysis methods, tables and charts were used, as these were considered adequate for purposes here, to provide a broad bed of data in which to locate qualitative data and to triangulate against data obtained through observation and interviews.
1.3.3 The Case Studies
Seven case studies lie at the heart of the project. As Stake observes (2000: 435), case study is not so much a methodological choice, as a choice of what is to be studied. The way in which we study the individual case, and the way in which we contextualise it, analyse data and draw conclusions within the parameters of the enveloping project, is the methodology. Methods applied to individual cases matched those applied to the project as a whole.
Case studies were chosen to provide a broadly representative sample of existing LAC sites, taking into account key characteristics including: o the diversity of geographic location and the degree of isolation from other towns and cities, major transport routes and Brisbane; o other geographic and demographic factors – coastal/inland, broad/narrow based local economy, increasing/decreasing population, etc; o the history of individual LACs, membership trends and activity levels over time – the history and profile of management committees; o current vitality and vigour of the LAC – level of support for QAC touring programs, and the nature and extent of locally generated activities, entrepreneurship and interaction with other local, state and federal agencies; o local cultural environments – community cultural awareness, the influence of other arts organisations and the LAC’s relationship with them, local cultural facilities and infrastructure, and so on.
Case studies entailed intensive field work which provided an opportunity to study various models of arts facilitation in action, to consider the structures, relationships and processes that enabled them, to evaluate their appropriateness and effectiveness in a range of situations, and to identify opportunities for their further application.
24 Preliminary research carried out at QAC in Brisbane informed the design of individual case studies, which generally involved: o one or two field excursions to remote sites, and five or six to more accessible sites; o on-site observation of LAC activities including locally generated activities, the hosting and reception of QAC touring programs, annual general meetings, and regular administrative meetings, community forums, and so on; o audience response surveys – which also provided demographic and altitudinal data; o focus group discussions – with both LAC members and non-members; o in-depth interviews of office bearers, general members and ex-members; o interviews with local politicians and other key members of communities, representatives of government agencies and other arts, service and commercial organisations.
On-site observation and data gathering was followed up, and data augmented by telephone, mail and e-mail, and through occasional contact with regional representatives who visited Brisbane, or were encountered in other contexts such as arts forums or conferences, in Queensland and interstate.
1.3.4 Inside and Outside the Whale
Under the QUT-QAC partnership agreement I was granted privileged access to QAC in the form of a three year residency, with dedicated office space and extensive access to QAC management, staff, members, artists, facilities, archives and current records. Research was strongly supported by CEO Arthur Frame and the QAC Board of Directors. Access was extended to the network of around 60 LACs3 across the state. All this was subject to the overriding principle that participation should be strictly voluntary. The workplace context obviously complicated this, as it effectively brought all QAC staff and visitors under observation whether or not they had
3 The number of LACs has varied during the life of the project. There were 63 LACs when I joined QAC. Three of these closed by 2003. Another two closed early in 2004, but two more opened. More closures and openings are pending.
25 consciously elected to participate. Ethical protocols were devised and implemented accordingly.
The project assumed close co-operation between researcher and QAC. It was expected that information would flow both ways, with the researcher benefiting from extensive access to QAC personnel and processes, while the progressive release of data and interim findings to QAC management and staff would feed into and inform processes and programs.
In practice, a comfortable working relationship was quickly established, assisted by QAC’s informal and friendly working atmosphere. A high level of mutual trust allowed observation and data gathering to take place, and insights to be harvested through a range of relationships in many different vocational and industry related settings. I was able to participate in: monthly whole of staff meetings, fortnightly meetings of senior staff, routine managerial and project planning sessions, and policy and strategy development workshops – including chairing or moderating some of these sessions and workshops.
I also benefited from a host of informal interactions and relationships including impromptu conversations at the water cooler, in corridors and in the lunch room, at staff birthday celebrations and other social events such as Melbourne Cup lunches and Christmas parties. I travelled to conferences with QAC directors, managers, staff and artists; met members at regional social functions and performances; and stayed in the homes of regional members. In these informal situations each conversation became a progressive sequence of alternating observations and responses, any one of which might provide significant data, shape reflection and analysis, inspire insight, shape further data gathering, or suggest a new area for investigation.
May (1998:145) adopts Bruyn’s term “subjective adequacy” to discuss six requirements to be met, if participant observers are to gain the fully textured appreciation they seek: 1. an extended period of involvement (in this project more than three years); 2. consideration of the physical settings (observation took place over a wide range of metropolitan, small town and rural settings);
26 3. a variety of social circumstances (a broad range is outlined in preceding paragraphs); 4. familiarity with language (researcher shares both common language and industry specific vernacular with subjects); 5. intimacy (strong relationships flourished within the informal and friendly workplace atmosphere at QAC, and in hospitable case study communities); 6. social consensus (workplace relationships often extended into, or were reflected in external social settings).
This broad spectrum of involvement enmeshed research in a seamless net of interactions, often making it impossible to clearly distinguish research from non- research activities. It also complicated the issue of informed consent by blurring the distinction between participation and non-participation, and required me to be constantly aware of ethical implications.
One strategy I employed to formalise reflection on these issues and to guard against “going native” (Jorgensen, 1989: 62), was to write a journal in which I recorded personal conversations and behaviours, and my own reflections on these, intermittently at critical phases throughout the life of the project. This journal, and subsequent re-reading and reflection, provided a way for me to monitor and explore my own station within QAC, and the interactions and relationships within which I was involved.
I provided feedback to QAC during the project, including several reports to the QAC board, and took part in a series of strategic planning sessions during 2001, 2002 and 2003 as the organisation sought to grapple with the consequences of its 1999 restructure. Through participation in these sessions I contributed to a review of the LAC network, overhaul of the LAC affiliation agreement, a revision of QAC’s strategic plan which led to the addition of a fifth goal in relation to capacity building, and the preparation of submissions to government.
I also took part in preparation and participated in, corporate events, including several regional conferences for LAC delegates and the 2003 Arts Torque state conference at Ipswich. I contributed to planning the theme and program of Arts Torque and chaired
27 two seminar sessions. I attended several larger regional arts conferences, including Capitalising on Culture, the 2001 RADF State Conference in Longreach; [email protected], the 2001 Regional Arts New South Wales conference; and Groundswell, the 2002 Regional Arts Australia National conference. On these occasions I was, as George Orwell put it, both inside and outside of the whale.
When QAC was criticised I faced the options of (1) either actively or passively encouraging a speaker to vent criticisms, even when these were ill-founded, so as to more fully understand prevailing misconceptions and prejudices, or (2) correcting the misconceptions and attempting to expose or defuse prejudices. At these times I took the view that my primary purpose, as researcher, was not to change people’s perceptions and attitudes but to document the perceptions and attitudes that people held.
It is indicative of my intimate involvement with QAC, that I felt uneasy whenever this dilemma arose, but I knew that to argue on behalf of QAC in these situations risked compromising research by both: (1) impacting on the phenomena under investigation; and (2) impairing communication with informants. I consequently generally allowed prejudices to go unchallenged and inaccuracies to go uncorrected. Even so, in this very fractured and political field, I was not always seen to be neutral. Several critics of QAC initially avoided speaking to me because they considered me “one of them”, and it was only after several approaches that they consented to interviews.
I was continually conscious of the need to find a balance between participation and observation, and of the trade off in time devoted to each; the need to remain constantly alert to ethical issues and implications raised by constant and close participation, particularly in relation to the interim release of data, opinions and insights gained through research; and the need to retain a detached critical faculty. I was initially drawn to the notion of the honest broker, and later to the notion of the critical friend, and found both useful as I sought to establish consistent guidelines for interactions. I was consciously aware of moving between two research paradigms – critical research and administrative research as described by McGuigan (1996:19) – the former extending beyond the organisation to examine it and its policies and
28 objectives in broader cultural contexts, the latter examining the organisation’s internal structures and processes and their effectiveness in achieving given objectives.
My intense and intricate involvement with QAC was highly beneficial to the project in that it allowed me to acquire a more complete understanding of the organisation and the artistic, economic and political environment with which it interacts. I believe it has thus added value to the research and enhanced the validity and relevance of outcomes.
Research coincided with a period of self-examination and policy re-evaluation and development at QAC. These processes were conducted openly and bravely, and I consider myself fortunate to have been able to take part in them. There were, however, many occasions when I did not fully speak my mind because to do so risked contravening ethical protocols (by indirectly exposing a confidential source, or revealing facts prejudicial to an employee for example); because it might jeopardise the complex web of interactions within which I was enmeshed; or because I was not sure of my facts or interpretation and did not want to be prematurely provocative. I remedy some of those omissions here.
1.4 Map of The Thesis and Key Findings
Chapter 1 introduces Queensland Arts Council and the research project on which this dissertation is based. It outlines basic research questions and the way they evolved during the project.
These questions focus on how Queensland’s arts councils sit within their communities; how they relate to the rest of the regional arts sector; how they view themselves and their mission; how they are viewed by others; what strategies and tactics they employ; and how appropriate, and how effective, these are.
Chapter 1 also discusses participant observation methodology and the collaborative research partnership, which incorporated elements of action research by virtue of the researcher’s involvement with QAC. It discusses strategies employed to provide
29 authenticity within a multi-perspectival approach that employed a range of approaches and data gathering instruments.
Essential preliminaries were to identify all stakeholders and properly understand the nature of their respective interests and the relationships between them. Of particular concern were relationships between QAC managers and staff, local arts council leaders, the broader arts council membership and, even more broadly, the regional communities they represent.
Chapter 2 lays out the conceptual parameters that initially shaped the project and the key concepts that later emerged. It was apparent from the start that concepts of art and culture, community and identity, and the relationship between city and bush, would be important. More explicitly political concepts, configurations of social, economic and political power, the role of elites, and considerations of excellence became prominent as the project evolved. Elite theory, through its articulation of specific structural and functional elites, provides a useful way of negotiating the issues. It allows us to characterise all those to whom influence or power accrue – in this instance QAC and LAC managers – as elite individuals or groups. These people, who as office bearers or managers determine the course of arts councils in Queensland, incur a responsibility to nourish culture on behalf of the broader community.
Chapter 3 broadly reviews seminal attitudes, ideas and policies that have shaped the regional arts sector in Queensland. It traces the early growth of the arts council movement, from its roots in reformist ideals that emerged in the wake of the industrial revolution, and locates the ideologies that have driven the arts council movement within the broader range of ideas that activate and fragment the regional arts sector as a whole.
I discuss the inadequacy of traditional views in the sector – which apply a left/right, or bottom up/top down dichotomy to alternative models of facilitation – and identify emergent models founded on awareness of how arts/cultural activities contribute to community revitalisation and sustainability, and which mark a convergence between previously opposed views.
30
I propose a cultural industries framework – after Roodhouse (2001) – and follow Fleming (1999) to propose that Local Arts Councils might be seen as local cultural industries support organisations.
Chapter 4 charts the fluctuating fortunes of the arts council movement in Queensland. It sketches the state of Queensland’s regional arts sector before the advent of arts council, and recognises the very significant contribution QAC subsequently made to the evolution of Queensland’s cultural climate. I discuss the reasons for QAC’s spectacular growth from 1960-1990, and its subsequent decline, leading to the crisis and restructure of 1999-2000.
Chapter 5 discusses the restructure, and the extended period of self-examination and re-evaluation subsequently undertaken by QAC. I discuss the strategic planning process, and key concepts and issues with which QAC grappled during this period, and how it either resolved them, or still grapples with them. In particular, I discuss the new relationship between LACs and QAC, and issues that consequently arise.
Chapter 6 presents brief profiles of seven LACs selected for case study. It aims to provide a representative sample of the diverse communities and cultures which have hosted arts councils, and to highlight pertinent issues for each.
Chapter 7 presents a comparative discussion of case study sites. I examine membership and attendance demographics with reference to the correlation between them, and define typical arts council membership in relation to notions of a general knowledge class.
Chapter 8 discusses attitudes and issues arising from case studies, and from across the network. It analyses the attitudes held or expressed by arts councils in terms of four attitudinal policy vectors and examines the relationship between these attitudes, the people an arts council attracts and the activities it pursues. It discusses strategies developed and adopted by LACs, identifies local leadership as the key determinant of LAC efficacy, and identifies characteristics of effective arts leadership.
31 Chapter 9 presents a synthesis of findings in the form of eight seminal observations which might be used to guide navigation in the regional arts field. Discussion around these observations reveals that structural reforms and associated policy and programming shifts implemented by QAC have well positioned Queensland’s arts council network to deliver significant benefits to regional communities well into the 21st century – but indicates that program reform and innovation must continue if QAC and LACs are to realise their promise. I conclude by reshaping these observations in terms of Eight Principles of Effective Regional Arts Facilitation, which provide a theoretical and procedural framework against which policy and practice might be evaluated.
2 Key Concepts & Definitions
2.1 The City and the Bush
The divide between metropolitan and rural Australia, or as it’s generally put, between the city and the bush, has long been a feature of our cultural ecology, and occasionally takes centre stage as a social and political issue. Raymond Williams (1973) traces this schism back in time through an examination of European literature including the works of Hardy, Raleigh, Marlowe and many others, to the new urban movement of the late middle ages in Europe, and far beyond to ancient Greece, and to Rome where almost two thousand years ago the satirist Juvenal asked: “What can I do in Rome? I never learnt how to lie.” (Williams, 1973: 46)
On differing scales and in various contexts this opposition segues into arguments about centralised state hegemonies, exploitation of the periphery by the centre, ‘top down’ administration, and a broad range of issues consequent to globalisation. Globalisation is not new. As Lechner and Boli observe (2000: 1), it has been evolving gradually over centuries, and the current world system existed in rudimentary form some five centuries ago.
The city/bush divide can also be understood through the lens of colonialism. Gilbert and Tompkins (1996: 7-8) note that colonial hegemony extends to cultural practices, promoting those of the colonial power at the expense of “native” forms, while Fanon
32 (1963: 87, 94 ) sees colonial structures perpetuated by national governments, resulting in the “petrifaction of the country districts.”
Sinclair (1992: 102) observes that there are many kinds of imperialism, and at any time in history there have been “one, two, three, many imperialisms, with greater or lesser, rising or falling centres.” In the latter half of the 20th century the hegemony of colonial powers was replaced by the hegemony of a single worldwide capitalist economy that promotes the transforming of every cultural attribute into a marketable product, and makes little distinction between Brazilian ethnic music, Australian didgeridoos, Oriental rugs, tropical fruit and cashew nuts. (Frow, 1992: 17; Mitchell, 1992: 133)
The centre draws tribute from the periphery, but, as Frow observes (1992: 16), the flow of culture goes both ways, with each centre seeking to export or even impose its values, ideals and norms over its subordinate domain. The centre must maintain control to ensure the perpetuation of the exploitative relationship.
In Australia, the disaffection of regional dwellers has been fuelled in recent years by increased feelings of powerlessness and confusion as the economy has been caught up in accelerated global change, and it has given rise to what many commentators have called the culture of complaint. 4 Symptoms include the rejection of established political parties which represent the centre, in favour of minor parties, independents and renegades such as Pauline Hanson and Bob Katter. As Farley (2001) said of Hanson: “She is the touchstone for the powerless because they know they can’t change things. They just want revenge.” This kind of rancour goes both ways, and Coyle’s observation (1997: 194) that the countryside is a parasite on urban wealth would make him few friends in Biloela or Tambo.
While the real effects of economic rationalisation and globalisation on rural and regional Australia may not be as dire or as universally negative as its enemies maintain, this is not to say that it has not hurt many who live in the regions, and
4 Robert Hughes (1993) is generally credited with first introducing the term into the public arena. He was speaking of a North American social phenomenon, but the term has since been widely used in Australia.
33 exacerbated problems they already faced. Sidoti has examined geographic disadvantage from a human rights perspective and specifies six areas in which regional dwellers are deprived: education, health, general living standards, ‘cultural’ life, the benefits of scientific progress and employment. (Sidoti, 2000) (Also see: Kenyon, 1999)
Demographic changes exacerbate the problems of the bush. At the time of Federation almost half of Australia’s population lived in communities of less than 3,000, and 40% lived in rural areas. By 1996 only 18% lived in these smaller communities, and only 15% lived in rural areas. (Farley, 2001) Along with this urbanisation, there has been a huge population shift towards the coast, which is increasingly transforming much of our coastline into an extended suburban corridor. There are exceptions to the trend but in general inland Australia is becoming even more marginalised.
The relationship between city and bush remains, as it always has been, strangely ambiguous. City dwellers often go into the country for leisure and recreation. They think it is wonderful to get away to the ‘peace and quiet’ of the countryside, but they could not live there. Their romantic illusions about country life are offset by a paradoxical disregard for country people, a disrespect and condescension that borders at times on contempt. Rural people live ‘in the sticks’ and they are hay-seeds, cockies, bushies, or red-necks – the country bumpkin by other names.
Country people, on the other hand, often visit the city for specialist services – medical, legal, financial and so on – and for shopping, yet have a genuine distaste for the city. They often feel uncomfortable and out of place, even anxious and afraid. They consider city people unfriendly, even rude, too caught up in the bustle of business and money making to exchange simple civilities. They will be hospitable to city people who visit the country, often supremely so, yet they harbour some reserve, and even, at times, a mild contempt for these soft and pampered urban cousins whose extravagant lifestyle is, they believe, sustained by rural sweat.
The cultural divide between city and country is multi-dimensional, is manifest with assumptions, misunderstandings and prejudices, and it runs deep. It is however only one of various faults that fracture and layer Australian society. Bennett, Emission
34 and Frow (2001: 195) describe a class divide that privileges on one side “a younger, higher income, better educated and more urban group” who engage in a broad range of cultural practices, and on the other “an older, less educated, less urban and lower income group” with a far more restricted cultural habitus. Bennett, Emission and Frow identify education as the key determinant. According to their analysis, geography is not itself definitive, but it is unequivocally associated with this class divide.
During the course of this project I have encountered disrespect and prejudice in many forms – often subtle and obliquely expressed – in situations and within structures and programs where we might least expect to find it and where we should consider it most inappropriate and most damaging, that is, amongst the people, on both sides, who service the city/bush relationship.
2.2 Art and Culture
It is obvious that the proper concern of arts councils is the arts, but definitions of art or the arts are varied, malleable and contentious. In general I have taken the view that over a half-century, arts councils have, through practice, defined their proper concerns. In doing so they have generally applied a broad and inclusive understanding of art, not restricted to the ‘high’ arts, but embracing activities which many laypeople and scholars would today assign to popular culture.
Indeed the terms art and culture are irredeemably confused and compromised in both general and specialised usage, and it is notable that Australia’s arts councils have made few attempts to formally define or justify their activities theoretically. They have allowed definition to occur by default. I generally accept this approach and discuss it further in a later section, but I briefly discuss art and culture here, to register their polysemy, and their sensitivity to context, and to define, amongst the range of possible meanings, how I use them.
Contemporary concepts are deeply entangled in part due to their common roots and concomitant evolution. Consider for example Ruskin’s 19th century definition of art’s purpose to reveal aspects of universal beauty and truth. He believed that art was an
35 expression of the social and political virtues of a people, and that noble art could be produced only by noble people. (Williams, 1959: 142) This is not very different from Matthew Arnold’s view of culture as the pursuit of total perfection and the passion towards “sweetness and light” in the service of reason and the will of God. (Arnold, 1994: 10, 28)
In 19th century Europe, both art and culture became associated with refinement, wealth and power; that is, they became labels of social class. It is this political application of the terms, together with the conflation of the concepts they represent, that has made both so problematic today. This has been recognised and widely discussed in the relatively new field of cultural studies, which is founded on the understanding that the cultural field is fundamentally dominated by the exercise of political power. (Bennett, 1998, 61; Morris, 1997, 44-45.)
David Throsby is one of many writers to follow Raymond Williams in observing that culture is one of the most complex words in the English language, and one that generates enormous confusion. It is as Throsby says, “employed in a variety of senses in everyday use, but without a tangible agreed core meaning.” (Throsby, 2001:3)
Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1952) identified more than a hundred definitions of culture. Schafer (1998) reduces this to ten basic concepts, and sees the earliest of these originating in the Chaldean concept of Ur, or light, in Ancient Babylon. Many others, like Williams (1958: 16) and Francis Bacon, who wrote of “the culture and manurance” of the mind, attribute a primarily agricultural origin. (Eagleton, 2000: 1) In recent decades, the rise of cultural studies has produced a huge amount of literature, proposing manifold variations around these basic concepts.
Defining culture poses such a complex and intractable problem that Mercer (1998: 12) resorts to the pragmatic conclusion that: “culture is what culture is defined as being.” I have chiefly concerned myself with two concepts of culture that have popular currency.
36 The first is a narrow view characterised as ‘arts plus heritage’ implicated by Deborah Mills (2003: 7) “in the great ‘arts plus’ swindle” in which cultural planners exploit broader notions of culture but employ policy in a more restricted sense to mobilise art towards governmental objectives. This concept of culture implies in many respects the contemporary equivalent of the 18th and 19th century class consciousness typified by men like Sir Joshua Reynolds and John Ruskin, who believed that fine artistic taste was the mark of ‘civilised men’. Reynolds believed that only the higher classes were susceptible to the elevating powers of art (Borzello, 1987: 4), while Ruskin believed that a rigid class structure, buttressing a paternalistic state, provided the best structure within which a society might build and distribute wealth, and regulate and control its consumption. The duty of the upper classes was: “to keep order among their inferiors, and raise them always to the nearest level with themselves of which those inferiors are capable”. (Williams, 1958: 151.)
The second concept is anthropological – culture as a way of life. In this view culture is not something that only refined people have; it is not something that can be bestowed on a people or given to them; it is something all peoples innately have.
In Australia today, these views are respectively associated with the elite arts and notions of excellence, and with commercial popular culture. One, says Throsby (2001: 3) refers narrowly to the products and practices of the ‘high’ arts. The other refers in a broader sense to the intellectual and spiritual development of civilisation as a whole. Rentschler (1998: vii), discussing these two views in the reverse order, explains: “One view sees culture as embracing the values of mass consumption in which the market is seen as needing to cater for the majority of people. Another view sees culture as subsidised art, the smallest sector in the cultural industries.” (Rentschler, 1998: viii)
In general, as Rentschler observes, rhetoric is shifting focus from the elite, high arts to quality of life or culture in its widest sense. This is an international trend. In 1982 UNESCO stated: “Culture ought to be considered today the whole collection of distinctive traits, spiritual and material, intellectual and affective, which characterises a society or social group. It comprises, besides arts and letters, modes of life, human rights, values systems, traditions and beliefs.” (In Schafer, 1998: 28) In 1996, the
37 Report of the World Commission on Culture and Development asserted, “Economic development in its full flowering is part of a people’s culture.” (WCCD 1996: 15)
In Australia, in a 1994 preamble to a reprint of its 1992 Creative Nation report, the federal government promoted a view of culture as “our entire mode of life”. More recently Jon Hawkes has described culture as both overarching and underpinning. “It covers both the values upon which a society is based and the embodiments and expressions of these values in the day-to-world of that society. … Thus culture is not the decoration added after a society has dealt with its basic needs. Culture is the basic need – it is the bedrock of society.” (Hawkes, 2001: 3) Understood in this way, culture is so broad that it subsumes economy. We should consider, not that culture can make a contribution to the economy; but that the economy is one aspect of culture. (WCCD, 1987: 5)
Such a view, following anthropological principles, understands culture to exist on three levels. The deepest level is that of our fundamental assumptions about life and our place in the universe, our cosmology, whether it be essentially mystical or rational. The intermediate level is that of our values. The surface level is the level of observable culture, our institutions, artifacts and behavioral norms, often expressed simply as “the way we do things around here”. (Wood, et al. 1998: 436).
The arts, their configuration and practice, reside on the third level of culture. They reflect, express and comment on our values (second level) and on the beliefs and assumptions that underpin them (first level). (Bate, 1994, 13; Frederick, 1995; Alvesson, 1993.)
All group cultures will accommodate degrees of diversity. Where variations are sufficiently coherent we might speak of a sub-culture; where variations are founded on different beliefs and assumptions, to the extent that a sub-group rejects both the values of the majority (second level) and their reification (third level), we may speak of a counter-culture. (Wood, et al. 1998: 438) The mono-culture was a modernist fiction. It is sensible to consider all cultures today to be pluralist. All cultures are hybrids. (Walker, 1983: 84)
38 Such a broad view of culture invites the criticism, as Hawkes (2001) has acknowledged, although he rejects it, that we render the word meaningless, and Bennett (1998) provides an incisive discussion of the difficulties associated with this broad use, as well as indicating the anomalies that arise when this broad usage interacts with other concepts.
2.3 Cultural and Creative Industries
Emergence of the cultural industries and creative industries paradigms late in the 20th century to some extent rendered existing arguments over art and culture obsolete. While these two apparently new theoretical frames might initially appear to have compounded confusion and complicated argument, they have in fact provided new criteria to guide reflection and analysis, thus exposing the bankruptcy of traditional arguments and suggesting alternative resolutions. Both models have devolved largely from economic rather than artistic or cultural frameworks, and each proposes a new way of understanding the relationship between culture and economy.
Cultural Industries was first used by dialecticians of the Frankfurt school during the mid 20th century, in derogatory reference to the lowest common denominator appeal of popular culture. The term was given a new twist and propelled into common use in the United Kingdom during the 1980s, when the Greater London Council (GLC) used it to focus attention on the great range of popularly consumed cultural goods which fell outside public arts funding parameters and which, in contrast to those within the publicly funded sector, generated relatively much higher wealth and employment returns to society at large, and to individuals and corporations in the private sector. Cultural Industries thus took in a vast range of activities, goods and services encompassing television, radio, film, the publication of books, magazines and music, advertising, concerts of popular music and so on. The GLC did not fully develop its cultural industries strategy, but other cities in the UK picked up the concept, and it has subsequently spread widely. (O’Connor, 1999)
Creative Industries began as an export oriented re-branding exercise in which Tony Blair’s British Government in 1997 sought to distinguish activities which “have their origin in individual creativity, skill and talent and which have the potential for wealth
39 and job creation through generation and exploitation of intellectual property”. (Cunningham, 2002: 54) This ‘new’ industrial sector appropriated many activities previously claimed by the cultural industries but also extended into some areas that Cultural Industries had overlooked. Creative Industries embraced advertising, architecture, arts and antique markets, crafts, design, designer fashion, film, interactive leisure software, music, television and radio, performing arts, publishing and software.
There is, as Cunningham admits, “a rather arbitrary exclusivity” to this catalogue of activities, just as there was to earlier cultural industries catalogues. Indeed, such arbitrariness is inevitable, because any taxonomy of human activities may encounter ambivalent and marginal forms.5 Consequently, as Cunningham (2002: 55), Roodhouse (2001a: 505) and O’Connor (1999: 20) all observe, attempts to differentiate absolutely between cultural and creative industries have been problematical. Contending definitions continue to evolve, variously including and excluding particular activities, and they often have more to do with the relationship of the arts to broader government industry policy than with the nature and value of the arts, which themselves of course remain subject to contending definitions.
On one hand Cunningham (2002: 58) notes that the concept of cultural industries seems to have shrunk so that it now primarily refers to the subsidised arts sector; on the other hand Roodhouse (2001) suggests that it has expanded to accommodate broader notions of culture. Roodhouse offers a much broader definition that embraces the subsidised arts sector, a wide range of popular cultural activity and the entire creative industries catalogue as well. Certainly, once we adopt an inclusive concept of culture as advocated by Hawkes (2001), all industries fall within it and are therefore, by definition, cultural. The definition of creative industries is equally difficult to restrain. Once we accept that creativity is everywhere, and that it is something everybody can manifest, and that creative inputs can be made at many different stages of production and in many different ways (Florida, 2003: 10; Landry, 2000: 82), then we must acknowledge that creative does not describe a category of
5 Is synchronised swimming art or sport, for example. Arguments may be mounted on either side, as they can for rhythmic gymnastics, ballet and so on.
40 industry so much as an approach to the activities conducted within industry, an approach that can be applied to any industry, or to any part of any industry.
At the time of writing, the most current available definition of creative industries is provided by Hartley (2005: 5): “The idea of the CREATIVE INDUSTRIES seeks to describe the conceptual and practical convergence of the CREATIVE ARTS (individual talent) with Cultural Industries (mass scale), in the context of NEW MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES (ICTs) within a NEW KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY, for the use of newly INTERACTIVE citizen-consumers.”
Hartley’s definition accurately describes the deliberate construction of the creative industries phenomenon, but it also entrenches a misconception. It is not, as Florida, Landry and others make clear, and Hartley acknowledges in passing, legitimate to characterise creativity only as “individual talent” (see Chapter 3.4). I am also troubled by the technological determinism and blinkered optimism that inflect much creative industries discourse in general, and Hartley’s definition in particular. There are implicit assumptions in both that human creativity is valuable primarily for its capacity to generate narrowly defined economic wealth, and that such wealth creation and cultural progress – social, economic and political – are inevitably linked. The first assumption dismisses much highly productive human endeavour; the second, as Hamilton (2005) makes emphatically clear, cannot be sustained.
Nevertheless, I am not particularly concerned in this paper – nor have I been in the practical research which underpins it – with theoretical distinctions, or territorial or jurisdictional delineation. Instead I seek to apply, with empirical intent, a consistent but flexible logic that recognises a broad range of human activities and interests associated with quality of life and lifestyle but which transcend their merely material or physical aspects to incorporate, to some degree, those aesthetic and symbolic concerns which we traditionally associate with the arts. This aligns with the approach generally implemented by the arts council movement since the middle of the 20th century, although the reality of this has to some extent been obscured by obfuscating layers of discourse and presentation that have sought to endow certain activities with a more esoteric and aloof public face.
41 Within such a practical definitional frame, any attempt to distinguish the arts as a separate category within culture must do so incrementally. Thus for example, if we seek to differentiate between an advertising jingle, a popular rock song and a classical symphony we can legitimately do so only in terms of degree – each might be assessed for its structural, aesthetic, symbolic and functional characteristics and positioned accordingly in relation to the others across some sort of comparative matrix. Any such comparative analysis is beyond the scope of this thesis. I accept Roodhouse’s (2001: 31) recommendation that we measure cultural value according to “the needs of communities, what they actually want, and are prepared to pay for.”
This is what Australia’s arts councils have generally done - notwithstanding their early evangelism (see Chapter 3), some inclination towards exceptionalism and exclusivity, and market distortions caused by subsidy. In its formative years QAC did concern itself with concepts and theories of art, but since touring became established as the dominant mode during the 1960s and 1970s, QAC has generally not attempted to rationalise its activities according to abstract or theoretical definitions, but has pragmatically dealt with particular art forms – drama, dance, music, painting, etc – in terms of their entertainment value and market appeal, primarily at the level of immediate and intuitive response.
Such a de-facto empirical approach to the field by QAC suggests a broad cultural industries operational framework along lines adopted by the South Yorkshire town of Rotherham, 6 as discussed by Roodhouse (2001). In order to frame QAC’s operations, I therefore list relevant areas of activity as: o The performing arts, music, drama, dance o The visual arts, craft, sculpture, fashion o Media, film, television, video, language o Museums, artifacts, archives, design o Libraries, literature, writing, publishing o Combined Arts and festivals o The built heritage, architecture, landscape, parks. (After Roodhouse, 2001: 29)
6 Roodhouse cites Celebrating our past together, developing our distinctiveness together, creating our future together, A Cultural Strategy for Rotherham Metropolitan Borough, 2000.
42 This list is not intended to be either prescriptive or proscriptive, but to offer a soft edged and flexible template for branding relevant activities. It generally matches the spread of activities which arts councils and their me mbers have pursued for more than half a century, and it goes beyond them to embrace the increasing capacity and potential of rapidly evolving electronic media and communications technologies. It also accommodates a vast diversity of hybrid forms where cultural activities interact with activities in other fields, such as the ‘dancing’ of cheerleaders at a football match, or the ‘tribal’ facial decoration of team supporters amongst the crowd – of course a slightly broader definition of culture would encompass the football itself – or the trophies won by a sports team, which immediately become historical and cultural artifacts.
By focusing on what people value and are prepared to support, through patronage and/or participation, such an approach bypasses persistent but spurious arguments around artistic excellence and aesthetic ideals (except in so far as these drive people’s patronage and participation), and allows us to construct a rational and coherent regime of cultural value based on the recognition that activities and goods are valuable because people enjoy them sufficiently to want to participate in them, or utilise or consume them in various ways.
Some workers in the regional arts field may be affronted – as I once would have been – by the suggestion that we apply an industrial framework to regional arts/culture. I believe however that the cultural industries paradigm is not the diabolical invention that its more extreme critics might fear. On the contrary, as O’Connor observes (1999: 19), it tends to articulate industry in terms of a purposeful or work-like activity or ‘industriousness’, and has no necessary association with factories or manufacture.
As subsequent discussion will show, Queensland’s arts councils have traditionally concerned themselves with a range of activities more diverse than a narrow conception of the arts would allow. They are thus, according to the terminology I adopt here, more properly thought of as cultural rather than artistic institutions. Pertinent activities are seen to be both an ingredient and a measure of lifestyle, with key application in the areas of design and decoration, leisure, recreation and
43 entertainment, but they also go beyond these surface characteristics to impact on the quality of human existence in profound ways, through their contribution to the material, emotional and intellectual dimensions of human life. Foremost among them, consistently endorsed and promoted by Australia’s arts councils in general, and by QAC in particular, as core and often flagship activities, are their educational programs – programs aimed at both school student and general community cohorts – programs delivering education in and about the arts, and delivering education into other subject areas through the arts.
Appropriate activities are context specific and evolve over time. As Lovejoy says: “Definitions of arts alter with historical and technological change … the need for art as an autonomous force in society does not fade or change, but rather our perspective changes about its role and its form.” (Lovejoy, 1997: 258) Relentless and multidimensional change is similarly evident across the broader cultural field. The framework I adopt provides the breadth and flexibility to accommodate ongoing change while allowing the activities of LACs, and the benefits they deliver to their communities to be evaluated. Such an approach suggests we regard LACs as cultural industry support organizations operating to enrich the cultural life of their communities. The expressive, creative, aesthetic and symbolic concerns that we customarily associate with traditional notions of ‘the arts’ have a key role to play here. (I discuss this further in Chapters 8 & 9.)
2.4 Community and Identity
It is within communities large and small, that art and culture are primarily generated, and where their relevance is most acute, and their impacts most felt. The concept of community, and associated concepts such as community coherence, lifestyle, wealth, health, and sustainability, are therefore central to this paper. LACs generally operate within finite geographical areas, population catchments or ‘commuter-sheds’, each of which defines a geographic community, but it would be naïve to assume that geography alone defines community.
Vincent (1987: 24) associates the origins of community with notions of “fellowship, personal intimacy and wholeness, moral commitment and social cohesiveness”
44 prevalent in Germany towards the end of the 18th century. The rise of community countered the individualism of the enlightenment, with community seen to be a harmonising influence, and individualism as disruptive.
Bauman explains how this disjunction presents a conundrum for every human being. Community, he says, offers a comfortable, safe and warm place, “like a roof under which we shelter in heavy rain, like a fireplace at which we warm our hands on a frosty day”. But the day to day reality is less romantic and less ideal. Community is based above all on shared values, and these demand a degree of conformity to behavioural norms. Belonging to a community exacts a price in the loss of individual freedoms. (Bauman, 2001: 1-2)
These ideas are relevant and important because the notion of community has come to the fore in recent cultural debate. Community art (CA), community cultural development (CCD) and community capacity building (CCB), have all been positioned in opposition to the traditional arts council model, and although convergence across the sector has brought these models closer together, as I shall shortly discuss, contention remains.
While shared values are at the heart of community, its surface manifestations may be more mundane. The Community Cultural Development Board of the Australia Council defines community as “any group of people who identify with each other” and goes on to say: “Their common interest may be geographical location, shared cultural heritage, age group, professional, social or recreational.” (Commonwealth of Australia, 2003: 30)
A geographically defined community might be defined by a single street or by a continent. It may be as small as a family or village, or as large as a city or nation. We might also speak of communities defined by other mutualities – an ethnic community, a school community, the arts community or the horse-racing community. Each comes with various benefits, distinctions, loyalties and obligations. Community might also be defined by age, gender, ethnicity, a shared medical condition, or disability, vocational, religious or political affiliation, etc. (Hawtin et al, 1994: 33)
45 People will simultaneously belong to more than one community, and self-categorise with different groups at various levels of inclusiveness. The boundaries are not absolute, but permeable, intersecting and variable. (Haslam, 2003: 5, 18)
Community and culture are often defined in terms of each other. As humans are simultaneously part of various communities, so we share aspects of different overlapping and merging cultures. Identity is fluid. People move between modes of identification, or in and out of communities from time to time, as their lives change.
Agnew acknowledges that identity is a complex phenomenon. People struggle for stable identities in an unstable world; they “ … have multiple identities and loyalties that derive from the overlapping social worlds in which they live their lives.” (Agnew, 1997: 250) Consequently, while we might normally give precedence to the way people define themselves, and the communities they assign themselves to, it will sometimes be expedient for others to define them differently and to assign them to other communities. None of these assignments should be considered definitive or exclusive; rather they are provisional and contextual.
Any community will be constantly in flux (as people fall in and out of the defining boundaries), and fragmented (as people are brought together by shared interests and characteristics, and separated by difference). It will be “cross-cut by a variety of divisions – race, gender and class – and contain a multitude of groups whose interests may conflict with each other.” (Hawtin et al, 1994: 34)
Thus communities inevitably encompass heterodoxy. They are, “…divided and complicated by gender, sexual, class and even ethnic differences and hierarchies across which criticisms and transformations are constantly in play.” (Lloyd, 1994: 229) Saatchi and Saatchi (2000b: 273) note significant social divisions in rural and regional Australia.
I generally use community to describe a geographically defined group – that is, the local town or regional community serviced by a single LAC or group of LACs. I consider these geographically defined communities in terms of a catchment or ‘commuter-shed’. Communities defined in this way encompass a diverse range of
46 demographic, social and psychological characteristics. There will be an implication of shared values, but not all values may be shared. For example, two people living in a small country town might share an appreciation of the friendly and casual lifestyle, but have very different religious or political affiliations.
Where I use community in another sense, such as community of interest, this will be evident from the context. I also speak of cohorts, implying a closer commonality of demographic and other characteristics. A cohort is likely to be more homogenous than a community, and may be more tightly bound.
I use these terms always in the awareness that they are not definitive or exclusive, and that all people simultaneously belong to many different communities and identify with them to various degrees. It is appropriate here to consider attitudes towards community applied by those who actually work amongst them. Garlick (2001) advises that communities of place are dead and have been replaced by communities of self interest. Ramilo (2001: 19) describes community as a moving target, and offers the practical definition of: “People working together without murdering each other.” I suggest this is an essential, yet absolutely minimal requirement.
2.5 Configurations of Power
Art and culture are political because arts and cultural activities, and the decisions, funding and resource allocations and deployments that enable them, take place within political contexts, are influenced by political attitudes and policies, and have political impacts. Arts councils which service regional constituencies and interests, operate within a particularly complex political field of interacting and overlapping political vectors.
2.5.1 Hierarchies, Networks and Systems
Centre and periphery are locked in a dynamic and uncertain struggle. Hierarchical organisational and political structures dominated the colonial and modern eras, and provided the enabling technologies of bureaucracy and empire. Consequently the
47 dismantling of hierarchies and their replacement with horizontal relationships, networks and rhizomes in particular, has been a preoccupation of postcolonial theorists and activists. (Jaques, 1991; Mules, 2002)
The centre is not, as some would have it, already dead, yet it is no longer sustainable, if it ever was, to hold that contemporary cultural power has a single centre. There are many simultaneous centres, and cultural commodities and power flow both in and out of them. (Readings, 1996: 111-112; Hughes, 1996; Frow, 1992: 16 & 18).
The ‘globalised’ world is a complex place. Amongst the anomalies, paradoxes and contradictions it accommodates, is that it simultaneously stands for decentred networks and the empowerment of the periphery, and for the augmentation, through enhanced communication and mobility, of centralised power. O’Regan (1992) acknowledges this complexity. He eschews the term globalisation and prefers to think in terms of three co-extant trends: internationalisation, regionalisation and localisation. And Grossberg observes that:
Current thinking about globalisation is too often structured by an assumed opposition between the local and the global, where the local is offered as the intellectual and political corrective of the global …. Rather there is a horizontal relation in which the local is always a comparative term, describing the different articulation at different places within a structuring of space. That is, on this model, the local and the global are mutually constitutive, although the exact nature of this ‘mutual constitution’ remains to be specified. (Grossberg, 1997: 8,9)
Castells (2000: 414-426) describes an equivalent complexity and paradox in relation to electronic networks, which were developed in the service of centralised hierarchies (initially the U.S military), but themselves have no centre, and are characterised by the emergence of multiple decision making nodes. Thus, while they extend the communicative power of the centralised hierarchies, they also have a leveling and decentralising effect – and so the Internet, the most powerful communications tool developed in the service of established powers, has become an
48 effective communications tool, and weapon, for anarchists, terrorists and subversives.
Grossberg (1997: 24), citing Appadurai, discusses five prime forces that shape global power: ethnoscapes, which involve the movement of people; technoscapes, the movement of technologies; financescapes, the movement of capital; mediascapes, the movement of images; and ideoscapes, the movement of ideologies and state politics. Each contributes to the determination of cultural power around the globe, but they do not necessarily complement or reinforce each other at any given time. They interact in complex unpredictable ways, which are, in so far as we might hope to chart their intricacies, incomprehensible.
We must also recognise that centres, to the extent that they exist, are not themselves homogenous. Cultural sites, as Grossberg (1997: 19) observes, are busy intersections where many trajectories and forces interact. I have already noted that I regard QAC as a coalition of diverse stakeholders who for reasons of individual and mutual interest come together in an alliance that may be more or less temporal, and by extension I regard the regional arts field as a highly complex field hosting many such coalitions, both strategic and tactical.
Systems theory provides a useful way to understand interactions in such a complex field. Beginning with Heraclitus and his belief that reality is best understood as a matrix of constant flux, systems theory offers rich metaphors. It sees the world, even the universe, as an organic whole made up of interconnected systems, a system of systems, in which the interacting parts are as critically interdependent as the organs of the human body (Phillips, 1977: 1; Settanni, 1990: 17-27; Morgan, 1997) This view of the world as a system of systems, is consistent with the description of many commentators including the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED, 2000: 374-6) which specifically draws the organic metaphor. Agnew (1997: 12) notes that “in modern society almost everything is in one manner or another related to everything else” and Taylor (1997: 18) “views the modern world as consisting of a single entity, the capitalist world-economy.” Many others, coming to the issues from a range of disciplines, express similar views. They integrate culture, economy and politics, consistent with the broad concept of culture
49 that I have adopted. (See for example Frow, 1992: 9; Grossberg, 1997: 11; Johnson, 1992: 55; Landry, 2000: 40; McKenzie, 2000: 5; Schafer, 1998; Sinclair, 1992: 105; Throsby 1995.)
Systems theory provides two principles pertinent to the way QAC interacts with its complex environment. One is the principle of requisite variety, which would insist that a system’s internal regulatory mechanisms be as diverse and flexible as the environment within which it operates. “For only by incorporating required variety into internal controls can a system deal with the variety and challenge posed by its environment.” The second is the concept of total ecology which views an organisation and its environment as evolving together. Thus, “… organisations and their environments are engaged in a pattern of cocreation, where each produces the other.” (Morgan 1997: 41 & 64)
The systems approach is particularly valuable in studying a dynamic field so complex it cannot be understood by charting individual linkages and relationships of cause and effect in detail, but only in terms of broad trends and currents, and overall inputs and outputs. We can take this approach both in relation to the Queensland arts council movement as a whole, and in relation to QAC and individual LACs – and, as we will see, total ecology offers a particularly appropriate way to understand the QAC has evolved since CEMA first emerged in the 1940s. Even brief consideration of how arts councils operate reveals the pattern of interaction – incomprehensibly complex if examined in detail – that makes the systems approach appropriate.
LACs are geographically defined. We can identify each LAC as a distinct group or entity within its regional community. Each LAC member will also be a member of other formal or informal social groups – familial, vocational, religious, sports, social, political and so on – so that each LAC is a system, every part of which is also part of, contributes to and is influenced by other systems. Each LAC is also part of the complex system of interactions – communicative, administrative, financial, social, aesthetic and so on – negotiated by QAC. QAC is in turn itself part of other systems, interacting with state and national bodies, corporate sponsors, artists and other arts industry groups and organisations, production houses, touring organisations, educational authorities, schools and teachers, and a range of government departments.
50
If we consider government alone, we see that policy and funding interactions involve a range of considerations so diverse and complex that cause and effect are not traceable with any real certainty. The outcome of a federal election could conceivably hinge on a single rural seat, where the election result swings on government support – local, state, federal, or a combination of all three – for a cultural centre. This support might in turn have been influenced by a conversation between a local candidate and an arts aficionado that took place in the foyer of the old town hall theatre during the interval of an arts council touring production. As we will see from the case of Maryborough’s Brolga Theatre (discussed in Chapter 6.2), although I have honed the example, this is not an entirely fanciful notion.
Individual artists employed by QAC are part of many interlinked systems. None can sustain their careers, other than in the short term, on QAC contracts alone, and all have careers independent of QAC. They are part of the QAC system, and of other interacting, complementary and competing systems. They are often forced to juggle or choose between conflicting commitments to QAC and other employers, and QAC competes for them in a marketplace that is becoming increasingly international. On more than one occasion QAC has nurtured the careers of artists who have gone on to achieve a degree of national and international success that has priced them out of QAC programs.7
And of course the regional, state and national economies within which the arts sector operates are all part of the greater world economy. The fortunes of Queensland communities fluctuate according to the dictates of global markets and the impacts of global environmental systems, while at the same time feeding into those systems. Overall, we are dealing with a complex, multi-layered, intertwining and intermingling of systems where currents and patterns of activity and influence interact in unpredictable ways.
7 QAC Associate Artists such as Billie Brown, Carol Burns and Geoffrey Rush are prime examples. More recently, The Topp Twins toured very successfully in 2001 but subsequently became unavailable because growing international recognition produced better paying alternatives. The Scared Weird Little Guys who toured in 2003 are unlikely to be available again for similar reasons.
51 Networks, such as Queensland’s arts council network, can provide greater predictability to relationships and interactions within parts of a system, by codifying or formalising relationships between some of the active entities within it. Entities which join together in such networks thus enhance their own authority and influence within the system.
Many have noted that the problem with this type of systems approach is knowing where to stop. If everything is interlinked, it is difficult to know where any one system begins and ends. (Phillips, 1977: 61-62) We cannot hope to chart all interactions in detail, but we can seek to understand the complexity of the field and the broad currents that activate it. “The requirement is for a conceptual model which accurately describes a system study area, and has a precision which allows a detailed analysis to be mapped into it.” (Dunderdale, 1993: 111)
2.5.2 Elites, Excellence and The Arts
The ideologies, structures and practices that today dominate the arts/cultural sector have evolved subsequent to the social and cultural upheaval of the industrial revolution. 8 The sector today largely owes its configuration to ideas that germinated at that time, and we need to understand those ideas and how they evolved if we are to negotiate arguments that excite and fracture it.
The most intense and virulent of these arguments today tend to be articulated along the differentiation between elite and popular forms. Arts practices are often evaluated, and justified or condemned, according to whether they favour the interests of elites or the interests of ‘ordinary’ people. Arguments extend into the broader political field, with the elite/popular distinction seen to have important implications for the state of democracy.
Notions of artistic excellence are pivotal in these arguments. Thus, on the one side, artistic excellence, as a surrogate for broader notions of excellence, is championed as a suitable aspiration for all in an essentially egalitarian but upwardly mobile society
8 The Industrial Revolution is more correctly thought of in terms of two distinct transformations. (Castells, 1996: 34)
52 that rewards ambition and hard work. Progressive social goals are seen to emerge from the pursuit and attainment of this excellence. Alternatively, artistic excellence is viewed as a repressive instrument used by incumbent elites to reinforce and perpetuate their elite status, while progressive social goals are seen as the exclusive attribute of popular forms. On one side excellence and opportunity are seen to provide a ladder that all can climb, on the other, it is argued that those at the top of the ladder have pulled it up after them. (Lasch, 1995: 56)
Williams (1958: 137) observes that the association of aesthetic sensibility with moral and social rectitude was a product of the intellectual history of the 19th century, although, as Borzello explains, it has much earlier roots in 16th century Italy and beyond. As early as 1780, Sir Joshua Reynolds was explaining to the Royal Academy in Britain that art could “improve society by raising citizens from sensuality to reason.” (Borzello, 1987: 4)
Certainly it was during the 19th century that the association of aesthetic excellence with social class was consolidated and integrated into a coherent social theory. In England in 1867, Sir Henry Cole advocated opening museums on Sundays to keep working class men out of public-houses. William Morris and Samuel Barnett believed the arts could morally and intellectually improve all people. By looking at fine paintings, the poor would become “religious, clean, refined, sensitive, politically conservative and able to pass the doors of public houses without going inside.” (Borzello, 1987: 5; Bennett, 1998: 126)
Pick identifies a crucial shift during the 19th century, when art changed from a descriptive term to one of judgement. The hiving off of the arts from other accomplishments defined artists as people with special skills, and fostered the vocational exclusivity by which every professional cohort seeks to elevate itself. The artist became an expert or hero. As art/culture came to be seen as a natural attribute of the upper class, there arose the notion that cultivation of the lower classes would elevate them, making them more civilised and more controllable. (Pick, 1986: 15-35; and 1988: 5) Similar ideas were evolving throughout western societies, and just a decade into the 20th century Oscar Hammerstein told the Philadelphia press that he thought grand opera to be, after religion, the most elevating influence upon modern
53 society, and that nothing else could contribute more to making good citizens. (DiMaggio, 1991)
There was another aspect to this. While the advocates of reform expressed a certain idealism, this was generally moderated by belief that the culture of the upper classes confirmed some natural order – this had reached its apotheosis in the divine right of kings – and that ultimate equality was unattainable, and even undesirable. Reynolds, who believed that the social classes represented an irrevocable natural order, and the redeeming powers of art applied only to the upper classes, typified these views. (Borzello, 1987: 5)
Thus the upper classes, both in relation to the arts and more broadly, were torn between conflicting imperatives. Genuine concerns for egalitarian values and social justice were countered by the desire to reinforce and perpetuate their own privilege. This conflict represents, on a broad canvas, a special instance of the dilemma which lies at the heart of all community: the struggle to rationalise and balance personal and community interests.
Pick explains the subtlety with which this worked in the U.K. after World War II.
“(The Arts establishment has) … continued to preserve its territory by surrounding the presentation of the Arts with impenetrable layers of protective social sophistication, so that, although it has always been correct form to proclaim a desire to increase Arts audiences, the actions of architects, designers, promoters, producers, subsidy officers, copywriters and publicists have shown that there is nevertheless a deepseated desire to remain an exclusive club for the converted.” (Pick, 1986: 32)
In the wake of the industrial revolution, heredity based class structures weakened as a new professional managerial class rose. By the middle of the 20th century the old class structure had given way to complex new structures that crossed traditional boundaries and are reflected in a range of new class theories. But despite popular mythologies, the new structures are no more egalitarian than those they replaced.
54 Stratification is seen to be hardening as the gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have- nots’ expands. (Billington et al, 1991: 101-138; Florida 2003: 320; Westergaard, 1995; Wright, 1985)
Of particular interest is a range of conceptions founded on various understandings of the role specialised knowledge and skills play in an increasingly technological society. These conceptions generally derive from, or are at least compatible with, Elite Theory, which sorts people everywhere according to two distinct categories, those who rule and those who are ruled. (Prewitt & Stone, 1977: 2) Elite Theory asserts that modern societies depend upon, and are managed by elites who hold power because of their superior education and specialisation of function. (Billington, et al. 1991)
Thus elites are diverse, and they permeate every aspect of our society. They are found at the upper levels of all institutions including governments, bureaucracies, corporations and universities, and in every field that values specialist knowledge or skills. (Trend, 1997: 27)
As Roshwald (2003) puts it, “…. civilisation - especially modern civilisation - relies heavily on expertise, which is translated into the functions of specific elites in various and diverse spheres of human needs and activity.” Roshwald links elite status to merit, noting that we deliberately seek out elites as a matter of course. We all want to go to the best doctor, or the best mechanic, or landscape gardener or lawyer. Elites, he says, are everyday. They are listed in the yellow pages.
This conception of a diverse range of elites, each specifically advantaged by one or more of a range of attributes or acquisitions, reflects the fragmentation and layering of society more accurately than do antiquated notions of class. Broad categories of elites include the governmental, professional, financial, cultural and so on. These broad categories of elites may be broken down into more specific categories. Alternatively they may be loosely aggregated into a general class of advantaged groups.
55 Combined with systems theory, elite theory allows us to understand community as being composed of many overlapping and interlocking layers of knowledge, power and influence, with each layer defined by a particular attribute set. Social, economic and political advantage accrue, and interact in complex ways. Elite status within each layer is configured around centres of power or nodes, and each node exercises hegemony through adjacent network connections. Elite status within one layer may carry over to other layers, but does not necessarily do so.
Lasch (1995) identified a new highly mobile and self-indulgent global elite. Brooks (2001) recognised a similar phenomenon in a new class of bourgeois bohemians. He called this new upper class of “stockbrokers who look like hippies” Bobos. Florida (2003: 68) recognises a broad Creative Class largely concordant with Lasch’s elite and Brook’s Bobos. It has a Super Creative Core that includes scientists and engineers, university professors, architects, artists and writers as well as the “thought leadership” of modern society. The characteristic most common to these advantaged groups is their ability to mobilise and benefit from various forms of specialised knowledge, and whether we think of them, in aggregate, as a knowledge class, or a creative class, or a meritocracy, the general configuration of this concatenation will be much the same.
As McGuigan (1992: 2) observes, elite has become a term of abuse. Elites today attract the same sort of opprobrium, from those who revile them, once reserved for heredity upper classes. Like these heredity classes, who had themselves constituted an elite, specific functional elites occupy an ambiguous role. They may be considered either to serve or exploit society, or to do both. (Prewitt & Stone, 1977: 6)
Those who favour elites, attribute to them legitimate and responsible roles in setting public political agendas, and educating and leading public opinion. Those who decry elites generally view the same roles less favourably, in terms of social engineering, the manufacturing of consent and the hobbling of democratic freedoms. Academic arguments embrace a broad range, from those who defend elites in the service of democracy (Roshwald, 2003; Shapiro, 1998; Whitehead, 2000; and Zaller, 1992) to those who think elites are dangerous, and who imply that we might be better off without them (Lasch, 1995; Tevi, 2000; Walker, 1997; Sarracino, 2000).
56
At one extreme are views like those of Lasch, who asserts that irresponsible and self- interested elites have betrayed democracy. Others, like Roshwald, argue that elites are essential to representative democracy, and that direct democracy, which would purportedly bypass and dis-empower elites, is not a generally viable option. The real choice, he says, is not about whether or not we will be ruled by elites, but about what types of elite, and how they can be kept accountable. Many of those who criticise elites, can themselves be seen, by virtue of the privileged positions they hold, positions which enable them to express authoritative opinions, as elites. Much criticism of elites is therefore better understood, not as the voices of ‘ordinary’ citizens speaking against them, but as hypocritical and cynical rivalry between competing elites.
The question of accountability is crucial. If as many would argue the world is going to hell in a hand basket, then it is largely the elites who dominate our social, economic and political agendas, that are responsible. They have, as Florida makes clear, failed the test of leadership. How will we, in effect, moderate the self-indulgent excesses and narcissism of Brooks’s Bobos and Lasch’s global elite, and demand of them ethical and responsible stewardship on behalf of all people? How will we ensure that Florida’s creative class acknowledge their responsibilities and accept the leadership that he urges on them? (Florida, 2003: 317)
Dalton et al (2004) note an international trend in which disenchantment with existing forms of representative democracy has driven a popular demand for more direct democracy: rule of the people, for the people and by the people. Landry (2000: 45) speaks of the need for a radical democratic approach to accountability, or as Slomczynski and Shabad (1999) put it, the need is for, “the normative and social integration of the political elite”.
Non-government organisations and institutions, especially those in the volunteer and non-profit sector, are perceived to have a role here. These instruments of civil society present the interests of their constituents to ruling elites, and provide ruling elites with feedback and advice, as well as serving as organs for the distribution and exercise of elite power, and harvesting some of this power for themselves. In doing
57 so they, and the people who activate them, also come to constitute minor or lesser order elites, and they generally serve to diffuse the power and status enjoyed by ruling elites. They can thus play a pivotal role in ensuring that ruling elites are held accountable, that representatives also see themselves as responsible custodians, and they can do this far more effectively than the ballot-box, which is, on its own, far too blunt and imprecise an instrument.
Queensland’s arts councils, and QAC in particular, fulfil this role in the course of their normal operations, representing and lobbying on behalf of their constituents, and securing and delivering benefits. Their effectiveness as instruments of civil society depends on the openness and transparency of their own communications and governance processes, and the degree to which they genuinely represent their constituents’ interests.
Elite theory encourages us to view those who manage arts councils, both as managerial elites, and as representative / custodians of the artistic ideals and vision that arts councils promote, on behalf of their constituents. The key representative / custodians in the arts council system are: each LAC’s management committee (the local managerial elite), QAC’s board of directors and senior management (the QAC directorial/managerial elite), and QAC’s professional staff and artists (the industry professional elite). These internal elites regularly interact with other professional industry elites, government elites and so on.
Their constituency is not merely the arts council membership, but extends to the broader regional community of which the arts council membership is only a part. This is because arts council membership is dominated by the knowledge class (see Chapter 7), and is therefore itself a broad and highly heterogeneous elite. Its constituency, to which we might consider it responsible in cultural affairs, is its host community.
58 2.5.3 Embracing Excellence
In Australia, the link between merit and elite status in the arts was institutionalised in the founding of the Australian Council for the Arts in 1968. H.C. Coombs, instrumental in this founding, was a leading champion of meritocracy in Australia. He believed that small groups of the artistically sensitive and literate would lead the nation. In the tradition of the British social reformers, Coombs posited, in effect, the dominance of an elite knowledge class, and he ensured that meritocratic principles were enshrined in the new Council. (Rowse, 1985 & 2001)
That an elite knowledge class existed in Australia, and that it largely fulfilled the functions Coombs had envisaged for it, was confirmed through research by Frow, Bennet and Emmison in 2001. Other work by Bennett and Carter (2001: 194-195) further supports this, arguing that Australia’s cultural divide is best understood in terms of a meritocracy. My research supports the relevance of such a concept of class, and shows how it operates in arts councils.
The meritocracy, the knowledge class and the creative class are three faces of the same phenomenon; they can all be seen to legitimise the rhetoric of excellence in a way that hereditary class never could. They link excellence to social, economic and political progress, and to leadership, and justify the privileged status of ruling elites by asserting the essential functions they serve.
Thus, while the mechanisms and rationales underlying social stratification have changed, and the social divisions have shifted accordingly, stratification remains. The high/low dualism defined in the time of Ruskin and Arnold persists. It remains an essentially political deployment, and many commentators have commented on its functioning and its evolution as a contrived mechanism by means of which powerful and influential people buttress their social, political and economic dominance. (Hawkins, 1993; Rowse, 1985; Ostrower, 1992; Mulgan and Worpole, 1986)
In recent decades the classification of art forms as either high or low has been revealed by many commentators, in so far as it purports to say anything meaningful about the arts themselves, to be spurious. There is a constant dialogue and flow of
59 ideas between ‘high’ and ‘low’. Hughes (1996) discusses at some length the ways in which popular art nourishes and sustains so called higher forms. He defines one of the main driving forces of modern culture as: “the interplay between high and low, the way that vernaculars insert themselves and their images into art, or find themselves reclassified as art, to the discomfiture of some and the pleasure, even the enlightenment of others.” He traces this interchange back in time to the days of Mozart, Shakespeare and beyond, and defines the notion of a homogenous and exclusive monoculture as no more than an outdated fantasy.
Walker (1983) maintains that fine art occupies a rather special place in human culture, but at the same time recognises that established cultural hierarchies – he differentiates high brow, middle brow and low brow – have broken down. Featherstone charts the aestheticisation of everyday life and notes that “art can be everywhere and anything” (1991: 94) In fact, art is, as John Seabrook has put it, “no brow”. (Florida, 2003: 201)
The ladder of excellence – described by Rowse (1983: 34) and by Stevenson (2000:53, 54, 180), has no rungs, but the problem is not with the concept of excellence itself. Indeed excellence has always had a legitimate role to play in so far as it represents the endeavour to do something as well as possible. It remains, however, a problematic concept, particularly in regard to the arts. The problem is that excellence, while masquerading as a value, is itself value free and merely an indicator of degree – a high body count might be an excellent outcome for a terrorist – and excellence needs to be defined in terms of values, objectives and specific evaluation criteria if it is to provide a useful instrument. 9
Excellence in the arts has generally been defined by default. Those invoking it use criteria of their own choosing, whether individual or organisational, deliberate and structured or idiosyncratic and ad-hoc – and because of the lack of any generally agreed values, criteria or indicators, they have usually not had to explain, account for or justify their evaluations. Where evaluation has been institutionalised and formalised this has most commonly been in terms of assessment by peers or other
9 Others have discussed the role of excellence in the arts. As well as Rowse (1985) and Stevenson (2000), see Hawkins (1993), Borzello (1987) and Kalantzis and Cope (1994).
60 experts, most commonly for funding purposes or in relation to art awards. While this may deliver a degree of unanimity amongst insiders, it often leaves outsiders unconvinced, and in the absence of transparently objective and measurable criteria the evaluation process remains opaque and arcane, and in the eyes of many, both irrelevant and corruptible. Decisions are often hotly contested, as evident in public controversy that frequently erupts over Australia Council grants to artists, or over the annual Archibald Prize where a popular choice category has been introduced as a concession to public sentiment.
There is a trend towards measurable criteria, and best practice is replacing excellence in many contexts. Measurables such as the column-inches of press coverage or bums on seats are applied where possible, particularly where the allocation of public funds needs to be justified. But measurement remains contentious and is often oblique (it is difficult to determine suitable criteria) and cumbersome (bureaucratic application and acquittal requirements pose a formidable disincentive for many artists).
We must not abandon excellence, but we need to define the term according to specific value systems and allocate specific objectives and criteria. We must be very suspicious of excellence where it is invoked in the absence of such specifics, because it is almost certainly serving the sectarian interests of those who already overwhelmingly exercise cultural power at a particular point in the spectrum of culture.
The cultural industries framework which I have adopted here bypasses subjective notions of excellence by recognising the market as an arbiter of values, but does not insist on it as the sole authority. What is essential, as Roodhouse explains (2001: 31), is: “… that activities encompassed in a cultural definitional framework are derived from the needs of communities, what they actually want, and are prepared to pay for.”
61 3 The Arts in Regional Queensland
3.1 The Origins and Birth of the Arts Council Movement.
Several factors drove the founding of Australia’s arts councils. Most immediate was a desire to alleviate the deprivation which geographic isolation and limited transport and communication options imposed on all Australians, and particularly on those who lived in the bush. For these people, access to amenities and services, opportunities for social interaction, and opportunities to engage with the arts, along with a wide range of other cultural and entertainment options, were all seen to be compromised. In the absence of significant government initiatives, volunteer arts councils provided redress.
There were other forces at work. In Britain and North America, from the middle of the 19th century, programs were increasingly organised in which art was seen as reflective of and useful to society’s moral, social and political health. In Britain art was increasingly seen by reformers as contributing to the moral and intellectual improvement of the poor. The use of art in this way sat alongside other governmental programs such as mass education, urban planning and organised policing. These programs were explicitly framed as instruments of governance – as Gibson puts it (2001: 17): “These were schemes designed to make the populace calculable and manageable.”
One manifestation of these ideals was a ‘cultural epidemic’ of Schools of Arts and Mechanics’ Institutes intended to provide a place of learning for the working man. These flourished across the British Empire and most of the English speaking world during the late 18th century and throughout the next.
In Australia these institutions were established for the explicit purpose of exerting a civilising influence on the “savage” colony. In particular it was their lot to cater for those elements of the population dispersed away from the major cities. The first Mechanics Institute was established in Hobart in 1827. Others, along with Schools of Arts and Galleries subsequently sprang up across the country until, “like a carpet of wildflowers, they spread off to the remotest and most distant corners” (Candy and
62 Laurent,1994: 3). Eventually there were more than 2,000 of these institutions in Australia.
Gibson (2001: 21) notes that the Mechanics Institutes largely failed to attract the working classes they were intended to ‘civilise’, but they did attract the middle classes who were more inclined to take advantage of the opportunities they presented. Many of the activities they promoted would not today be generally considered art, but were part of a broader cultural agenda. They “… ran libraries, held discussion groups and conducted classes that kept alive the flame of learning and culture in some of the most unlikely places.” (Macdonnell, 1997: 23-24) They also provided venues for amateur theatricals and film screenings, and many were eventually converted into cinemas.
The ideals that drove the Schools of Arts movement were infused with broader notions of the common good, with particular concern for issues of national identity which generally characterised arts policy discourse until the middle of the 20th century. Initially the objective was to recreate British society and culture in the antipodes, rather than to create uniquely Australian forms, but as the 20th century approached Australian nationalism emerged as a force and Australia became “awash with divided loyalties”. (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994: 7; Gibson: 2001: 12-43)
Following World War II, Australia was swept by what Bernard Smith (1988: 34) called a “wave of euphoria and hope for a better world”. Public arts policy, such as it existed, was driven by the view that the arts should contribute to post-war reconstruction, and to the provision of a better life in this better world. Art was seen to have a role in helping to train people “for participatory citizenship, and for (responsible) consumption.” (Gibson, 2001: 49)
When Australian singer Dorothy Helmrich came home from Britain at the start of the Second World War, she set about founding a Committee for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts (CEMA) following the model of a British CEMA founded in 1939. (MacDonnell, 1997: 12) Her ambitions were: “… to take the arts to the people – the country people – to encourage amateur groups – to provide a field in which
63 artists could support themselves by their art and, perhaps the most important of all, to take the live and fine arts into the schools.” (Helmrich, 1968)
The Australian CEMA was founded in 1943. The eminent lawyer and scholar Sir Robert Garran was an early apostle. The first edition of the CEMA Review, published in 1945, carried his eloquent expression of the organisation’s ideal. In this seminal statement Garran laid out the compound agendas that have since characterised, in various degrees, the operations of Australian arts councils and other regional arts organisations. He outlined CEMA’s intention to take the arts to the people everywhere, both cultivating appreciation and encouraging participation. (See appendix B.)
The arts, he said were “not a luxury for the few, but a necessity for all.” (Garran, 1945) And he expressed another founding view that “to have a better world we must have better citizens” and arts councils had a part to play in this. Garran went on to explain that CEMA would pursue these objectives:
… by festivals of the arts, by encouraging local orchestras, choral groups, solo and chamber musical performances, dramatic groups, touring concert and dramatic parties, ballets, folk dancing, lectures, talks and discussions, art journals, lunch-hour talks and entertainments, exhibitions, and so forth. And, lastly, by encouraging the establishment of community centres for cultural purposes, with buildings suitable for music, drama, art exhibitions, and general rendezvous of the general public.
Garran’s catalogue, in retrospect, was remarkably comprehensive. The only significant area of activity he failed to predict – if we assume “talks and discussions” to encompass seminars and conferences – was that of arts training whether in the form of discipline specific workshops or broader professional development. He concluded by stating that CEMA did not aim to compete with other cultural institutions but to work with them, and that it was non-political, non-sectarian and did not have any affiliation of any kind.
64 Thus CEMA represented, as have arts councils ever since, a complex blend of motivations and desires. As idealistic and altruistic as its ambition was, CEMA was from inception an exercise in cultural hegemony that revealed a degree of condescension on the part of its metropolitan champions towards their country cousins, whom Dorothy Helmrich was known to occasionally berate as though they were “ignorant peasants”.10
At the time there were no national theatre, opera or ballet companies. But Australia was not totally bereft of the arts. There had been some form of public operatic performance as early as 1834 (Cargher, 1977), and a “Golden Age of Australian Opera” in the late 19th century (Love, 1981) had led into the great era of travelling vaudeville, that later segued into symphony orchestras, ballet and jazz, social dancing and the cinema. But there was little government interest in the arts, and CEMA had a clear role to play as a peak lobbying and promotional body.
CEMA’s first public event was a Three Arts Festival in the open air theatre of the Children’s Library in Woolloomooloo in 1944. Driven largely by the passion and dedication of Helmrich, and a supportive group of prominent artists and citizens CEMA quickly established itself as the pre-eminent national lobby group for arts and cultural matters, and in 1947 it changed its name to the Arts Council of Australia. (Macdonnell, 1997: 1)
Growth was opportunistic and ad-hoc as the organisation grew organically, expanding to occupy the cultural void wherever there was an opportunity to be exploited or a need to be filled. As Macdonnell put it half-a-century later: “Because it had grown rather like Topsy, the work of the Arts Council in New South Wales was always an uneasy amalgam of aims and influences, expressed in a variety of programs which also grew largely at random.” (ibid: 80) By 1957 there were Arts Council Divisions in all Australian states and the ACT, and a branch in Port Moresby. The driving force still came from Sydney, and there was little activity generated in the other states.
10 A report published in the history of the Glen Innes Arts Council, It’s the Oldest Established … A History of the Glen Innes Arts Council, 1944-1994, quotes The Glen Innes Examiner on a speech Helmrich made to their local branch. Also see Macdonnell, 1997: 8, 25.
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Queensland had a particularly uncertain start. A Queensland Division of CEMA had formed in 1944 under the Presidency of Dr. J.V. Duhig, but lapsed sometime before 1948. It reformed in 1950 as a Division of the Arts Council of Australia and was moderately active for several years, hosting eight important and influential painting exhibitions before lapsing again.
In 1956 the Queensland Division formed for the third time. It was small and impoverished, fully managed by volunteers, and without an office or even a typewriter of its own. The branches which had opened in several Queensland country towns tended to deal directly with the Sydney office, which still managed tours of musical and theatrical productions into Queensland. Brisbane organised some local activities, but for several years, the Queensland Division operated as little more than a branch of the New South Wales Division.
By 1961 there were branches of the arts council in 19 Queensland country towns. In that year Gertrude Langer took over the Queensland Presidency, and the Queensland Division received its first government support, a grant of 500 pounds from the Queensland Department of Education and Cultural Activities. In 1962 it gained its first home in an office provided rent-free by the Bank of New South Wales, and employed its first full-time secretary.
The division grew steadily, receiving increased government subsidy each year. In 1963 it organised its first major tour independently of New South Wales, managing the Young Elizabethan Players through 48 towns where they played to total audiences of over 30,000. Although considered highly successful, the tour incurred a loss of more than 2,000 pounds, setting a precedent and establishing an expectation for future tours in Queensland. It rapidly became accepted as axiomatic that regional touring could not survive without substantial subsidy.
The Queensland Division registered as a company in 1964, and adopted Queensland Arts Council as its trading name. This began a golden period of touring, with QAC expanding its activities and receiving increased subsidy from the state government almost every year. By 1970 QAC had 43 branches and was presenting well over a
66 thousand events – mostly performances of drama, dance and music – to a total audience of around 300,000. QAC and its programs continued to grow for more than a quarter of a century, and was to eventually peak at over 10,000 members, presenting more than 8,000 events to a total annual audience of more than 1.3 million, before decline set in during the 1990s.
But before examining this trajectory in more detail, I take a look at the role of Government, the question of subsidy, and consider various models of facilitation.
3.2 The Role of Government and the Question of Subsidy
The arts have long been seen as both capable of serving the interests of government – that is governing elites – by helping to educate and regulate the populace; and as a potential threat to government, through their capacity to sow dissention, foment subversion and even inspire revolution. At the same time the arts have been understood to provide legitimate avenues for the expression of individual and popular sentiment, and to deliver a range of community benefits. Thus there are various incentives, to some extent contradictory, driving governing elites, whether primarily interested in the perpetuation of their own privilege, or more broadly in the welfare of their communities, to take an interest in the arts.
Pick (1988: 12) notes that in Athens, in the 5th century BC, it was compulsory for citizens to both fund and participate in the drama festivals that were central to Athenian society, and Plato illustrated government arguments both for and against art, in his discussion of poetry, and the merits of banning it from the republic.
Much later in 1768, the Royal Academy of Arts was established in London, with founders arguing that it had a public function, explained in terms of civic humanism which “constructed the individual as a citizen member of a polis governed above all by actions which were beneficial to the public”. (Gibson, 2001: 14)
In 1836, foreshadowing today’s cultural policy arguments, the British government initiated an inquiry into how education in the arts could improve British industrial design, and so benefit the nation through increased exports. Recommendations
67 included the building of public galleries, and it was anticipated that “exposure to good decorative art might in some way improve the artisans’ behavior as well as their skills.” (Borzello, 1987: 9-11) I have already discussed how these social reformist ideas contributed to the founding of schools of arts and mechanics’ institutes. Similar ideas emerged in the United States, evident in George Brown Goode’s promotion of the museum as a public facility, and William Jevons’ 1883 promotion of the principle of the multiplication of utility in relation to the benefit that free public libraries, public museums, art-galleries and other public works delivered to the community. The benefits afforded by libraries and museums were compared to those delivered by improvements in public sanitation. (Bennett, 1998: 107-9)
In Australia, the schools of arts movement lost impetus during the early 20th century, many of the buildings dedicated to it having become libraries and cinemas. A new era of federal arts patronage began, albeit very sluggishly, with the founding of the Commonwealth Literary Fund in 1908, and the Commonwealth Arts Advisory Board in 1912. The ABC was established in 1932, and within several years had established orchestras in all state capitals. But these early interventions were exceptional in a generally unsympathetic political environment, and as late as the 1940s it was not widely accepted in Australia that government had a legitimate role to play in the arts. After the Arts Council of Australia formed, Prime Minister Ben Chifley refused to support it because during the period of post-war reconstruction it would have been “political suicide” to do so. (Gibson, 2001: 68) In subsequent years government objectives evolved to encompass the view that art programs could be useful because of “their capacity to train the individual citizen for the useful expenditure of leisure and for considered and informed consump tion.” (ibid: 50)
The federal government supported the founding of the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust in 1954, but it was not until the establishment of the Australia Council for the Arts (ACA) in 1968 that the modern era of arts patronage in Australia really began. It’s worth noting however, that by this time the Queensland Government was regularly funding QAC – to the tune of $19,000 in 1968, and $30,000 the following year – and other state arts councils also received state support. In this respect, state governments were well ahead.
68 Government subsidy has been seen as a mixed blessing for the arts. While it provides for the viability of some arts producers and artists that might not otherwise survive in the industry, and thus sustains much artistic activity that might not otherwise take place, it also subjects recipients to a degree of government scrutiny and tends to foster an attitude of dependence that may influence production, or inhibit it, in possibly undesirable ways. (Di Maggio, 1981)
Whether government intervention is seen as a mechanism of control or a channel for the delivery of benefit – and it may serve both functions at the same time – is often a matter of interpretation. Analysts such as Foucault and Gramsci assert – although their accounts differ on the mechanism – that government control over culture functions for the greater benefit of the ruling classes. Gramsci characterised the state as the great educator dedicated to raising the mass of the people to a particular cultural and moral level, in essence so that they can produce and consume more efficiently, for the ultimate benefit of the ruling class. Foucault attributes a less deliberate role to the state, but sees it opportunistically exploiting “technologies of domination” to much the same ends. (Foucualt, 1982: 223; Bennett: 1998: 60-84)
The reasons governments give for their interventions are invariably articulated in terms of benefits to communities. Two broad categories of justification are usually acknowledged: a concern for equity and social justice, and a concern for the public good. These concerns are closely interrelated, and to some extent merge and overlap.11
A concern for equity underlies the subsidising of, in particular, arts programs implemented under the rubric of community arts/community cultural development (CA/CCD) where they are provided for disadvantaged or marginalised groups. Regional arts programs, countering geographic disadvantage, might be considered a subset of CA/CCD, although they are generally presented as a separate category of activity.
11 Critical analysis identifies five or more underlying rationales. (Molloy, 1994)
69 Much government support for the arts is justified by invocation of public good in some form. This rationale prevails wherever the benefits of arts/cultural activities are perceived to extend beyond direct participant/consumers to the community at large. In its broadest conception the community extends to the national, or even international, community. As Gibson argues (2001), Australian arts policy, since the middle of the 20th century in particular, has been directed more than anything else at constructing national identity, which is uncritically arrayed as a public good. Artistic excellence, seen to be good for the nation, is assumed to be good for the people.
Recent discussion of the public good centres largely on art’s ability to generate social capital, positing networks of trust and reciprocity that deliver benefits in the form of stronger and more cohesive, resilient and sustainable communities. (Stone and Hughes, 2002; Cox: 2002) Matarasso for example (1997), identifies fifty ways in which participation in the arts delivers positive social impacts, which he classifies in six broad dimensions. The arts are also seen to have economic multiplier effects; they stimulate cultural tourism; they improve quality of life by enhancing built environment and increasing lifestyle and leisure opportunities, and generally contribute to the revitalisation of communities (Kingma, 2002; Trotter, 2001) They are also increasingly linked to health benefits through a broad and holistic view which understands health, not merely as an absence of disease but as a positive state of wellbeing. (Clifford and Kaspari, 2003: 10; Putland, 2003)
Thus a diverse range of arguments have been available to those advocating government support for the arts over recent years. But arts funding remains contentious. While it is generally accepted that government has a role in supporting the arts, many Australians begrudge subsidies. Those outside the arts sector may consider the arts to be a luxury and not essential, as the preserve of a privileged elite, and they may see artists as self-absorbed non-conformists who survive on hand-outs (the philistine arguments).
Even within the arts sector some argue that arts funding is essentially iniquitous because it: “privileges a minority of cultural practices and products as ‘art’ whilst the rest are classified by implication as inferior or less serious forms of entertainment.” (Stevenson, 2000: 180) Variations of this argument are also used to attack the
70 rationales and priorities underlying distribution within the sector (the partisan arguments). We might thus expect government subsidies to QAC, which have been substantial over many years, to attract at least occasional attack. In addition, government elites are quite properly concerned to ensure that funds are distributed where they will do the most good. Whether they are driven primarily by their own narrow interests, or by genuine concern for the broader community, we should expect them to review funding allocations frequently and in the light of evolving policy frameworks.
State subsidy of QAC began with the first grant of $500 pounds made through the Department of Education in 1961. Funding grew steadily. In 1968 the state government formed a new Department of Cultural Activities which incorporated an Arts Portfolio. The new department took over QAC funding which continued to grow, reaching $105,000 in 1974, $500,000 in the early 1980s, and almost $1.25 million in 1998. The core subsidy has remained around this level since, but has been boosted in some years by additional amounts for special programs. In 2003 total state government funding of more than $1.5 million included a little over $1.2 million in core funding, more than $150,000 directed at school programs, and another $130,000 directed at other specific programs.
Federal government funding has been more irregular. It began in 1971 with a grant from the ACA to the Federal Arts Council of Australia (FACA), which then disbursed funds to the states. This system of distribution continued into the 1980s with various state arts councils frequently arguing over their allotment and disputing FACA’s dispersal formula. In the mid 1980s the Community Arts Board of the Australia Council severely cut funds to FACA and began funding states directly under more stringently applied guidelines. Nevertheless, QAC continued to receive some funding until 1995 when it received more than $140,000. That was the last year of core funding through the Australia Council, although the federal government has continued to provide special purpose grants. In 2003 these grants amounted to nearly $200,000. QAC has also served as a ‘funds manager’ for several years, administering on behalf of DCITA a Regional Arts Fund worth $367,508 in 2003.
71 The changing political climate, and competition for funds from both within and without the arts sector, mean that arts subsidies can rarely be taken for granted.
3.3 Models of Facilitation – The Orthodoxies
From the beginning, the arts council movement represented an amalgam of attitudes and ideologies. Inheriting an ideological legacy passed down by 19th century social reformers, it embraced a commitment to notions of excellence, but at the same time, as in Garran’s seminal 1945 paper, advocated active participation. Both imperatives were inflected by idealism, with Garran asserting that “to have a better world we must have better citizens”, while Helmrich’s advocacy of participation positioned amateur arts practice in a virtuous circle, wherein its main function was to increase the amateur’s appreciation of quality. 12
The Arts Councils stand for the encouragement of the arts. But that is no mere abstraction; to encourage the arts for the sake of the arts means nothing. If the words mean anything, they mean the encouragement of those practising and those appreciating the arts – both artist and audience. Too often the professional artist is contemptuous of the amateur, forgetting that it is very largely from the ranks of the amateur that his audience is built. The amateur needs help from the artist, so that he may become both a better executant and a more appreciative listener or spectator, thus enriching his life and developing his personality. (Dorothy Helmrich, 1947: 14)
The idealism expressed by Garran and Helmrich was not generally reflected amongst the regional constituency in two important respects.
Firstly, whereas tours were dispatched by these metropolitan champions of the arts council in the idealistic and evangelical spirit epitomised above, they were received by regional constituencies in a far more profane and robust mood – considered entertainment, and very enthusiastically received. During the 1960 and 1970s
12 The virtuous circle is a potent metaphor. Castells uses it (2000: 3), and so does Leadbeater (2000: 14) although in different ways (2000: 14).
72 attendances of 300-400 were common, and it was not until television arrived that they fell significantly.
It is instructive to compare this transition to the fate of mechanics institutes which had earlier failed to attract the mechanic classes they were intended to civilise, but were instead taken over by the middle classes for entertainment and social advancement. (Gibson, 2001: 21-26) In both cases the high minded ideals of elite promoters were rejected by intended users, and replaced by more profane and worldly concerns as the middle class took over.
In Queensland the arts council dominated the regional arts field, having almost exclusive franchise until the late 1970s when the community arts movement (subsequently to segue into the community cultural development movement, hence CA/CCD) began to take hold.
Hawkins (1993) provides an account of the CA/CCD sector, from its beginning as an invention of government policy implemented through the Australia Council – first under the auspices of the Community Arts Committee from 1973 to 1977, then the Community Arts Board in 1978, and the Community Cultural Development Committee which has since become the Community Cultural Development Board.
Community arts began as part of a program to democratise the arts by providing access to those otherwise denied access by economic, social or geographic disadvantage. It gave de-facto recognition to arts practice excluded by the discourse of excellence that dominated arts funding through the Australia Council. CA provided “an extremely convenient category in which to group all those left out in the cold” by these “restricted and elitist definitions of value”. (Hawkins, 1993: 13. Also see Pitts & Watt, 2001)
The CA/CCD sector subsequently developed a strong identity and an ethos that focused on process and prioritised social rather than aesthetic outcomes. As Mills explains, during the 1970s community arts meant access to arts product and skills development, and an antidote to television; in the late 1970s it became a forum for challenging notions of excellence and cultural homogeneity; and during the 1980s it
73 evolved into the more comprehensive concept – almost a philosophy – of community cultural development which was defined in terms of “people working together to bring about improved understandings and/or changes important to them in their lives.” (Mills, 1999: 3)
The sector was inherently political from the start, standing in opposition to the rhetoric of excellence, which Hawkins describes as a self-serving contrivance of the elites, and became increasingly and more explicitly political as it evolved, establishing a register of acceptable methodologies, and producing, along the way, a substantial body of theory.
These rotated around the objective of establishing community as a counter force to the hegemony of oppressive powers (the establishment, the state, elites and world of Art) on one hand, and capitalism on the other. It was a simplistic logic: “If Art and capitalism are bad, then community and ‘the people’ are good;” (Hawkins, 1993: 19)
CA evolved into CCD during the 1980s. Whereas CA had generally been project based and involved traditional artistic forms, CCD required extended involvement towards broader and more ambitious developmental goals, and embraced a wider range of activities. There was no clear distinction between the two, and Steve Capelin, a practitioner whose career spanned the transition, noted that: “the very best community art invariably leads participants and communities along a developmental path.” Capelin also reveals some of the uncertainties plaguing the sector as it sought to rationalise its ideology and methodology within a highly political field, commenting with regard to one project: “Now all of this had very little to do with cultural development and a lot to do with community and economic development, and while very challenging and valuable work, left me wondering what my real job was.” (Capelin, 2000: 33-37)
One early key shift in the CA/CCD sector was from the term artist in community to community artist implying that the artist is not merely working within the community, but is working for the community. (Hawkins, 1993: 125) Pitts and Watt give added dimension to this semantic exactitude, and take it a step further, discussing artwork that is “In, for, with, of and by the community.” (Pitts & Watt, 2001: 12)
74
Adoption of the term artworker by many in the sector exemplified their rejection of the artist as expert or hero, within a registry of practices which allowed everybody to become an artist. Cultural production was recognised as a collective process in which individual talent, individual authorship and aesthetic excellence were rejected – they were considered reactionary – and communal ownership became the aspirational norm. This was fine in theory but occasionally broke down in practice as individual egos inevitably demanded that personal contributions were recognised. Curriculum Vitae had to be composed, and careers were to be made.
The sector has always been highly diverse, accommodating a wide range of ideas and practices, and splintered by fictions, factions and emotions. Particularly heated arguments arose over the degree to which CA/CCD ought to compromise its principles and consort with the enemy – government and business – to solicit funds. Contributions to one internet discussion group (at www.communitybuilders.nsw.gov.au) provide an example.13
An October 2000 contribution suggesting that CCD should start with the artist brought the response: “start with the artist? I would have thought CCD could start with the community.” This brought a reaction from another contributor, which I quote at length because it gives a good sense of dissention fragmenting the sector:
(with errors and punctation in the original) “What a load of auld bollocks. Here we have it again - another example of the CCD mob getting all hoity about some other poor sods who didn’t get it exactly right ….. We really need to stop pretending we we have a monopoly on the community, that we know whats best for it, its very patronising - if we really know how to do it better ….. why can’t we define it. Until CCD gets a bit of clarity about the world as it is rather than as it would like it to be, it we have no right to sneer at anyone for committing sins like putting the idea first (or the artist) or developing initiatives with the best of intentions but without the secret knowledge of the CCD sector. Maybe that’s what the
13
75 debate should have been about from the start - how to get CCD off the moral high ground and into the real world, how to get the chip off its shoulder. I think there are a lot of good people out there who have had a gutful - maybe there is an alternative forum which could convene to really give CCD the reality check that it needs - anyone for FUCCD?”
Despite conflicts and divisions within the sector, it came to represent a reasonably coherent face and its general political orientation and aims were clear even if strategies and methods were not. The sector became increasingly identified with disadvantaged groups and minorities, becoming the field where marginal groups produced marginal art. (Hawkins 1993: XIX) Social justice has remained a constant concern for those working in the sector, as Stannard explicates. “Community Arts has come to mean arts that engage Communities. Fair enough. My question is: In what do we want to engage communities? If we simple want to engage communities in the arts, then I’m not interested. This isn’t about the arts. Community arts is about social change.” (Stannard, 2000).
As Hawkins notes, patronage is enabling, and it was undoubtedly Australia Council funding that allowed CA/CCD to grow, flourish and consequently to develop a reasonably coherent ethic. Hawkes (2003) notes that in Australia more than anywhere else in the world CCD has been driven by government, to the extent that there’s an: “unspoken assumption that if there’s not a (subsidised) artist in the picture, then it’s not happening.” The Australia Council has been the sector’s most constant patron, but Flowers (2002) notes that significant support has come from other public sector agencies including “health, regional development, environmental protection, youth and community services and housing”. These agencies have taken an instrumental view of the arts, seeking outcomes in terms of their specific fields. All levels of government – national, state and local – have become involved in this way, and from 1982, the largest body representing Australian workers, the ACTU, strongly supported various programs under the rubric of Art in Working Life.
Champions of the CA/CCD model were critical of the traditional arts council model, which they saw as elitist, politically repressive and out of date. They characterised it as the “touring and access model” and accused it of servicing a narrow and already
76 privileged sector of the population, to be, in effect, still beholden to 19th century notions of class and privilege.
In states where the traditional model was relinquished somewhat earlier, arts councils, adopted elements of CCD, or the organisations that replaced them adopted a generally CA/CCD model. In Queensland CA/CCD became predominantly the concern of Queensland Community Arts Network (QCAN), funded by both state and federal governments, which is dedicated to supporting and servicing the CCD sector by providing resources and training across the state. Other organisations operating in Queensland have adopted CA/CCD ideologies and methodologies to various degrees. A guide published by QCAN in 2003, lists 19 dedicated CCD organisations in Queensland.
The role of CCD has changed. There is a dilemma for professional arts workers once they have established community cultural development projects “in, for, with, of and by the community”, because when they have done this, and once community members have taken responsibility for the work, there is no longer a role for professionals. They have made themselves redundant. They have ‘ideologued’ themselves out of a job. What’s left for professional arts workers to do? (Pitts & Watt, 2001) QCAN has answered this dilemma by turning to training. Training the community to take control of its own cultural production is now QCAN’s core business.
Adams and Goldbard (2001: 17-25) list seven principles underlying CCD in terms of: active participation; cultural pluralism; recognition of social diversity; social transformation; emancipation; holistic approach; and the artist as catalyst. These generally represent the ideology dominant in the sector, and I refer to them briefly in Chapter 9.6, but those seeking a detailed discussion of them should turn to Hawkes. (2003: 47-52)
CA/CCD has remained political. Dee Martin, Executive officer of QCAN for some years, explained her commitment this way:
77 As I became more involved with the community cultural development (CCD) sector, I admit I was dismissive of the range of practices of which it was comprised. Those that had no overt political position (small ‘p’ please) for example, weren’t ‘real’ CCD. I identified ‘real’ CCD as having political analysis, a process that affected social change, and a conscious privileging of those communities traditionally made invisible by the dominant culture. ….. I still embrace that approach. (Martin, 2002)
The oppositional left/right dichotomy is an inadequate frame for considering complex issues of culture, but it nevertheless generates enormous heat. Those who support CA/CCD attack the elite touring model – also called the excellence and access model – and see QAC as a bastion of reactionary ideology and method. Those who support the elite touring model see CA/CCD as a disorganised and delinquent rabble. On both sides this caricature is unjust, however there are important differences between the two. In general CA/CCD is more democratic and emancipatory, while the elite touring model, notwithstanding its idealism and altruism, is inherently hegemonic.
The arts council model is sometimes derided as ‘hit and run’ on the grounds that a touring company arrives in a community, stays only long enough to perform, and then moves on, apparently leaving nothing behind. Meanwhile critics of CA/CCD argue that its explicit politics alienate large sections of the population, and this combined with emphasis on process and intangible social outcomes, have led critics to dismiss it out of hand.
One important difference between the two is in the interpretation and emphasis placed on participation. In the 1940s and 1950s Dorothy Helmrich saw participation in terms of her evangelistic desire to enlighten:
CEMA in N.S.W. from the beginning took the view that one of its functions was to foster amateur activities. It is a sound educational principle that any attempt to practice an art or craft heightens appreciation of the work of the fine artist or craftsman. This heightened
78 appreciation in its turn, helps to raise the standard of the amateurs work and a virtuous circle is set up. (Helmrich, 1947)
Access had entered the CA/CCD lexicon during the 1970s as the nascent movement attempted to democratise the arts, but as Hawkins explains, this was later abandoned in favour of participation. “The shift from access to art to participation in culture was crucial. It signified a new interpretation of the idea that art had transformative qualities.” (Hawkins, 1993: 128) Thus participation was no longer the “poor relation” of appreciation, but was recognised as an essential principle of CCD practice that could produce transformative change. There is understood to be a multi-dimensional nexus between factors such as self-expression, self-esteem, creativity, mental and physical health, social interaction, social capital, lifestyle, cultural and economic capital, community revitalisation, and wealth.
The arts council movement picked up the terminology of access around the time that the CA/CCD sector abandoned it. QAC (then a division of The Arts Council of Australia) first formally expressed its mission in terms of access in the Statement of Purpose published in its 1984 Annual Report. Today QAC still expresses its mission in terms of access, with the slogan arts access statewide. One advantage of access is that it is a ‘catch all’ term, broad enough to encompass all the organisation’s activities without favouring either touring or CCD, although as I discuss later, this breadth is also a disadvantage.
As the regional arts sector evolved, the CA/CCD sector which is separate but substantially overlapping, also evolved, merging with and accommodating broader development agendas. CA/CCD did not exactly come in from the margins, but it did gain credibility and authority, as policy makers came to recognise its instrumental utility. The arts council evolved too, leaving its early evangelism behind and responding to criticism that it was old fashioned and patriarchal by dismantling centralised structures, giving more autonomy to regional groups, and taking CA/CCD agendas on board.
The orthodox CA/CCD and arts council approaches might also be understood in terms of asset and deficit models, the one seen to be building on a communities
79 strengths, the other to be addressing its weaknesses. When we think of them in these terms, it is clear that a comprehensive development strategy should do both.
3.4 Convergence Models
As new models of community engagement were developed and new types of project trialed, broader understandings of culture and commerce found common ground, collapsing the essentially Manichaean view that art/culture and commerce are mutually alien. 14 The final years of the 20th century ushered in a new generation of innovative projects driven by a more adventurous and entrepreneurial spirit, and by new explication of the public good – although the term itself was out of fashion and rarely used – in terms of social and cultural capital and infrastructure, economic prosperity, education, community health and wellbeing, public safety, lifestyle quality and lifestyle options.
These all met in the great churning cauldron of community, stirred by the ideas and ambitions of those active in the field, to generate a new field of praxis and theory that revolves around concepts of community building, community capacity, community revitalisation, and community sustainability. None of the elements within this field is entirely new – but they form a new synthesis, and culture provides the matrix that accommodates them all, and harnesses them in the common interest. Simplistic political distinctions between left and right become irrelevant in a field that both champions entrepreneurship, and focuses on responsible and equitable social outcomes.
Tregilgas (2001) explains the convergence in terms of social enterprises. These are market based ventures, with governance structures based on stakeholder participation, that address social aims, such as employee owned businesses, credit unions and cooperatives. They strive for a triple bottom line – economic, social and environmental sustainability. The model is obviously not new – Tregilgas applied it to the Adelaide Festival Fringe during his time as director between 1980 and 1984 –
14 Throsby (2001) uses the metaphor of an exotic and mysterious young woman who meets a garrulous male hypochondriac with body odour at a party, and asks whether they have a future together.
80 but it has great applicability in this newly energised community development field. A similar approach is advocated by Jennifer Williams at the U.K. Centre for Creative Communities, an independent think tank initially established to further cultural exchange, but which now focuses on participatory development and the role of arts in education and community building. (Williams, 1998)
The social enterprise lies at the heart of civil society, as defined by the community capacity building (CCB) approach employed NGOs such as Oxfam in developing countries. The CCB approach, very much like CCD, focuses on empowerment, participation, equity and a special concern for the disadvantaged and excluded. Micro-businesses are effective empowerment vehicles. While definitions of CCB vary, its concerns and strategies remains constant. It is not a method of development, but an approach to development through the building of social capital and strengthening of civil society. 15 Its theories have been influenced by the writings of Paulo Freire and the liberation theology movement. Capacity building cannot be undertaken in isolation but is deeply embedded in the social, economic and political environment. (Eade, 1997: 3)
McQueenie talks of the three Cs – community, culture and commerce – and notes that the sum is greater than the parts. He describes the convergence this way:
At a time when urban contemporary artspaces are under pressure to not only market their product but also develop new audiences, they are being impelled into the communities. At the same time, the corporate sector is developing this notion of the triple bottom line. Whether their intentions are honorable or not doesn’t matter. They are coming. The place where the convergence of the arts agenda and this triple bottom line (happens) is in the community, the hearts and minds of the community Both the arts and industry are after that. The sector most well equipped to deal with that convergence is the community cultural sector. (McQueenie, 2001)
15 Eade adopts a definition which sees civil society as one of three interlocking spheres - the others being the state and the market - that constitute democratic society. Civil society is the sphere in which social movements become organised, and includes organisations such as trade unions, cooperatives, service organisations, community groups and youth organisations, academic institutions and so on.
81
The point about this sector is that everything is interlinked. While cause and effect may be difficult to disentangle and assign with any precision, and the effects of particular policies, programs or activities are difficult to measure precisely, there is a growing body of literature describing the multi-dimensional nexus. Garlick (2001:11) links social capital to wealth generation, calling it a factor of production equivalent to more tradeable factors and capital items; Putnam (2000: 319-325) links social capital directly to economic prosperity; Marlyn McInnerney (2000) links community development to economic development; Paynter (2001) views the arts and business as symbiotic partners; Walmsley (2001) replaces the triple bottom line of social, economic and environmental sustainability with a quadruple bottom line – social, economic, environmental and cultural; the Queensland Government (2003) sees cultural vitality as a key indicator of quality of life; and there is increasing awareness of the wealth generated by cultural tourism, as well as its costs. (Craik, 2001: 89-111)
There is another convergence happening here. I have described community as a great cauldron in which CA/CCD has entangled and merged with broader notions of community development and economic development. Using a different but comparable metaphor, Landry has written of “layers upon layers of urban interconnections - personal, political or economic” that activate his creative city. (Landry 2000: 22)
Roodhouse (2001: 28) draws the various levels together, positing culture as the all- embracing framework, that provides “a rational strategic mechanism for making sense of our activities at community, regional and national levels.” Culture, he says, is everyday: “… we are an integral part of the culture in which we live. Therefore it should be an everyday part of personal and professional lives that we are engaged in environmental, social and economic matters that reflect the cultural life of our town or city.” (ibid: 29)
The creative industries view of creativity is compatible with that promoted by CA/CCD. Creativity is no longer the exclusive preserve of a few heroic geniuses – but it is something we all have access to. “Factory workers and even the lowest-end service workers” can be creative. (Florida, 2003: 10) There is opportunity for
82 creative input at many different points and in many different ways in the production cycle. “creativity is increasingly seen as an attribute that needs to be embedded in every process or project, and not merely in the new and obviously creative industries.” (Landry, 2000: 82)
Not only is creativity potentially everywhere, and something we can all mobilise, it is, within the creative industries paradigm essentially not an individual but a social phenomenon. Networking and creativity, Landry says (2000: 126) are intrinsically symbiotic.
Leadbeater (2000:10) also identifies collaboration as the driving force behind creativity, and stresses the fundamental importance of social capital or networks of trust. “Collaborative networks, not companies are fast becoming the basic units of innovation and production in the new economy.” (Leadbeater, 2000: 14) And Florida (2003: 28, 48) says creativity is multi-faceted and multi-dimensional, and social not individual. Its very structure is social. These ideas are all strongly congruent with CA/CCD’s denial of individual authorship in favour of the group, and with CCB’s emphasis on social capital and the important role played by civil society organisations. (Baker, 2000; Eade, 1997; Frumkin, 2002; Latham, 2001; Wilkinson and Bittman, 2002; Winter, 2000)
These ideas gravitate towards and support the principle that creativity and collaboration, along with diversity, tolerance and recognition of mutual interests, reside at the heart of healthy and progressive communities, and provide the enabling paradigm of Creative Community Culture. The Queensland Government (2002: 3), recognised this, formulating the aspiration that each community become: “… a culturally dynamic place, rich in diversity and experiences - where ideas and talent are supported; where artistic and cultural pursuits are encouraged; and where the economy is enhanced by excellence in creative innovation.”
Viewing Queensland’s LACs within a cultural industries framework allows us to see their role in terms of fostering Creative Community Culture, through an integrated mode of arts facilitation that embraces CA/CCD, CCB and the traditional arts council model, adopting elements of each model, and applying these wherever most
83 appropriate, and to best effect. Fleming’s discussion of local cultural industries support services in the U.K. provides a good point to start:
It makes sense for a local cultural industries support service to be developed specifically through an understanding of the development needs of the local cultural sector. Intermediaries must engage in processes of ongoing research into the local sector, identifying strengths and weaknesses and developing services accordingly. ….. The key to developing effective local embededness is the adoption of a “bottom-up strategy”, nurturing existing activity and information networks; accelerating “the organic”; listening to what is required from different parts of the cultural sector, at different stages in the business life-cycle, and from different social and ethnic groups. (Fleming, 1999: 196)
In a world system characterised by vast iniquity in the exploitation of resources and distribution of wealth, where current patterns of resource use are unsustainable, we need to break the nexus between quality of life and material consumption. We need to find ways to live better, and gain more satisfaction from our lives, without increasing our consumption of material goods. We need to be more intelligent and more creative in our everyday lives. Creative Community Culture may show the way.
4 Fluctuating Fortunes
By almost any measure QAC grew strongly between 1961 and the early 1990s. Government endorsement of the organisation, measured in terms of public funding subsidies, expanded from zero to more than a million dollars; the organisation’s total budget grew from a thousand pounds to almost six million dollars; professional staff increased from one to more than 30. Key internal measures – the numbers of branches, members, activities and participants – all tell a consistent story of growth. But during the 1990s, the critical numbers began to fall, leading to crisis and restructure at the turn of the century. In this section I look at this evolution and examine reasons.
84 4.1 The Measures
There are various ways in which the performance of LACs might be evaluated. In the past, performance across the network was judged by a range of objective, although not always comprehensive, statistics, including the number of branches (as they were then), branch membership statistics, attendance at QAC tours, and the range and extent of locally generated activity and the support it drew from communities. Some branches did very little, others were highly active, while many have waxed and waned over the years.
In conducting a survey to guide selection of LACs for case study, I considered the indicators listed above, along with others including: perceptions of the vitality and effectiveness of LACs held by QAC staff, LAC administrative efficiency judged by compliance with QAC processes, and the general tenor of relationships with QAC.
To understand how individual LACs contribute to the strength and vitality of the network that constitutes QAC’s organisational backbone, we need to consider them in some detail. Each is an agent of QAC within its local community. It gives QAC a local face and character. It also provides a communications hub and a central rallying point where members and others interested in the arts might congregate, and a gateway to a network of relationships within the community. It provides a channel for arts council communications, and a supportive logistical framework for activities. The most effective LACs provide a mechanism for involvement not only in arts council and its activities, but also in a range of other organisations and their activities. They become local cultural catalysts and producers. This has been the vision and potential.
The raw number of branches provides an indication of network growth and decline over the years, but it does not take into account the strength or weakness of individual branches. More telling are participation statistics and the number of members. These indicate the extent to which arts council, through tours and other activities in general, and through the energy and activity of the local management elite in particular, has been able to attract support from local communities.
85 Unfortunately there is limited reliable membership data from past years. Branch administration undertaken by volunteers was often casual, even haphazard, and membership records and statistics relayed to QAC were irregular and inconsistent. Participation statistics, in particular attendance figures for QAC tours which were collected by touring managers and other professional staff, provide a far more consistent and comprehensive picture. These provide the most direct measure of demand and support for particular programs and events amongst the broader community.
In 1964, for every QAC member at any given performance across the state (on average), there were an additional 22 people in the audience. In 1991, for every member at a performance, there was only one additional person in the audience. I have expressed this relationship, audience numbers compared to members, as a ratio which I have called the Attendance Member Ratio (AMR). A high AMR (on the above figures it was 23 in 1964) indicates that the arts council is reaching far beyond its membership to draw an audience from the broader community. A low AMR (it was two in 1991) indicates that arts council’s outreach into the community is more restricted. An AMR of less than two indicates that members make up the bulk of an audience.16 It is clear from this that in its early years arts council attracted a broad section of the community, but by 1991 the majority of branches were struggling to reach beyond their immediate membership, and attract broader participation.
16 In making these calculations I have assumed that every adult member attended each performance in their area. This is of course certainly not the case, but irrespective of whatever error this assumption incurs, the general point I make here is valid. Adult tours over three years 1999-2001, show that of 62 LACs across the state only 14 had an AMR of greater than one, and three of these were NARPACA centres where QAC tours benefited from presentation in large professionally managed venues with extensive community links. These professionally managed venues are not dependent the support of LACs or their members..
86 4.2 Network Growth and Decline
The QAC branch network grew steadily throughout the 1960s and 1970s. State-wide membership statistics are not available for much of this period, but it’s clear that membership generally grew as the network expanded. By 1979 there were 64 branches and 4,000 members, and QAC was annually auspicing nearly 3,000 events to total audiences of more than half a million. New branches continued to open through the 1980s, although others closed, and the overall number of branches oscillated between 60 and 70.
In 1988 there were 68 branches and almost 6,000 events were presented to audiences totalling more than one million. Membership however, had slumped to around 2,500. This was probably the result of complacency and neglect rather than intrinsic decline. An internal review in 1988 recommended a state-wide membership drive offering increased benefits, including discounts for advance bookings at QAC touring programs. The decline was reversed, and membership rapidly doubled, reaching 5,000 within a year, even though only one new branch had opened in that time.
Membership subsequently kept climbing, and peaked at over 10,000 in 1991 and 1992. At the same time there was a rush of new branches, and the network peaked at 84 branches in 1992. But total audience had peaked three years earlier at 1.32 million in 1989. Activity peaked at 8,192 events in 1994, by which time the total state-wide audience had dropped to 843,036.
87 GRAPH 4.1 QAC: Trends in Number of Branches, Participation and Total Activities, 1965-2003
These asynchronous peaks: maximum audience in 1989, most branches and members in 1992, and greatest activity in 1994, marked a turning point for the organisation, and the disjunction between them is significant. (See Graph 4.1.) Between 1992 and 1994, with more branches, more members, and more activities than ever before, the organisation should have been at its zenith – but with the total state-wide audience down around 36% from its 1989 peak, it was clear that the interest and involvement of communities had fallen away.
This is emphatically apparent if we look at the size of the average audience, which had slumped from 212 in 1989, to 102 in 1992, a drop of more than 50%. World- wide depression, local recession and widespread drought undoubtedly contributed to this, as did the always increasing range of alternative leisure activities and other pastimes, including rapidly evolving electronic forms. But as dramatic as it was, the sudden collapse of interest between 1989 and 1992 was not exceptional, but merely a short term amplification of a consistent long term trend. Average audiences had been falling since the 1960s.
88 The highest annual average audience was 382 for all events (seven tours and 378 performances) in 1965. The average audience for all events throughout the 1960s fell to 266, and for all events during the 1970s it fell again to 212. During the 1980s the average audience dropped to 178, and by 1992, when the network was at maximum reach across the state, the average audience was 121. The low of 102 in 1994, was followed by a moderate but constant recovery, and the average audience had climbed back to 136 by 2002.
If we look at school programs alone, the average audience has dropped constantly and relatively consistently from 304 in 1967, to a low of 107 in 1995, and since then has shown signs of stopping the slide to oscillate between 100 and 120.17
Adult audiences have shown much more volatility due to the great variation in type and scale of production, and other more capricious variables over a much smaller number of tours and performances. The average audience increased dramatically in some years, and dropped in others, but the overall trend across four decades, has been consistently down. As with schools, there appears to be a recovery in recent years, with the average audience bottoming out at 86 in 1999, and recovering to 165 in 2001.
What caused this? Why was the arts council taken up with such enthusiasm, with new branches forming from 1961 until 1994, while at the same time it was drawing fewer people to performances? And why did the dynamics change so markedly during the 1990s? To understand we need to examine the historical context.
17 Ontour inschools (OTIS) is an autonomous program, operates in a very specific context (that is within the state’s education system) discrete from other QAC programs, and may in many respects be considered completely independent from them. Different context specific factors operate for each program, and it is not safe to assume that apparent similar trends in audience numbers for OTIS and other programs are directly related. While students are the ultimate recipients of OTIS programs, demand is determined by teachers, principals and parents. They decide which programs will be offered within their schools, and which students and how many will attend, and their decisions are influenced by many factors including curricula and timetables, state-wide and individual school policies, class and behaviour management issues, and the attitudes of individuals. It is very unlikely that the same factors responsible for Ontour onstage (OTOS) audience trends are directly responsible for OTIS audience trends. Trends in both programs may however both constitute, in a very broad sense, different context specific but ultimately convergent reactions to the evolving cultural environment encompassing schools and the broader community they serve. Past attempts to integrate OTIS with other QAC program streams have had little impact, but it is possible that current initiatives in this direction will bear more fruit.
89 It has been a common assertion, made by contributors to this research in various sites, that: “Before arts council there was nothing here.” It is true that some communities were more isolated and more culturally deprived than others, some may never have been exposed to live performance of a professional standard, and forms such as ballet, opera and chamber music were completely absent from many towns, but can there have been literally “nothing” before arts council”? And if not, what was there and what did arts council bring?
4.3 Before Arts Council
Queensland’s Indigenous peoples upheld cultural practices for thousands of years before Europeans took possession. These included music, dance, song, story-telling and painting – all endowed with ritual purpose, and expressing meaning in aesthetic and symbolic form. These Indigenous arts have to some extent been rediscovered in recent decades, but for some two centuries, including the period during which arts council germinated and grew, they had been neglected, marginalised, suppressed and destroyed. To the extent that they were recognised and acknowledged, they were preserved as anthropological specimens and artefacts – but as the wealth of this Indigenous heritage is rediscovered, we are reminded that it was here first. McInness (1997: 114-119), for example, discusses the historical, cultural and artistic significance of highly decorated fighting shields used by Aboriginal people living in the coastal rainforest around Cooktown. During the northern gold rush of the 1870s these people were driven from their lands and their way of life was largely destroyed. Records from the Cooktown branch of QAC which operated from 1991 to 1995 make no mention of Indigenous peoples or their art.
European invader/settlers brought popular expressive and recreational forms. They played musical instruments, sang, danced and told stories. They painted, wrote and made things with their hands. They decorated their homes, and embellished and orchestrated their lives with symbol and ritual.
Schools of arts spread across the state from around the middle of the 19th century, and by 1908, there were 181. More were formed, and the Queensland Schools of Arts Association eventually claimed 290, although this figure seems optimistic. (Candy
90 and Laurent, 1994)18 Some schools of arts closed for lack of community support. Some became cinemas and provided venues for dances and other social events. Most operated as libraries, and many of these were eventually taken over by local authorities, thus providing the foundation of Queensland’s public library system.
Brass bands were formed in many towns. Gympie was one of the strongest brass band towns, and in 1877 the Gympie Oddfellows Band won the first contest held in the state. In the following years, band contests were held in Gympie (1894), Bundaberg (1895), Mt. Morgan (1900), Brisbane (1900, 1901 & 1903), Charters Towers (1902), Toowoomba (1903) and Maryborough (1904). During the 1920s and 1930s every substantial town had its own band. These bands provided the only significant public entertainment, playing in public parks and streets on Sunday afternoons. (Carnes, 2004)
There were eisteddfods in the larger regional centres. From its origins amongst the Welsh community on the Ipswich coalfields in 1881, the movement had spread across the state and several circuits were established, with eisteddfods in many regional centres including Nambour, Gympie, Rockhampton, Mackay, Townsville, Cairns, Charters Towers, Warwick and Toowoomba. (Filmer-Davies, 2001) Because it was an amateur movement founded on community participation, particularly in choirs, ensembles and bands, its advocates claimed it represented the “cornerstone of community culture.” (ECQ, undated)
In communities around the state, a host of groups and individuals worked to add interest, colour and enjoyment to life through the arts, to create beauty, express themselves through symbolic form, and create islands of difference, zones where
18 It is likely that there may have been 290 Schools of Arts in total over the years, but as they intermittently opened and closed across the state there were never this many operating at one time. In 1959, when the Queensland Division of the Arts Council was confined to Brisbane and struggling to get on its feet, there were still 96 Schools of Arts. During the next twenty years, while the QAC network was growing strongly, the schools of arts network collapsed. Many QAC branches formed in towns that had previously supported schools of arts. It would be instructive to investigate any relationship between the closing of Schools of Arts and the foundation of Arts Council branches, but the scale of this project prohibits such specific historical focus. Since Schools of Arts functioned primarily as libraries I would not expect to find any direct cause and effect relationship, but it is very likely that Schools of Arts helped to establish a community ethos sympathetic to the arts council movement, and that there was a migration of community interest from one enthusiasm to the other.
91 aspects of the prevailing culture were self-consciously refined and distinguished from the sea around them.
Many of these people were amateurs. Some supported themselves in whole or in part, through the arts. Some taught – speech and drama, ballet, piano or violin – or provided ancillary services – they retailed musical instruments, played piano at the local ballet school or made costumes. Others turned to academia, or became administrators, journalists or collectors of art – no doubt they pervaded every niche of human interest and endeavour – and their interest and involvement in the arts came to take second, third or fourth place to the pragmatic considerations that dominated their daily lives. Some made significant and lasting contributions – people like Anne Roberts, who taught ballet in Townsville, established a school and left a legacy of inspiration and dedication that eventually evolved into the contemporary ballet company Dance North.
Many towns had amateur painting groups. There were also many choral societies and amateur theatrical groups, and some of these – in Atherton, Moranbah, Maryborough among others – drove the founding of arts council branches, and provided a nucleus for membership.
During the late19th and early 20th centuries, theatrical entrepreneurs such as J.C. Williamson, the Tait Brothers, Harry Rickards, Hugh McIntosh and Harry Clay toured into Queensland. Clay in particular seemed to claim the state as his own, and toured extensively every year from 1901 until 1919. His waxworks and vaudeville company travelled by rail and coastal steamer, and routinely drew audiences of 600- 1,000 people who paid at the rate of one shilling per adult and sixpence per child. Clay’s 1911 tour featured a spectacle of 38 performers, including 20 ballet girls. They travelled with their own tent – it accommodated 2,000 people – and visited even small and remote towns, including Chillagoe and Irvinebank west of Cairns. (Djubal, 1998)
The Queensland Art Gallery, established in 1895, organised travelling exhibitions so people in remote areas could view its collection as early as 1906, and again in 1907 and 1909. (Hogan, 1983)
92
Eminent and established artists came and went, providing at least temporary and sometimes more enduring highlights. It is well known that Henry Lawson travelled through central Queensland, where he is believed to have penned Waltzing Matilda in 1895 – less well known that “a veritable Who’s Who of Australian art” travelled and worked in North Queensland between 1920 and 1950 including seminal figures such as Arthur Streeton, Russell Drysdale and Margaret Preston. (Searle, 1997: 129)
The Queensland Symphony Orchestra which formed in 1947, embarked on a 24 day rail tour of the state in its first year. It toured frequently in subsequent years, travelling up to 4,000 kilometres and visiting towns from Atherton in the north, to Mt. Isa and Charleville in the west and south. Musicians travelled and lived in carriages hitched onto goods trains “along with the pigs and sheep”, which parked in sidings by night. They took gas burners on the train and cooked their own meals. (QSO, 1997) And of course cinema boomed throughout regional Queensland during the first half of the 20th century. In 1960-61 when Gertrude Langer took on presidency of the Queensland Division and QAC began to grow, there were 309 cinemas in regional towns.
It is evident that from early in their history many towns, particularly along the east coast, had a reasonably vigorous and varied cultural life. Social life in Maryborough in the late 19th century, was described as “gay and diverse.” There was a substantial theatre, and the city enjoyed regular visits from travelling shows and circuses. There were dances and parties, orchestral concerts, boat cruises, picnic races, sports meetings and so on. (MWB&B Hist Soc, 1998: 17)
More recently it was said of Bowen that in 1958 :
The Bowen Variety Company drew large audiences to its very popular performances. The Bowen Choral Society presented regular concerts, gave an annual performance of works from “The Messiah”, competed in the North Queensland Eisteddfod, and organised a very successful Bowen Junior Eisteddfod annually. The Bowen Amateur Theatrical Group included The Thespians and the Society of St Barbara, which were
93 soon to be followed by Trinity Players. The Bowen Art Society was a new enthusiastic group and its exhibitions were popular. The Bowen Municipal Band had a long history of performance, and then, as now, was an excellent training ground for young instrumentalists. (Evans, 1991)
Maryborough and Bowen benefited from their strategic location along the east coast corridor, but there’s no reason to consider them exceptional, and similar activity was evident, to a greater or lesser extent, in dozens of Queensland towns. In 1958, citizens of Bowen, led by Town Mayor Alderman R.J. Lister, were among the first in the state to form an arts council branch, and people in more than eighty other towns followed over the next thirty-four years.
4.4 Arts Council Delivers:
It is clear that there was something before arts council came. Indigenous cultural practices greatly enriched the quality of life enjoyed by those who practiced them, and the cultures early Europeans brought from their homelands, likewise enriched their lives. The claim that there was nothing before arts council reveals a limited perception of cultural values – a cultural terra nullius. Nevertheless the claim ‘there was nothing here’ expressed a genuine sense that something important had been missing from people’s lives, and that arts council had met, and continues to meet, a genuine need for at least some of the population.
Isolation was a much bigger issue for most Queensland towns in the 1950s and 1960s, than it is today. Air travel was expensive, and out of reach for many. The boom in motor vehicle ownership was just beginning, and yet to provide the convenient and reliable private transport we take for granted today. Trains and intercity coaches were frustratingly slow. The annual monsoon regularly flooded highways and railways along the coast, and in the north and west, and even major towns were often cut off for days and weeks. Many smaller towns were isolated all year except for a narrow ribbon of gravel road – or single lane bitumen if they were lucky – and a telephone line. Even the main east coast highway was, for long stretches, a single lane of degraded bitumen.
94
Television was in its infancy – there was none before 1959 – and there were no VCRs or video cassettes, no audio cassettes, no CDs, no video games, no computer games and no internet. Recreational arts meant the Sunday afternoon band performance in the town’s rotunda, listening to the radio, or playing records on a gramophone, amateur theatre or dance, weekend painting, or a dance in the community hall or at the pub. Live musical or theatrical performance was a rare treat everywhere, and unknown in many of the smaller towns.
Experience of the world was for most people largely limited to their immediate environment, augmented by what they learned from print material and radio. Most people had never travelled overseas, and didn’t expect to. Yet World War II had taken Australians out into the world, brought the world to Australia as never before, and generated a great hunger for knowledge and experience. This was allied to the yearning, after years of privation and travail, for a more agreeable and enjoyable life. The two came together in the voyeurism and escape offered by cinema, through which people could transcend mundane reality and extend their limited horizons for a time. As Bailey (1995: 2) puts it: “Few people worried about what pictures they saw. It was an opportunity to get carried away into another world. … They fuelled our fantasies, gave us role models, showed us fashions, inspired our games and made us part of the American dream.” Across the nation people went to the cinema, on average, twenty-seven times during1944, and the boom continued through the 1950s and into the1960s. (Howard, 1998: 6)
Arts council tours had similar exotic and worldly appeal. They brought big city performers and international stars in songs, dances, plays and music from around the world. Touring productions such as The Barber of Seville and Ballet Francais (1959), or Rigoletto (1960) must have seemed extraordinarily exotic to an outback audience whose only previous connection with other cultures had been sending their cattle away to market, or their sons off to war. For those who dreamed of distant places The Kalakshetra Dancers of Madras (1966) the Trinidad Cavaliers Steel Band (1975)
95 or the Tschiaka Cossacks (1977) provided not just a window on distant worlds, but a door through which some at least were ready to step.19
Unfortunately there are no detailed records of early arts council audiences but their sheer size, and anecdotal records indicate that QAC tours during the 1960s and 1970s reached a broader cross section of the population then they do today. Tours were welcomed with the same boisterous spirit that vaudeville had generated into the early decades of the century, until it was killed off by the cinema.
Since the first attempts to establish CEMA in Queensland during the 1940s, the desire to attract touring productions had been the main factor driving branch formation. A small group of key people who wanted to attract arts council tours to their town would gather together, form a provisional committee and ask QAC for permission to form a branch. By definition cultural elites control, or seek to control cultural production and distribution. It’s no surprise early arts council tours were so warmly welcomed and so well attended, or that the local management elite, which was seen to deliver them, should be applauded and feted, or that community leaders and politicians – social, professional, and political elites – should both champion arts council, and want to be associated with it. 20
In Bowen, Town Mayor, Alderman R. J. Lister21 had driven the arts council movement. Shire Chairman, Ronald Witham, was instrumental in founding the Gympie branch in 1968. In Maryborough, a prominent physician drove the process. The Hervey Bay branch was founded through the efforts of prominent local businessman and politician George Bezant. In Atherton, Shire Chairman, G.A. Kattenberg, convened and chaired the inaugural branch meeting, in 1974. In Tambo, the senior local cleric, Father R. Benjamin helped drive the process and became inaugural Branch President.
19 A number of tours in those years – The Trinidad Steel Band was one – were notable for eliciting a dedicated following. Some, women in particular, tore up their roots to literally “follow the band”. 20 Bennett, Emmison and Frow (2001:201) associate this type of conspicuous consumption with the arts. See also Di Maggio, 1981; Ostrower, 1997. 21 The Bowen Town Council had previously sponsored tours (almost certainly through CEMA), by a Sydney Based Opera Company (Puccini’s Madam Butterfly) and the Elizabethan Theatre Trust (Summer of the Seventeenth Doll), indicating a genuine and practical interest in the arts.
96 From the start therefore, arts council branch committees were characteristically close to local sources and brokers of political, social and economic power, and they quickly came to dominate local cultural life. They wielded influence and drove agendas. This association with local elites worked both ways. The status accorded local elites rubbed off on arts council, enhancing its legitimacy and prestige, and easing access to the influential political, professional and social networks that would ensure patronage of future events. At the same time the glamour and prestige of arts council events advantaged local elites, providing them with opportunities to demonstrate and enhance their political, cultural and social leadership. By establishing branches, arts council institutionalised local cultural elites to an extent that had not previously been the case.
This effect was all the stronger because there was so little cultural infrastructure, hard or soft. There were few dedicated theatrical venues, no local professional theatre, and very little musical performance other than popular bands. The arts council was the only agency providing professional standard live performance on any significant scale. Few other local institutions or activities could draw substantial crowds in a such a glamorous atmosphere.
There were no locally employed community arts workers, or cultural development officers, and none of the dedicated organisations and institutions active in the regional arts field today – no Community Arts Network, no Flying Arts, no Regional Arts Development Fund (all state-wide), no Arts Nexus (Cairns) or Artesian Arts (Mt. Isa), or Arts West (Blackall), and no major regional galleries or museums.
In the early years there was no state government arts department, in fact there was little arts policy at any level of government. Queensland’s local governments focused on rates, roads and rubbish. Where they did acknowledge the arts, they tended to delegate their interest to interested groups or organisations, such as the local school of arts – which was essentially a public educational facility, a library and occasional cinema or social venue – or the arts council. In this environmental vacuum, many QAC branches became de-facto arts departments of local government. They provided the public face of the arts and drove local cultural agendas. This was the case as recently as the 1980s in Hervey Bay, where the QAC branch for many years operated
97 as a de facto arts and cultural development office for local government. Prominent branch members advised the shire council on cultural matters, lobbied successfully for construction of a municipal gallery, were instrumental in the establishment of an RADF committee, and wrote the shire’s first cultural policy.
Biloela branch lobbied strongly, and successfully, for the building of a new Civic Centre featuring a theatre and gallery, and drove formation of the shire’s first RADF committee. In Moranbah several members, including President Val May, wrote Belyando Shire’s first arts and cultural policy, which remained officially operational, although largely ignored, until the release of a new policy prepared by professional consultants in 2003.
The Atherton branch drove local arts activity and innovation to the extent that other community groups came to it for ideas and support. One innovation – larger than life size papier-mâché puppets became a highlight of the town’s annual Maize festival. Other arts council initiatives were ‘stolen’ by the shire council. Louise DiMarzi, for years chair of the RADF committee, and the only Atherton shire councillor with a genuine commitment to the arts, owes her initial involvement to the local arts council branch. Most recently in Maryborough, the QAC was linked through president Rollo Nicholson to a group of local politicians and prominent citizens who drove the city’s cultural agenda and successfully lobbied for the $10 million Brolga Theatre which opened in 2000.
Few LACS hold such a central position in their communities today, and across the state the local influence of arts council has declined, as LACs have been displaced from the centre of community cultural life.
In Maryborough, after the opening of The Brolga Theatre, for which it had fought, arts council found itself largely redundant, and struggled to retain members and audience. As around 700 people registered as Friends of the Brolga, LAC membership dropped from almost 250 to less than 70. The LAC would almost certainly have closed but for Rollo Nicholson, primary driver of the Brolga Campaign, who personally took on the responsibility of ensuring the LAC did not collapse. The LAC has since established a niche market, screening foreign films for
98 cinema enthusiasts, but seems destined to play a restricted role in the city’s cultural life.
In Hervey Bay, the LAC, which successfully lobbied for the establishment of a cultural centre and gallery, and furnished the gallery with a grand piano, has been effectively excluded from use of the gallery, and its own piano, by bureaucratic restrictions. In Biloela there is a clear understanding amongst many in the arts community – particularly within the RADF committee, which includes arts council members – that arts council should restrict itself to importing QAC touring programs, and not infringe on the territory of RADF or other agencies responsible for community arts, and cultural and professional development.
In Moranbah the LAC battles against community disinterest and apathy, and until recently was largely disregarded by Belyando Shire Council. The shire’s new arts and cultural policy released in April 2003, made no mention of the LAC and took no account of arts council activities, even though the LAC had written the shire’s original cultural policy. The Atherton LAC subsided from its heights of the early 1990s to become, at the end of 2002, so marginalised that people involved in other arts groups and organisations were not aware of its existence.
The decline is widespread, but not all LACs have declined to the same extent. Specific factors can be identified in some sites. In Maryborough, the Brolga was a major factor. In Atherton there was a progressive weakening of the committee through the 1990s as several highly active key personnel withdrew, the president travelling overseas, while others were affected by family health issues, and changes of personal circumstance.22
Some LACs have resisted the trend. In Gympie, Cooloola LAC, largely through the efforts of President Neil Brown has a very productive relationship with Cooloola Shire Council, but the LAC’s impact on the community is dwarfed by the shire’s biggest cultural event, the Toyota Muster which annually attracts more than 50,000
22 One relatively vigorous LAC was incapacitated in 2002-2003 when three young women who formed the core of the management committee all became pregnant at the same time.
99 country music fans to a six day country music festival. Cooloola also has a very active RADF committee which disperses around $30,000 for arts projects every year.
In Tambo, the LAC maintains a close working relationship with the Shire Council. For many years this was founded on the family connection between LAC President (and QAC Regional Director) Kim Davidson and her husband Shire Chairman Dougall Davidson. Tambo’s size and isolation – total shire population is under 600, and it is 100km to the nearest town – are undoubtedly factors. In such a small and insular community there are relatively few community based organisations, and arts council constitutes a major social network. It has assumed the role of a community service organisation, providing significant financial support to community institutions such as the health care centre and the bowling club.
That particular local circumstances rather than broad social or economic conditions, shape the destiny of individual LACs is apparent when we look at the co-incidence of openings and closures across the network. In 1966 as Branches opened in Biloela, Clermont, Innisfail, Muttaburra, Springsure and Winton, others were closing in Nambour and Tarong. In 1969 Branches opened at Gold Coast, Ingham, Redcliffe and Richmond, and closed in Cairns and Surat. In 1977 two branches opened and four closed. In 1980 one opened and three closed. This asymmetrical waxing and waning of the network has been constant throughout its life. More recently, in 2003, LACs closed in Alpha, Talwood and Tara, while another opened in Redcliffe. At the time of writing, in mid 2004, the process continues, with Blackwater recently closed, and Croydon likely to close while a new LAC has opened at Mission Beach and there are several other potential start-ups.
Other LACs such as Monto and Maleny have been consistently strong over many years. Overall however, the state-wide trend has been a gradual but sustained and widespread decline since the golden years of the late 60s, 70s and early 80s. To understand why we need to look at factors active across the network, and in the broader environment of which it is part.
100 4.5 The Evolving Cultural Environment
QAC and LACs today operate in a very different environment from that of their first one, two or even three decades. The entire human ecology surrounding them has evolved and matured. Humans today preside over greater orchestration and suppression of natural systems to suit short term human aims, and the systems by which they manage their own affairs and lives are more complex, multidimensional and interconnected.
One aspect of this changing ecology has been the spectacular growth of the broad sphere where art, culture, creative industries, and the leisure and entertainment fields intermingle and overlap to form a vast concatenation of possibilities and options which, for the purpose of my argument I will call the lifestyle sphere. This sphere has hugely expanded over recent decades, and the fields that comprise it – in particular those that incorporate, support and exploit electronic technologies – are more intricately and inextricably interdependent than ever before.23
Arts councils face both increased competition and increased opportunity for engagement in a vastly more complex environment. Each LAC shares the lifestyle sphere with other arts and cultural agents, community service, industrial, entrepreneurial, political and social organisations, shire and city councils, chambers of commerce and promotional bureaus, regional development and tourism boards, festival organisers, health providers, universities and other educational institutions, and so on. From being the dominant cultural player in a restricted lifestyle sphere, the LAC has become a minor player in a vastly expanded one.
The transport and communications revolution has been most dramatic. Television has long been anecdotally identified as a cause of arts council decline, and there is no doubt that it had had a dramatic impact on social and recreational mores. For those of us now inured, it is difficult to remember the impact television first had:
23 Televised football provides a simple example. Is it culture, work, play, sport, ritual contest, leisure, recreation, entertainment, communication, big business, or politics – or is it all of these?
101 If someone in the street had the resources to buy or rent a TV set, that house became a magnet. They became popular overnight, with kids from surrounding areas dropping in after school as guest audiences. For better or worse, as you felt about it, our dependence on radio, on books, on the piano, theatres, card games and talk nights with neighbours and friends were swept aside by the tiny screen. (Warren, 1984: 34)
To some extent television did what cinema and arts council tours had done before. It opened a window onto the world and allowed viewers to live vicariously – people everywhere became voyeurs, but without having to leave home. Television had a devastating impact on the cinema. Within a decade almost half of the cinemas in Brisbane closed down, and the impact gradually extended across the state.
Television was first broadcast to Brisbane audiences in 1959 and by 1962, when Gertrude Langer was president and QAC was just beginning to stretch out, television was broadcast from Toowoomba, Rockhampton and Townsville. Over the next twenty years, as QAC enjoyed its most spectacular growth, television extended its reach across the state. In the early 1980s when multiple repeater stations ensured a choice of broadcasts in even the most remote regions, the QAC network had reached 65 branches, and even after this the network continued to grow for another ten years. At first glance the continued growth of the arts council network seems to discount television as a cause of arts council decline, but in fact the relationship between the two is more complex.
In the early years television hours were restricted, and program choice was limited and in black and white. Programming became more sophisticated, broadcast hours increased, and colour was introduced in 1975. Television became supreme. We have already seen that although the arts council network expanded steadily from the early 1960s until 1992, average audiences consistently declined. This is the period during which television – “the greatest ‘variety show’ in history” (Hartley, 1999: 180) – gradually extended its infiltration of our lives, progressively invading and dominating the lifestyle sphere, both undermining alternatives with its easy accessibility and overwhelming them with its incessant ubiquity. Average attendance at arts council events dropped throughout this period. In the early years of television,
102 QAC staff could trace the extension of broadcasting by the progressive reduction in audience numbers in one town after another, year by year, as television marched along the coast.
But television was only one aspect of the maturing cultural environment that was to challenge and marginalise QAC. As cultural awareness grew across the state communities enjoyed an increasing range of options in the lifestyle sphere. The state government established a cultural activities portfolio in 1968. It still supported QAC, with funds growing year by year to reach $234,000 in 1979 and then $745,000 in 1989, but at the same time it began to fund other organisations and programs that would eventually compete with QAC for attention and patronage in the community market.
During the 1970s and 1980s cooperative infrastructure projects between state and local governments also saw a burgeoning of new civic centres, cultural centres, and theatres around the state. There had of course been halls and theatres before this. Many schools of arts had performance spaces. The larger municipal authorities maintained theatres, and most small towns had a theatre or hall of some kind. Many hotels had a general purpose space for functions and entertainment, and there were more than 300 cinemas in country towns. But the 1970s saw the arrival of a new generation of purpose built entertainment venues with modern facilities, full time professional managers and an entrepreneurial outlook. Today there are at least twenty-seven of these major performance venues with full-time professional staff and an entrepreneurial budget.
Eighteen centres were built in towns that already hosted QAC branches, and in nine of these towns including Townsville, Cairns and Gold Coast, the QAC branch closed. In others, such as Maryborough and Mackay, the LAC survives but at a greatly reduced level of activity. In 1999, as branches faced the choice of incorporating or closing down, branches in NARPACA towns were more than twice as likely to close as those in non-NARPACA towns.24 When Burdekin LAC closed down in 1999,
24 As incorporation loomed 14 branches elected to close. In NARPACA towns 5 out of 14 (36%) elected to close. In non-NARPACA towns 9 out of 60 (15%) elected to close. But the impact of NARPACA has not been all negative for QAC. Since 1995 QAC has managed the ARTS touring
103 Secretary Judith Ford acknowledged in her final letter to QAC: “There is no clear role for the QAC in this district.” LACs also face competition from a vigorous commercial sector, with hotels and clubs providing a wide range of popular entertainment, often without cover charge, including country music, rock bands, jazz, burlesque and stand up comedy.
As the cultural field matured, a range of dedicated arts organisations came on line catering to specific constituents. Many such as the Queensland Potter’s Association (1968), the Craft Council of Queensland (1969) and the Queensland Writer’s Centre, were founded in metropolitan Brisbane but had regional members. There were also national bodies such as Ausdance. Others, such as the Australian Flying Arts School (1972) and the Regional Galleries Association of Queensland (1986) had a specifically regional brief. Regional centres also sprouted their own dedicated organisations such as Arts West in Blackall (1991) and Arts Nexus in Cairns (1995). A number of significant production companies started up in the regions, particularly in dance and theatre. Some were short lived, others have endured. Dance North in Townsville has operated since 1969.
Musical and drama programs were inaugurated in many state and private schools. This process accelerated following the appointment of Kevin Siddell as the first supervisor of music in Queensland Schools in 1970. Today there are programs in hundreds of schools.
During the 1970s and 1980s the CA/CCD ethos filtered into Queensland and spread across the state. The social justice agenda central to CA/CCD made for a natural fit with regional arts – as geographic isolation was seen in terms of disadvantage – but this same social justice agenda, set CA/CCD in opposition to notions of excellence, and to the elites who drove arts council branches in many sites. Queensland’s first community arts worker was appointed in 1977, and the first community arts conference was held in 1978. From the start there was very little cooperation or recognition of mutual interest between arts councils and CA/CCD workers. Today there are around 15-20 full-time CA/CCD workers employed by shire authorities program on behalf of the state government, with two staff funded by ARTS, and QAC also uses NARPACA venues for non ARTS touring productions.
104 around the state – there is no formal register or agreed definition of their work – but they generally have little intercourse with arts councils. There are also many private arts tutors who travel the state and work in regional towns, tutors like Ellie Nielsen, who carries a mobile printing workshop and promotes herself as: “Have press; Will travel.”
On top of all this came a cascade of interlinked advances in electronic technologies – compact cassette tapes and video technology, electronic games, CDs, DVDs, the Internet, cable TV and mobile phones, with more to come – which vastly amplified the lifestyle sphere, increased options and fragmented the constituency. But of all the new technologies to impact heavily on the arts council network, television had been the first, and probably the most definitive. It has decisively fragmented the constituency roughly along ‘knowledge class’ lines. The broader community embraced television as its primary, often exclusive, provider of leisure and entertainment. Knowledge elites, however, which today provide the great majority of QAC’s membership and audience, retained their taste for a range of leisure and entertainment options. QAC was displaced from its dominant position within the lifestyle sphere and became almost exclusively the province of knowledge elites.
The Regional Arts Development Fund (RADF) introduced a new dynamic. Whereas changes so far discussed split the constituency without fundamentally changing the power relationships within it, the arrival of RADF from 1991 onwards actually changed the configuration of these relationships and displaced the local arts council elite.
The RADF scheme was established in 1991 by the Goss Labour Government following recommendations in the Queensland, A State of the Arts Report. The vision driving RADF was of a vigorous arts and cultural sector that would enhance quality of life for regional Queensland people, provide employment and career opportunities for artists and cultural workers, and support the development of sustainable cultural industries. Its core was a capital fund of $5 million, with the interest available for distribution each year. The funds were allocated according to demand and distributed through local governments with matching funds.
105 RADF was founded on principles of local ownership and local involvement. Projects were to be locally initiated and locally managed, and to employ local people wherever possible. Decisions about funding priorities and the distribution of funds were to be made by a locally elected committee of volunteers within each local government area. The committee was to include community representatives, artists and arts workers, and local government. Its job was to advise local government on local needs and issues, assess applications, and manage distribution of funds.
The scheme was immediately successful. Municipal authorities, which had previously demonstrated little interest in the arts leapt at the opportunity to leverage their own contribution, with state funding as high 2:1 in some shires.25 The first funding round in September 1991 drew bids from 19 local councils, and by December 1992 there were 95 participating councils. In 1991-92 RADF funded a total of 246 projects and in the next financial year it was 476. Most were visual arts, but following years were to see a greater range of projects. RADF was taken up so enthusiastically that within several years the capital fund was increased $15 million, although a change of government saw it reduced to $12 million in 1996.
By the 1996-97 financial year RADF was distributing more than $900,000 of state money to 101 shire and city councils. Matching funds from councils took the total funds available for arts projects to more than one and a half million dollars. Take-up of the scheme has continued to rise, and in 1998-99 total distributions exceeded $2,000,000. In that year, a total of 1,109 activities were funded, including about 480 workshops and 410 arts and cultural projects.26 They employed 1,038 paid arts workers and almost 2,000 unpaid workers.
RADF changed the dynamics operating in these communities. Each RADF committee, with the power to allocate local funding, came to serve a crucial function at the nexus where state and local governments interacted with the local community, and many grew to wield considerable power and influence.
25 In shires of fewer than 3,000 people, RADF projects were fully state funded. 26 These estimates are based on statistics for activities in 45 of the 106 participating local government areas.
106 For many communities, arts council had previously been the only body that catered to the arts and provided a link to the greater – state, national and international – cultural world, and it therefore provided an effective mechanism by which local elites might articulate and cement their social and cultural leadership. RADF now provided an alternative mechanism, and it was more appealing because it provided much more money than QAC offered through its various direct funding programs.
Today many RADF committees include arts council representation, 27 but the relationship has changed. Whereas once it was the arts council personnel who held the reins by virtue of their link to the Brisbane management and professional elites, the money available through RADF now ensures that it is the RADF connection that delivers the ‘grunt’ in local cultural politics.
QAC’s role was further diminished when Arts Queensland teamed up with the Queensland Community Arts Network (QCAN) to provide training for RADF committees. These changes do not mean that Local Arts Councils cannot be prime cultural agencies in their communities, but it does mean that the role available to them has changed. Arts council representatives were once, by default, the natural local cultural leaders, but this is no longer the case. If LACs seek to occupy the primary arts leadership role, they need to work for it and justify their incumbency in a much more competitive and challenging environment.
It was RADF more than any other factor that shifted arts councils from their position of central arts authority to the periphery – but RADF was not the only factor. The effect of the arts councils across the state was to stimulate cultural awareness, and this increased awareness itself contributed to the decline of arts councils, as an increasingly arts conscious citizenry found other ways – both complementary and alternative – to satisfy its artistic interests and needs. Influential locals developed institutions, programs and personal behaviours that came to compete with arts council equivalents and served to increasingly weaken the arts council’s role as the dominant cultural agency.
27 In 2001, around two thirds of LACs had at least one member sitting on their local RADF committee.
107 Several organisations which now compete with arts council grew directly out of arts council activities. Arts West began as the Central West Arts Council School of Creative Arts in 1968, and the Australian Flying Arts School grew out of arts council workshops conducted by Flying Arts founder Mervyn Moriarty who began his aerial peregrinations flying to remote arts council branches.
QAC had also contributed to the early success of RADF, supporting the new scheme through head office and through branches. Regional directors urged members to get involved, and many members were elected to RADF committees. Many QAC members helped formulate, or actually wrote the cultural policies that were mandatory for participating authorities.
In contributing to the evolution and maturing of the regional arts sector, QAC to some extent engineered itself out of its traditional role. We might see this as natural evolution within the cultural field. Schools of arts had been dominant for more than half a century during which they helped create the climate that nourished arts council. Arts council in turn established the climate and prepared the soil for other organisations and agencies.
4.6 Not Just a Bus Company
I have noted that the driving force for most branch formation was the desire to attract touring shows. This has consistently been the prevailing interest of most members. Internal QAC surveys have consistently shown the frequency of touring productions to top members’ concerns. Most recently, in a 2001 state-wide postal survey of LAC office bearers, more than half of respondents wanted more frequent touring. 28
From the start however, the visionaries who founded CEMA and the arts council had envisaged a broader role, in particular the fostering of “amateur activity”. This is reflected in Sir Robert Garran’s seminal 1945 statement which defined the central purpose of CEMA as: “… to bring art, in all its forms, to the people; to encourage them, not only to cultivate an appreciation of all that is beautiful in music, painting,
28 This survey was the first formal research instrument employed by this project and was part of a survey of LACs used to select those for case study.
108 sculpture, drama, ballet and so forth, but also to express themselves in some one or other of the arts or crafts.”
Dorothy Helmrich (1947) championed active arts practice as an essential arc in a “virtuous circle” of self-improvement (see chapter 3.3). Her rather idealistic and moralistic view was almost certainly influenced by her Theosophist faith. (Macdonnell, 1997: 16)
Other commentators employed a less esoteric rationale. In the January 1950 edition of The Arts Council Review, Norman Gould, President of the Armidale Branch, wrote fervently of the need for arts council to actively promote and encourage participation in the arts. Gould defined the arts council as “a Self-expression and Entertainment Club for country-town folk.” He defined its primary purpose as to take “good music, plays, exhibitions, lectures, ballets, celebrity concerts” to country towns, and then went on, drawing parallels between sport and the arts, to lament that Australia had become a nation of watchers, and argued:
It is much more fun to DO that just to WATCH. …. …. for those who, in adult life, DO still reap satisfaction from self-expression in certain ways, e.g., drama, music, arts and crafts - - it is important that someone be there to organise the opportunity of their doing so. That is the second job of these country-town clubs which call themselves Branches of the Arts Council - - to organise the opportunity of such self-expression, creative activities FOR TOWNSPEOPLE. (Gould, 1950: 7., emphasis in original)
In his report to the Annual General Meeting of the Queensland Division in 1961, Gordon Spearritt prioritised active participation in his listing of seven aims for the arts council in Queensland. Foremost was, “the encouragement of all kinds of artistic expression and the appreciation of all the arts and crafts among the people.” The second aim was “to encourage a study of the arts”. The fifth point was to organise arts festivals. Relegated to seventh place, was the undertaking of performances, demonstrations, displays or exhibitions.
109 The QAC’s first major initiative was a week long Creative Arts Vacation School staged on the University of Queensland campus in August 1962, with classes in drama, painting and pottery. The school was repeated every year until scaled down in 1977-78, and was primarily aimed, not at fostering art appreciation although that was a secondary aim, but at nurturing arts practice. Classes were practical workshops delivered by practising artists, and over the years they were extended to include music, dance, sculpture, jewellery, printmaking and many other disciplines. They aimed to stimulate creativity and encouraging individual expression, and provided practical instruction in how to do and make.29 The Brisbane schools also generated offshoots, workshops and vacation schools across the state.
During the 1960s and 1970s Gertrude Langer welcomed newly formed branches to the network with a letter that specified her desire, not merely to foster appreciation or consumption of the arts, but to encourage artistic expression. Her 1966 letter to Biloela is typical:
While you will be receiving programmes through head-quarters in Brisbane, there is also plenty of scope for your Branch Committee to encourage and sponsor amateur activities in your own community, and to arrange programs of play reading, recorded music, cultiral (sic) films, and perhaps establish a hobby centre and so forth. (Langer 1966)
The objective then was not just to deliver the arts as a product for public consumption, as a focus on touring suggests, but to stimulate and foster creative expression in a range of forms and disciplines. From the beginning, arts council had put in place and developed strategies and programs to meet these broader aims.
Arts council consistently encouraged branches to initiate and manage local arts activities to meet the interest and needs of members. Locally generated activities
29 The school followed the precedent of very successful Summer Schools held in Sydney by the New South Wales Division. At their peak the Sydney Schools offered 30 courses spread across seven venues, with total enrolments of almost 800. They were abandoned after 1982. In Queensland the schools became signature events for arts council in Queensland and confirmed QAC as the leading provider of multi-disciplinary arts education outside of major state and federal education systems. The orientation was largely recreational, but they also provided important training for many earnest and dedicated students who aspired to careers in the arts.
110 during 1968-69 included a week long drama school in Longreach; an art competition in Cloncurry; little theatres were established in Emerald and Charleville; a film group established in Mt. Isa; a drama festival in Bowen; fund raising balls in Beaudesert, Blackall and Emerald, and the inauguration of an art and drama centre in Ipswich. Activities in other years included locally produced musical comedies and melodramas; festivals; and classes and workshops in ikebana, jewellery making, cartooning, painting, pottery, textiles, silver-smithing, drum-making and drumming, creative writing, mural painting and banner making, puppet making, and more. Junior arts councils were founded in some towns.
QAC provided or helped secure skilled arts workers or tutors for many of these classes and other activities. QAC also supported many activities financially through a range of programs made possible by state and federal government funds. These funding programs were sometimes short lived, their durability determined by government planning, frequently in relation to election cycles. Schemes varied in detail but their general thrust was consistent. They provided funds directly to regional communities for locally initiated and managed projects.
The Country Producers Scheme was inaugurated in 1971 to allow experienced professional producers or directors to work with amateur theatre groups. The Branch Live Performance Scheme (BLiPS), was instituted in 1980 and funded fifty branch managed performances in its first year. In 1984 BLiPS was replaced by Artlink, a major program that continued until 1993.
The Country Community Arts Projects Scheme (Country CAPS) was inaugurated in 1981 and within a year funded 21 projects across 16 branches including: children’s holiday workshops, an Australia day film-fest and conducting workshops in Mackay; a theatre/dance performance, sculpture workshops and creative claywork in Nambour; silkscreen printing and clay workshops in Esk; and flying arts workshops and ballet classes in Dysart. Other projects included art and craft, spinning and weaving, big band workshops and a literature competition.
Local Initiative Grants (LIG) were introduced in 1987 with money from the Community Cultural Development Unit of the Australia Council. In 1990 the LIG
111 scheme and Artlink together funded 263 projects around the state. Both programs continued to grow. In 1993 LIG and Artlink were combined into a new Touring and Development Program. In its first year this program provided $135,000 to support 348 activities.
In 1989 a federal grant allowed the appointment of a Branch Development Officer (BDO). The BDO travelled widely across the state, providing a range of advice, planning assistance and skill development workshops, and contributing directorial skills to branch productions. He developed a strong relationship with a number of branches and became very popular around the network until the position was terminated in 1999, after funding ceased.
Programs supporting branch development and local activity were, by their nature, verging into CA/CCD territory but for some time QAC struggled to come to grips with CA/CCD agendas and strategies.
4.7 Competing Paradigms
From the start CA/CCD ideologies that evolved through the 1970s and 1980s rejected the touring model with which QAC was primarily identified, in favour of grass roots participation in locally initiated and managed activities. It rejected considerations of aesthetic beauty and artistic excellence that lay at the core of arts council philosophy, and was driven by a social justice agenda hostile to elites, some of whom were local custodians of branch fortunes.
The arts council movement was aware of the shifting ground but its reaction was diffident. Policy makers either did not recognise the essentially political nature of the conflict, or could not full understand it, as Federal Treasurer Peter Tyler revealed: “I hope that we can really come to grips with the whole problem of Community Arts in this next year. … Without doubt we are the ideal body to foster community arts without causing internal stresses within local areas and without building a sense of external dictation. Our organisation can work easily with state or federal community officers, or indeed with our own zone or area-appointed officers.” (Tyler, 1975) In
112 fact, they very rarely could work together, and rarely tried. Ideological convictions were too intensely held on both sides.
Touring remained the primary activity, with a strong international flavour through the 1970s and 1980s. Tours included the Trinidad Cavaliers Steel Band (whose first tour was so popular they returned in the same year), The Barranggay Dancers from Manila, The Royal Shakespeare Company from the U.K., The Philippe Genty Puppet Company, the Grimethorpe Colliery Brass Band, the Hutter Family from Austria, Malambo Latino, Tschiaka Cossacks from Germany, and many others.
Visual arts tours included an exhibition of Swiss Posters, Japanese Dolls, photographs from Britain, Canadian and Eskimo art, child art from Austria and China, Indian Cave and Temple Paintings, and 60 French Lithographs.
Federal funding of arts councils was channeled through The Australia Council, and when the Community Arts Board (CAB) of the Australia Council took over responsibility for this funding, the future of arts council funding began to look less secure. By 1983 there was much disquiet within CAB that 30% of the board’s available funding went directly to arts councils. (ACA circular #705, October, 1983) Around this time the CAB’s Jon Hawkes described the arts council’s image as “moribund” and “disastrous”. (1983 Federal Arts Council Marketing Discussion Paper)
There was a consequent drop in CAB funding for QAC activities from $107,359 to $86,300 between 1983 and 1985, and the decline would have been much greater if QAC had not lobbied hard for support. Custodians of the arts council movement still misapprehended the precise nature of the battle they were fighting. Administrator Peter Dent expressed frustration in his 1984 Annual Report: “Now it seems that what we are doing, the changes we make in response to branch wishes and the efforts we make to provide country people with access to the arts, no longer fit into the ideological theories of the Federal funding agency. Our membership is cited as being irrelevant, our commitment to the employment of artists is cited as being irrelevant, our maximisation of the use of the arts dollar is cited as being irrelevant.”
113 QAC responded with a revamped statement of purpose, with five specific commitments: to provide high quality arts experiences to those disadvantaged by geography; to advance the education of children through the arts; to support arts practice and local autonomy; to maximise resources through collaboration; and to provide professional opportunities for Australian artists. (1984 Annual Report)
This statement represented a genuine desire to develop new and progressive policies which met the needs of branches and their communities. One aim was the decentralisation of cultural production, and the arts council movement across Australia was keen to implement policies to that end. Back in 1978, Federal President David Hamer had declared: “…all Divisions are aware that Branches must become more than the passive recipients of shows provided by Divisions. Ideally, Branches should be cultural catalysts in their communities and much thought and effort is being directed to this end.”30
Although expressing similar intentions, Queensland had been slow to act. But in 1985, pressure from the CAB and the threat of further funding reductions generated a new urgency, and QAC conducted a series of branch development seminars aimed at stimulating more branch activity.
Another factor driving the shift in emphasis was the increased cost of touring, fuelled by inflation and big increases in allowances for artists. There was a serious breakdown in QAC’s relationship with Actors Equity around this time – which jeopardised major touring programs, and spurred interest in alternative touring formats, and other ways of servicing branches.
I have already mentioned QAC programs – BLiPS, Country CAPS, LIG and Artlink – specifically aimed at responding to the interests and needs expressed by these communities. Artlink was most successful and lasted for some ten years. Modelled on a Victorian program called Arts Roundabout which had operated successfully since 1978, Artlink offered branches a ‘menu’ of choices – artists, arts workers and
30 1978 Federal President’s Report.
114 arts resource information – from which branches could order. The program was seen as an important way of augmenting a dwindling program of major tours.
In 1984, Artlink’s first full year, 56 branches participated in activities that included painting, print-making, ceramics, writing, folk music, piano, cello, guitar and kite making. There were 20 residencies and workshops, 21 exhibitions and 80 performances – a total of 140 events supported at a cost of $62,147. The CAB agreed to fund the program in part. It recognised workshops as legitimate community arts activities, but would not support performance, even if locally initiated or produced.
The division between CAB and QAC was deep and intractable and was not resolved despite extensive discussion – in 1985 Peter Dent reported on “constructive communication”, while tours manager Geoff Street referred to “satisfactory negotiation”. The contention between QAC and CAB was essentially political, and deeply rooted in conflicting ideologies. (QAC, 1995)
I have already noted that the view dominating the CAB, was essentially of the political ‘left’, and CAB chair Jon Hawkes was, and remains, one of its most ardent advocates. Hawkes equates cultural production to cultural power, and links cultural power to both economic and political power. Thus, “Political power grows out of the horn of a 500 watt amplifier.” (Hawkes, 2003b)
For Hawkes, democracy is the modern project. It is conditional upon the empowerment of people – the project is to empower everybody – and founded on “an absolute trust in communities and their capacities.”
QAC found itself fundamentally at odds with the CAB. Peter Dent with his background in commercial theatre, came from an essentially entrepreneurial milieu, and was very comfortable maintaining and expanding the touring model that had been well entrenched when he arrived. But the CAB viewed this model as culturally and politically repressive. Community arts practice was “a weapon in the class struggle” and the local elites who drove arts council branches were the enemy, as was QAC itself. (Hawkins, 1993: 21) The contest became bitter at times, witness Peter Dent’s disparaging reference to community arts workers as “just the boiler suit
115 brigade”31 and Jon Hawkes’ characterisation of arts council as: “A regiment of pampered freaks performing for sedentary sickly voyeurs.”32
The argument contaminated relationships within the arts council movement and between the states. Queensland had moved a little to accommodate CAB agendas, but aggressively defended its branch structure and touring model. Other states were moving more strongly. The Arts Council of New South Wales had relinquished its centralised structure, giving branches autonomous Local Arts Council status in 1981, and announced that it would abandon centrally planned touring in 1984. Meanwhile, in 1983, South Australia announced a policy shift away from touring and towards locally initiated and produced arts activities. There were also changes in the status, role and functioning of arts councils in Victoria and Western Australia.
These changes had consequences for a broad range of stakeholders. Most germane were the interests of regional and remote members, and the communities they lived in, but between these crucial but dispersed stakeholders and the supreme policy- makers, lay a more concentrated bureaucratic superstructure of government and non- government employees and agents. Undoubtedly the interests of the more dispersed members and communities at times succumbed to the interests of these other players. Careers and livelihoods were at stake.
A bitter spat between Queensland and New South Wales arts councils in 1985 revealed the conviction and intransigence with which ideologies were held, and territory defended. Federal President Roy Cooper, who was also a Director of QAC, circulated a letter seeking the support of other states in an argument with the CAB. In responding, NSW Chairman Timothy Hall wrote:
What bothers me very much is that your letter – and indeed your whole lobby – might be construed by those at whom it is directed as implying that all the states and New South Wales in particular support you. As you are aware that this is very far from the case. (Hall, 1985)
31 In answer to a 1981 Questionnaire distributed by the Australia Council to inform a review of The Arts Council. 32 QAC News and Views, April 1985. Hawkes may not have been specifically referring to Arts Council presentations, but the sentiment was clearly intended to embrace them.
116
Following an internal review, QAC in 1990 enunciated a refined statement of purpose, as its Mission: To maintain the highest standards in providing the regional areas of Queensland with access to the arts, and to enhance the quality of life by providing innovative and effective programs that will assist communities to develop local arts practice.
This was presented as a precursor to the existing statement of purpose: “In acknowledging the vital role of the arts in the development and sustenance of a healthy society and in the lives of individuals within that society, the Arts Council is committed to the principle that access to the arts is not a luxury for the few but a necessity for all.” This statement of purpose had been adopted by the Arts Council of Australia in 1984. The sentiments strongly echo Sir Robert Garran’s 1945 statement, and the phrase “not a luxury for the few but a necessity for all” is pure Garran, word for word.33
In attempting to update its rhetoric and grapple with new agendas promoted by the CA/CCD movement, the QAC had, paradoxically turned more than forty years into the past. Since Garran, QAC had not produced, nor clearly articulated, any new rationale for what it was doing. Traditionally, and more broadly, a range of arguments had been employed in promoting the arts – the arts were good for the nation because they defined identity, brought recognition, kudos and prestige, or they were good for the economy because of their “multiplier effect” or because they employed people. Donald Horne had ushered in the concept of cultural rights and the CA/CCD movement was developing a new rhetoric around social justice, political emancipation and democracy, but in 1990 QAC reaffirmed its commitment to access, which had originally been adopted by the broader arts councils movement in 1984, as though it was a self-evident good. (Hawkins, 1993: 82; Pick, 1988: 4)
The concept of access is both highly ambiguous and value neutral. Television provides access to the ballet just as it does to major sporting events, but there is a huge qualitative difference between sitting on a couch at home watching ballet or
33 This had become a catchphrase within QAC, and it featured in Gertrude Langer’s speeches and letters year after year.
117 football on television (possibly eating home delivered pizza and drinking a glass of red wine) and executing a grande jetè or running about on the paddock oneself. Clearly there are different modes of access which need to be considered, and their relative merits defined in terms of benefits they deliver. How we define these benefits depends on what we value. In the absence of a clear enunciation of these values, and of how access delivers benefits in relation to them, access would be understood, by default, primarily in terms of arts council’s dominant mode – that is, in terms of providing opportunities to engage with or witness excellence.
By the time QAC formally re-embraced access – which today remains enshrined in policy and corporate branding as arts access statewide34– the CA/CCD debate had moved on, and access had been jettisoned. Participation was the buzz. Participation, as Hawkins notes, had previously been seen as the poor cousin of appreciation – witness Dorothy Helrich’s virtuous circle – but now participation was recognised as an agent of change in its own right. (Hawkins, 1993: 128)
Participation had always been part of the QAC lexicon, and QAC had from the start genuinely encouraged and worked to stimulate participation as a means towards social and developmental ends. To this extent the adoption of access by QAC during the 1980s was a retrograde step, because the organisation’s activities had always gone far beyond merely providing access, and access failed to adequately express their extent or vitality.
Success breeds complacency and sows the seeds of failure, as Bate observes (1994: 84): “Success is the mother of failure: people in successful companies avoid major change.” QAC programs were so self-evidently successful during this period, with all programs expanding and attracting ever increasing aggregate audiences, that there was no apparent need for change. QAC went on as it had been, providing a mix of programs. It supported local projects, but the main focus was on touring. In some years audiences fell, but the overall trend in the aggregate was steadily up.35 In fact
34 QAC management and staff often refer to arts access statewide as their mission. I consider it a slogan. 35 Audiences are affected by so many variables, individual programs and types of program, touring itineraries and timetables, economic conditions, regional venues, competing events, and so on, that it
118 there was an underlying problem. Average audiences were falling. Although this caused some concern, declines in individual years could often be attributed to particular causes – drought, floods or the international economic environment – and fundamental assumptions about the organisation and its work were rarely questioned.
School touring continued to dominate as QAC’s biggest program. In 1991 performances were held in over 50% of secondary schools and 80% of primary schools in Queensland. In all there were 6,369 performances for a total audience of 784,087. Depending how you measure it this was 83% of QAC activity (by number of performances), or 74% (by audience).
The Education Department was playing an increasing role in the school program, and contributed to a pool of performance and workshop assessors which: “… provides expertise across a wide spectrum of the arts and education in the assessment process, ensuring that programs offered to schools combine artistic integrity with the needs of curriculum and an awareness of the importance of equity issues involving gender, race, creed and the cultural diversity of our population.” (Peter Dent, 1991 Annual Report)
While the school program grew, major touring continued to decline. Rising costs limited the spectacle and scale of tours, diminishing the program’s profile and kudos. This resulted in smaller audiences. It was also possible to attribute low audiences to particular causes in some years: huge floods in 1974; World EXPO in Brisbane in 1988; worldwide recession was blamed for the unprecedented cancellation of three tours in 1990-91; and “the worst drought in living memory” cast a pall over much of the 1990s.
After 1991, RADF spurred interest in the arts, and led to an increase in the number of communities wanting to form arts councils. RADF also unrealistically raised expectations of what arts council could provide. (Peter Dent, 1991 Annual Report) Over time the impact of RADF was not so positive for QAC, and as I have noted
is risky to compare audiences within any given year, or between particular years. Trends become apparent over longer time scales.
119 many branches were marginalised as RADF committees established themselves as the key cultural institutions in their communities.
In his 1991 Annual Report, Peter Dent acknowledged the difficulty of providing tours to all branches, particularly those away from the coast. In previous years it had been QAC’s intention to offer at least one tour to every branch, but in 1991, and again in 1992, around 15 branches did not receive any tour.
4.8 Dancing on the Roller Coaster
The problem, in part, was that QAC was trying to do too much in this new competitive environment. From the beginning, QAC had grown opportunistically, its form and function expanding to occupy cultural gaps and meet emergent or newly identified cultural needs. Programming had been essentially supply driven, and regional constituents, who had access to few alternatives, were very happy to receive, consume or participate in, whatever QAC could send.
As the evolving cultural environment provided regional constituents with a greater range of options, demand became more discriminating, and QAC responded to the more fragmented and competitive market by expanding into new activities – trying as it always had “to be all things to all people”. (Macdonnell, 1997: 80) In 1979 Peter Dent had affirmed QAC’s responsibility to “foster the Arts in all its forms of expression” - but it was apparent that the breadth of this ambition, coupled with the geographic and demographic spread of branches, seriously stretched QAC’s resources. As Dent also noted at the time: “the dilemma of fulfilling this aim in providing a range of activities to satisfy all areas of the State is a problem that the Council has been grappling with during the last twelve months.” (Annual Report, 1979) Always dependent on government funds, the organisation had developed the habit of chasing them over the years, developing programs in response to the availability of subsidy.
I have already touched on a range of programs that were inaugurated, operated for a time and closed down. The Country Producers Scheme, funded by the Australia Council, began operating in Queensland in 1971 (earlier in other states) and operated
120 intermittently for some years; The Branch Live Performance Scheme (BLiPS) was inaugurated in 1980; Country Community Arts Projects (Country CAPS), supported by the funds provided through the federal body began in 1981; Artlink which commenced in 1984, was partly funded by the CAB (workshops but not performances); Local Initiative Grants (LIG) began in 1987 with federal money disbursed through the CCDB.
State government funding allowed a series of writers’ safaris to provide readings, workshops and other events in central and western Queensland in 1990, 1992, 2003. (The first was a writers’ train in 1990. A mini bus was used in later years.) In 1989 state funding allowed the appointment of an Ethnic Dance Officer (EDO) for Queensland, and a federal grant allowed the appointment of a Branch Development Officer (BDO). The EDO position was abolished when funds were terminated in 1991, while the BDO position continued until abolished during the restructure of 1999. Meanwhile in 1996, the state government funded the position of a full time writing officer, and QAC collaborated with the Queensland Writer’s Centre to manage a Regional Writing Fund.
The flexibility and opportunism that had allowed the organisation to survive and serve its membership, also required it to dance constantly to the tune of government. Each change of policy twisted it in a new direction. Dancing to the government tune made it difficult for the company to focus on key activities, dissipated energies and resources. The organisation had, as Macdonnell noted of the arts council in NSW (1997: 80) “grown like Topsy”. Eventually the organisation would have to take stock and refocus, but it was not yet aware of the need.
QAC had established a printery in 1987. This was initially intended as a cost saving measure, to meet the organisation’s growing need for a diverse range of pamphlets, brochures and booklets, but as the need for printed material rose to meet its capabilities any potential cost savings disappeared. During 1991 QAC opened an art gallery in its Mary Street, Brisbane premises to promote the work of regional artists. 1994 saw the launch of the Arts Regional Touring Service (ARTS), a cooperative venture between QAC’s Major Tours Program, NARPACA and the Queensland Office of Arts and Cultural Development. ARTS was designed “to ensure more
121 balanced performing arts touring to both major centres and remote areas within Queensland.”36
Also in 1994 QAC launched an Open College of the Arts (OCA) under licence from OCA in the United Kingdom. The college offered “quality arts education” through a combination of correspondence and face to face tuition, on a user pays non-profit basis. Courses included Art and Design, Textiles, Music, Photography, Painting, Sculpture, Drawing and Writing, and the college reached agreement with a number of tertiary institutions to allow accreditation of its courses. It was an ambitious program and attracted 324 enrolments in its first year, but enrolments dropped in subsequent years, and the combination of high tutors’ fees and low enrolments soon made OCA unsustainable.
At the end of 1992, following several successive years of operating at a surplus, QAC had carried forward an accumulated profit of $291,814. But 1993 marked a savage turnaround with a loss of $39,162 and then in successive years, losses of $136,584 and $42,647. The reckoning came in 1996. QAC budgeted on $140,000 from the Australia Council (the amount provided in 1995), but for the first time since 1971, the Australia Council withheld funding. This blow was exacerbated by a federal government embargo on tobacco sponsorship. This terminated QAC’s long standing relationship with the Rothman’s Foundation and cost the organisation another $100,000. These two items represented around five percent of QAC’s anticipated gross income.
The shortfall was partly alleviated by an increase in state government funding through Arts Queensland, but it was still a debilitating blow. The year ended with an operating loss of $63,970. This brought total losses over four years to nearly $300,000 and completely wiped out the accumulated profit from 1992. QAC applied for Australia Council funding in1997 but was again refused. The state government again increased funding, contributing almost $1.6 million (including the $500,000 ARTS budget) to a total revenue of $4.2 million, but the year saw an operating loss
36 The government funding arrangements that support QAC activities are often complex and the funding of ARTS is typical. In effect QAC is paid $75,000 to manage ARTS tours, and administer its total budget of $500,000.
122 of $118, 103. There were further big losses in the following years, and the organisation ended 1999 with an accumulated deficit of $331,623.
It was an extraordinary collapse – after several years of surplus in the early 1990s – a loss of more than $600,000 over seven years. The increasing breadth of QAC’s ambitions, its general inability to focus and restrict activities, and the huge administrative cost involved, had led to disaster. As one Board member stated: “It was top heavy. There was too much money spent on head office for the amount of money getting into the regions. That was a real issue, and the criticism was a valid one.”
The crisis had been a long time coming. Although the run of deficits between 1993 and 1999 was unprecedented, the organisation’s financial status had always been precarious, and it was not unusual to operate at a loss. There had been several years of loss during the 1970s, and a loss of almost $128,000 in 1987 before the organisation returned to profit in 1988.
QAC had delivered an extraordinary catalogue of achievement over the years, and if in the last few years of the century it fell off the roller coaster we should not be blinded to the beauty of its dance, or the importance of its role in building the cultural environment of Queensland. QAC had evolved on numerous fronts, advancing into new artistic fields where it created awareness, developed audiences and stimulated participation. As these various fields matured they generated their own dedicated interest groups and organisations, and attracted new players, cutting away at QAC’s support and patronage, and displacing its dominance in the field.
In 1962 QAC had initiated and managed the first Vacation School of Creative Arts in Queensland, opening up a very popular field of education. It was subsequently instrumental in founding, or helped generate the environment sympathetic to other vacation schools,37 little theatres and cultural lobby groups. It spawned the original
37 When it began in 1962, the QAC Vacation School of Creative Arts was unique in Queensland, but as happened in other fields, success encouraged imitation and competition and, by its 16th year, QAC was competing with a range of other providers. The 1977 School (nine courses & 127 enrolments), held in August, was the last to follow the then traditional format and cater for residential students. The McGregor Summer School was one of those that emerged in the wake of the QAC schools. By 1989
123 Queensland Opera Company, the Australian Flying Arts School, and Arts West in Blackall. Arts council branches were instrumental in lobbying and action campaigns that led to the building of cultural centres and NARPACA theatres across Queensland, and as we have seen, QAC was instrumental in the early success of RADF.
It is ironic that QAC is today regarded with some suspicion by other cultural service organisations who fear it encroaching on their territory. As this review has made clear, QAC paved the way for many of these organisations. If anything it is these other organisations who have displaced QAC, and they owe their existence, to some extent, to the work QAC did in tilling the cultural soil.
5 Brave New World
5.1 Crisis and Restructure
At the end of the millennium QAC was in financial trouble and appeared to have lost its way. Part of the QAC problem lay in the ideological debates that accompanied the emergence of CA/CCD. Bolstered by the success of its touring programs, QAC had rejected criticism that it was old fashioned, patriarchal and elitist, and defended existing structures and programs. Consequently, QAC was not engaged with important conceptual shifts that could have given it a new sense of purpose and guided the development of new polices and programs.
By 1997 there was no ambiguity about the need for critical reform. The process had began under the stewardship of Executive Director Peter Dent, but after 26 years at the helm Dent was ready to move on. Jane Atkins took over as Executive Director during 1999, but it wasn’t until Arthur Frame rejoined the organisation as CEO in August, that the major rescue mission began. 38
it offered more than fifty courses taught by around 70 tutors and staff over a two week period. It is still conducted annually, although on a smaller scale.
38 Frame had previously been manager of the school touring program for almost 12 years before leaving QAC to become a Deputy Director at Arts Queensland at the end of 1997.
124 There were difficult decisions to be made. The organisation was debilitated by an extended financial crisis. It was perceived to be top heavy and old fashioned, and clinging to the same touring and community engagement processes it had used for more than a quarter of a century. Reforms began at the top and extended over about two years. The constitution was reviewed and the Board of Directors reduced from 15 to 10. Five directors were to represent QAC’s five regions. The other five, normally metropolitan, would bring professional experience and expertise in relevant fields such as the arts, business administration and the law, and hopefully deliver social and political clout.
A review of corporate goals led into an extended period of strategic planning that lasted through 2001 and 2002, well into 2003. Critical internal reform saw significant program cuts and job losses. Peripheral activities were abandoned, departments jettisoned, and core activities consolidated into three programs known initially as Major Tours/ARTS, Open Arts and Education. Further consolidation, and corporate re-branding saw these refurbished as Ontour onstage, Ontour byrequest, and Ontour inschools. The re-branding was part of, and was accompanied by an extended public relations campaign to rehabilitate the organisation’s image and sell a rejuvenated QAC. Around the same time, the membership structure was overhauled and branches became independently incorporated Local Arts Councils.
The need for the corporate reform was incontrovertible, but reasons for reforming the relationship with branches were not so obvious. One factor was a genuine desire to democratise the network. In the words of one board member: “It was to give control and independence to local areas. We’d been under attack, for some years, we’d been criticised by a number of them for being too centralised, too much in south east Queensland, too controlling, too dictating. Some of this was just perceptions, not accurate really, it was to break down the centralisation of the organisation.”
Arts councils in other states had already largely decentralised. Decentralisation had been on the agenda of the New South Wales Division as early as 1955. In her tenth annual report as President Dorothy Helmrich noted: “It is generally accepted that the most urgent need for the full development of the Arts in Australia today is de- centralisation.” She went on to say, “The concentration in the capital cities of
125 virtually all the country’s artistic material has created a most unhealthy state of affairs; until this is changed, Australia can never develop an indigenous culture.” (Macdonnell, 1997: 29) In the end it was South Australia that led the way, pioneering a grass roots community cultural development model, with New South Wales gradually adopting a similar model around 1980-81 (ibid: 104)
Decentralisation had also been on the QAC agenda for many years. Sometime prior to 1967 Gertrude Langer noted the main aims of the Arts Council of Australia (Queensland Division) to be: “Decentralisation of the Arts, and Variety in Artistic and Theatrical Presentations.”39 Since 1984 the Arts Council of Australia Statement of Purpose, printed in the QAC annual report had committed the organisation to: “extending and supporting arts practice and expression by encouraging people to determine for themselves their own arts and entertainment needs.” This commitment was rephrased in 1993 when QAC independently defined its mission as: To provide access to the arts to everyone in Queensland. This was accompanied by an artistic policy that included the responsibility to: Provide infrastructure training and resources for the development of arts practice and locally-initiated activities in regional communities.
In practice, QAC operated through the 1990s much as it always had. Touring remained centrally driven. Programming was determined by supply rather than demand, as QAC provided what it was accustomed to provide, and best equipped to provide. The 1996 Australia Council decision to withdraw the financial support it had provided every year since 1971, was an important impetus to restructuring. Other factors contributed. One was the desire of management and the board to protect QAC, and themselves, from debts and other potential liabilities incurred by branches. Information distributed to branches by State President John Noble in December 1998 made it clear that, based on legal advice, it was imperative for Local Arts Councils to become fully autonomous, and that this was primarily a risk externalisation strategy. (Noble, 1998)
39 Undated notes in the Gertrude Langer collection held in the Fryer Library – box 36.
126 Employees also quoted the (looming) advent of the GST, which would have intolerably complicated the financial management and accounting of touring. However some board members minimised the part played by these administrative issues as drivers of change. In the words of one:
The GST was quite co-incidental. That happened after we’d started planning things. But if we hadn’t started going that way we would have had to do something anyway. It just confirmed that we were doing the right thing. ….. Most certainly their debts were our debts, and technically their profits were our profits, not that we ever saw them. It had never come to that, but technically yes, and we were a bit nervous about that. That was another issue, but not an overwhelming one. Yes, it was a combination of things.
The network restructure meant a new relationship between QAC and the newly formed LACs. The old head and branch structure had been founded on direct membership. Arts council members were members of Queensland Arts Council, which was a company, and they paid membership fees to the company. QAC funded the branches, owned the assets they held, and was ultimately liable for their debts. Branch functions, procedures and responsibilities were detailed in the Branch Manual and the company’s Memorandum and Articles of Association. Through these, head office regulated both the structure and operation of the arts council network, and the affairs and operation of individual branches. Branches needed the consent of the company to enter into contracts with artists and other providers, and the company had the power to intervene directly in branch activities, particularly where a branch was considered by QAC to be performing poorly. Article of Association number 36 stated: “If in the opinion of the Board a branch fails to comply with these Articles or with the policy of the Board as determined from time to time the Board reserves the right to investigate and if it is found necessary to restrict or terminate that branch’s activities.” (QAC, 1994)
While branches or individual members often complained about decisions imposed by head office, and expressed the desire for more say in decision making, in particular
127 in regard to the selection of touring arts product, they enjoyed almost complete immunity from financial and other risk.
Under the new structure that was no longer the case. As incorporated organisations LACs became responsible for their own financial integrity. They would set and collect their own membership fees, and pay an annual affiliation fee to QAC. They would own assets and be responsible for their own debts. As independent small businesses they would need to satisfy the annual registration, administrative and other requirements imposed by the state government Office of Fair Trading.
A set of Model Rules adapted from the standard rules provided by Office of Fair Trading became, in effect, the LAC Constitution. The relationship between LACs and QAC is now spelled out in the Affiliation Agreement With Local Arts Councils agreement which must be renewed annually, while the Queensland Arts Council Memorandum and Articles of Association provide the overarching context.
In the past, branches had been subordinate, and while they were often vocal in making their wishes known, it was QAC that ultimately held the power and made decisions, but the new affiliation relationship was voluntary. Autonomous LACs could control their own destiny, and if they weren’t content with the relationship they could disaffiliate, but QAC could not close them down, and initially there was some doubt about whether it could even stop them from using the Arts Council name.
Despite these uncertainties the reforms were effective, and in 2000, QAC turned in an operating profit of $11,058, its first surplus after seven consecutive years of loss. In following years it was to return surpluses of $244,140 and $134,300. Frame had engineered a remarkable turnaround, and the organisation was once again viable, but in 2000, there were still tumultuous and sometimes confusing times ahead.
5.2 Taking Stock
The organisation had undergone massive reforms that went to its heart, and transformed the way it had operated for more than forty years. The network restructure was a revolution. Under the old structure, QAC determined artistic
128 policies and could veto branch activities, but LACs are now free to determine their own missions, artistic policies, strategies and activities. They are individually affiliated to QAC as a matter of choice. QAC no longer has an explicit management function in relation to the network, but is primarily an advocate, and a provider of products and services which individual LACs are free to accept or reject.
The network restructure had been implemented precipitously, and its full ramifications were yet to be understood. One Board member put it very directly: “We hadn’t really thought the changes through.” The commencement of this project coincided with preparations for QAC’s 40th anniversary celebration in March 2001. The celebration was a substantial public event that drew a line under the turmoil of the previous few years, but underneath the public ceremony there remained a degree of uncertainty and angst. The impact of structural changes was still flowing through the organisation and it was struggling with them. The initial restructure had involved job losses at head office, and as programs and job descriptions changed there was a further series of redundancies that brought new staff into the organisation, generated further instability and led to further change. An extended period of reflection and self-examination extended through 2001 and 2002, and into 2003, with a series of retreats, workshops, and regular fortnightly forums, involving key QAC staff. The process addressed a range of key issues, most of which evolved from the new relationship being established between QAC and LACs.
What were LAC’s and QAC to expect of each other? How was QAC to monitor and influence LAC activities and performance so as to protect and enhance the Arts Council corporate ‘brand’? What are the characteristics of effective LAC management personnel, and could QAC influence the recruiting of suitable people? What is the ideal size of the LAC network, and should QAC actively work to establish LACs in strategically determined locations? Should QAC services be provided, or affiliation be offered to other local arts organisations in locations where there was no LAC? What affiliation and disaffiliation procedures should be put in place? It had to be remembered when considering all these questions, and others, that regional LAC personnel are volunteers. Just how much could reasonably be expected of them? As these and other issues were being worked through, the Queensland Arts
129 Council Articles of Association, and the Affiliation Agreement for Local Arts Councils had yet to be finalised and approved by the QAC Board of directors.
Key questions that concerned the organisation focused on the extent to which the LAC and its membership constituted QAC’s ultimate clientele and market, and the extent to which they ought to be considered gateways to the broader community of which they were part. It was consideration of these issues, along with reflection on the democratic imperative that drives CA/CCD, which led me to develop the notion of a representative custodian-elite. What I mean by this is that the local LAC management might be considered to represent the broader community, and to act in- trust on its behalf in cultural affairs.
Had the network restructure been preceded by greater forethought and embarked on with less haste, many of these issues might have been resolved, or at least countenanced in sufficient detail for potential consequences and complications to have been foreseen. As it turned out legal and structural changes were implemented before complementary policies and procedures were in place, and QAC was subsequently playing ‘catch-up’ for some time.
A number of head office participants were daunted by the planning process. The changes and the challenges they brought seemed overwhelming, but gradually a sense of the new vision began to emerge. In the words of a participant after one planning session: “Yesterday was good. I think we’re gradually getting there. A year ago it seemed too much. It was in the too hard basket, but I’m starting to see that it can work.”
As studies of organisational culture make clear, all organisations are to some extent riven by internal divergences and conflicts of interest. Unitarist views (Luthans, 1972: 287), which assume that members of an organisation naturally identify with it and dedicate themselves towards its goals have been largely discredited. However, these unitarist views, which characterise those who do not take an organisation’s mission to heart as social misfits, trouble makers and even pathological, were and still are proposed by some who have a vested interest in conformity and acquiescence, most obviously the owners and managers of some businesses and organisations.
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A more objective view of organisations understands them to represent a qualified and conditional coalition of interests. All internal stakeholders – for QAC this encompasses everybody involved with the organisation from members and local office bearers to professional staff, management and directors – seek to serve their own interests within and through the organisation, and they rationalise their interests in terms of, and balance them against, the interests and goals of the organisation. (Ackroyd and Thompson, 1999: 54; Bate, 1994: 12; Hatch, 1997: 235; Pfeffer, 1981; Stapley 1996; Thornhill, 2000: 70; Whiteley, 1995: 23)
That is not to say that an organisation is an irredeemable quagmire of competition and conflict, but we must acknowledge that all human groups encompass diversity – differences in age, gender, economic power, religious and political affiliation – further fragmented by personal ambition, individual career paths, professional and personal interests, personality and so on. One of the most persistent struggles for all human beings is the essential conflict at the heart of community, to reconcile individual identity and self-interest, with group identity and mutual interests.
Consequently we can expect mutualities and tensions to be evident, to some extent, at every level of QAC and the LAC network. To a very large measure, the success of arts council will be commensurate with the degree to which it is able to identify and activate the mutualities between the various perspectives manifest at all levels, and accommodate or nullify the tensions. In adopting this view of the organisation I recognise many of the tensions within the LAC/QAC network, in particular those along the two cultural fault lines I discuss below, to be intransigent - that is they are not merely minor or temporary differences that can be papered over, and nor can they, in the foreseeable future be resolved. They are fundamental and inherent dissonances that must be understood, managed and ameliorated where possible.
There are two fault lines, which I characterise as cultural, along which divisive or confrontational attitudes may emerge. The first is between the city and the bush. This is more than geographic, and encompasses different values, political and social affiliations, lifestyles and so on. It is in, effect, cultural. I have previously noted that there is great demographic variation across Queensland’s LAC network, and as
131 Lloyd ( 1994: 229) observes, individual communities inevitably encompass heterodoxy. No single view can be taken to represent “the bush”. There is however a tendency for certain attitudes to predominate.
The second obvious fault is between professional staff and unpaid volunteers. To a large extent the two fault lines coincide, and their combined effect is to make for significant division between the corporate body of QAC and its professional staff, and the volunteer rural and regional constituency. There is for example a tendency for QAC professional staff to assume that corporate goals and interests are the goals and interests of constituents, and to favour corporate goals and interests by default.
On the other hand there is a view amongst some LAC officers and regional members that QAC remains a top heavy bureaucracy, that employment at QAC is something of a sinecure, and that QAC staff are a privileged city elite who don’t really understand the issues faced by their ‘country cousins’. This view appears to be associated with a general impatience with anything perceived to be bureaucratic, abstract or theoretical, and an allied perception that research (including the study underlying this thesis) is irrelevant or futile. Researchers come and go in the bush and are never heard of again. The results of their work fall into a black hole and are lost. That is the perception of many who live in regional Queensland.
The most fundamental shift resulting from the network restructure of 1999-2000 was the elevation of branches to autonomous status as independently incorporated LACs. These LACs now take on the primary responsibility for engagement with the communities they serve. Their challenge is to define themselves in relation to their communities, and to make a genuine and visible contribution to those communities – not that they hadn’t had this responsibility before, but as long as they were mendicant upon QAC it had been of little account whether they worked at it. As autonomous incorporated bodies they are now responsible, not only for their own destinies, but collectively for the destiny of the network as a whole, and ultimately for the destiny of QAC.
132 5.3 The New Agendas
5.3.1 Arts Access Statewide
The reforms brought new challenges for all. The challenge for individual LACs is to reinvigorate and reinvent themselves, and to make a genuine and visible contribution to their communities by enhancing quality of life and lifestyle options. They can no longer survive – as some branches did – as sleepy outposts that raised themselves briefly from torpor when QAC tours came to town.
LACs most effectively negotiating the transition have retained strong links with QAC, accessing resources and advice, while becoming core service delivery and entrepreneurial organisations within their own communities, forming strategic partnerships and integrating themselves into the broader community life. This is no small order for organisations comprising part-time volunteer staff who have other demands on their time, and who are in many cases handicapped by isolation, not just from the world community at large, but from each other. But it is what all LACs, if they are to prosper, need to do.
For QAC the challenge is to balance its ambitions between its roles as an arts touring company with separate programs dedicated to performances for community audiences (mainly adult), and for schools (years 1-12), and as a support organisation devoted to nurturing and supporting a network of LACs. Under the present corporate structure (June 2004) these functions are divided between QAC’s three core programs with Ontour onstage and Ontour inschools responsible for most touring, while Ontour byrequest meets LAC requests for smaller tours, classes and workshops, and support for other locally initiated activities.
If we were to interpret Arts Access Statewide literally, we would expect QAC to service a total population of nearly 3.7 million people in some 800 cities, towns and small communities. Indeed this intention was explicit in a previous version of QAC’s mission, which specified access to everyone in Queensland. In practice, QAC services and products are delivered primarily to two main statewide communities: one is the community of students attending Queensland schools, who are serviced
133 through Ontour inschools; the other is the community of arts council members40 who are serviced primarily through Ontour onstage and Ontour byrequest.
Ontour inschools (OTIS) does offer programs to every school in the state. In 2000, 1106 primary schools and 276 secondary schools participated (out of state totals of 1515 and 454 schools respectively). A total of 582,93441 students saw OTIS programs, more than the total number of students in the state, and this figure might have been even higher if more schools had elected to take part. QAC does fall short of its intention to reach every student, but the outreach figures are still impressive, and the program claims to be the world’s largest arts touring program for schools.
Outreach statistics for adult programs are more limited. In 2000 Ontour onstage reached some 18,100 people and Ontour by request, including exhibitions, reached an estimated 43,700.42 QAC favours delivering Ontour onstage and Ontour byrequest products and services through LACs and in LAC towns.43 That is where the members are. It is where QAC considers its main responsibility to lie, and where QAC has traditionally expected to attract the highest participation levels.
The rationale is that effective and viable implementation of QAC programs demands local agency. Local agents provide a range of essential on-ground support including promotion, accepting bookings and payment, front-of-house staffing, and so on, without which touring programs would be handicapped. In the case of Ontour inschools it is the schools themselves that effectively become QAC’s local agents. They provide a network of contacts and local knowledge, promote programs internally, provide venues, collect payments, marshal audiences and so on. As a result Ontour inschools can operate in the absence of LACs, but this is not the case, the argument goes, for Ontour onstage and Ontour byrequest, and their activities are limited to LAC sites.
40 Those who should know better sometimes speak of QAC members, but this is incorrect. Regional arts council members are members of their LACs, and they are associated with QAC by virtue of the affiliation agreement between their LACs and QAC. 41 This figure includes an unknown number of multiple attendances in schools where students may have seen more than one program. 42 As for the schools figure, this is the total number of attendances, not the number of individuals. 43 Major theatrical productions offered under the ARTS program also appear in non LAC NARPACA venues.
134 Funding ultimately limits what can be achieved. From the beginning, QAC tours have almost invariably lost money, recording deficits which must ultimately be met by government and corporate sponsorship. The greater the sponsorship, the more touring can take place. As I discuss in following chapters, LAC sites do not necessarily provide the highest participation levels for tours and other activities, and QAC is beginning to look at extending its activities beyond the LAC network.
5.3.2 QAC as an Arts Touring Company
Ontour onstage and Ontour inschools operate independently, each through its own distribution and support channels. For Ontour onstage this means the LAC network, and the NARPACA circuit. The program is made complex by an inherent paradox that emerges from the conflict between an entrepreneurial focus, and a concern for equity which constitutes the justification for much government funding. The former mandates maximum cost recovery to ensure program viability. The latter mandates touring to isolated regions of extremely low population density, which are generally the most culturally deprived, but also the most expensive to reach, and the least likely to provide substantial cost recovery.
In this context, QAC regards the LAC network primarily as a tour support network, however not all LACs provide effective on-ground support for QAC and its programs. Many do, but others are ineffectual. The economics of touring subject Ontour onstage to conflicting imperatives. The imperative to maximise cost recovery suggests that the program should look outside the LAC network, benchmark LAC performances against alternatives, and plan touring itineraries accordingly, beyond the LAC network. The obligation to service members suggests that tours should be restricted to network sites. Social justice imperatives suggest that touring itineraries should be scheduled primarily into those regions most deprived, irrespective of cost recovery. In practice the Ontour onstage attempts to balance these conflicting imperatives.
Ontour inschools on the other hand accesses an extensive readymade distribution and support network through government and non-government schools. The school touring program has, under different names, always been the biggest part of QAC’s
135 activities, and from the early years (even from the time of CEMA), it has been designated by management as the organisation’s most important program.
In 1967 the school program managed 67% of QAC’s total touring events and contributed 64% of the total audience. By 1997 the contribution had climbed to almost 90% of events and 76% of total audience. In 1987 the relative contributions were an overwhelming 96% and 95%, and they have remained close to these levels since.44
The conundrum I have previously referred to – that supply of, and demand for touring product are driven by different imperatives – applies to the school program just as it does to QAC’s programs more broadly. Programs may well be conceived by producers as uplifting, enlightening and educational, but they draw audiences and are received according to their entertainment value. This gives rise to a persistent dilemma at the core of the program, as it has sought to balance and merge entertainment and educational values.
For schools, the dilemma becomes a question of how programming interacts, not only with the curriculum, but also with broader pedagogical issues. The end consumers – students – don’t alone make the decision to attend. The decision is made, or influenced at four levels by: key educational staff (from the Education Queensland Executive Director, or even the Minister for Education down to arts implementation teams); school staff (principals, teachers, and administrative personnel); the students themselves; and others (parents, artists, media etc). (Ontour inschools Strategic Planning discussion paper, 2002)
There has been an increasing body of evidence to support the positive impact the arts can exert on educational outcomes since The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation published its report in 1982, and many have since broadly discussed the epistemological and heuristic value of the arts. (Abbs, 1989; Best, 1992; Diamond, 1992; Eisner, 1985; Turner, 1982; Wilshire, 1982)
44 These statistics cannot be taken as absolute due to the different configuration of programs and events in different years and the incompleteness and unreliability of some records (whether the attendance at exhibitions was tallied and included in touring figures for example), but they are accurate enough to indicate unambiguously the relative importance of the schools program.
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Champions of Change, a major study bringing together the work of seven research teams in the U.S. showed the arts to consistently enhance learning and documented a range of outcomes. One study of 25,000 students showed ‘arts rich’ students to comprehensively out-perform ‘arts poor’ students’. Another study showed an inspiring turnaround in 14 deprived high schools in a deeply troubled part of Chicago. (Fiske, E. 1999) Preliminary results from the Queensland based Education and Arts Partnership Initiative, indicate similar results amongst ‘arts rich’ schools in isolated Indigenous communities in Queensland, including Lockhart River and Thursday Island. (EAPI, 2003)
Arts professionals, teachers in schools, teachers seconded to OTIS and OTIS managers and staff, and other QAC management and staff, view this question of pedagogical and curricular interaction from various perspectives. Opinions are vehemently expressed on both sides. Many teachers commented on the increased pressure under which they worked - a more demanding curriculum, higher expectations, more accountability - and were adamant on the need for pedagogical impact and curriculum related outcomes. These teachers make a sharp distinction between education and entertainment, and if they had to restrict co-curricular activities, it was likely to be arts council that was cut.
One explained that many attempts to address curriculum issues were superficial and token. She said: “It’s not about being relevant to curriculum. That’s like waving a teabag over the curriculum. It’s about dynamising the curriculum, engaging with it.”
Another professional noted: “Schools are becoming much more assertive in setting their own cultural and arts agendas. They will decide what artistic experiences they want, conduct their own artistic audits of the local environment, and make their own evaluations. QAC is at risk of missing the boat entirely if it fails to keep up with changes in the educational environment.”
QAC’s attempt to complement Education Queensland’s new Years 1-10 Arts Syllabus introduced in 2001, illustrates the complexity of the issues. The new syllabus, promised a new era for the arts in education, and QAC expected and
137 planned to respond to the anticipated increase in awareness and receptiveness towards the arts that was expected to permeate the state school system. This didn’t happen. Many teachers found the new syllabus daunting, and implementation stalled. At first this appeared to present an opportunity for QAC to position OTIS as the arts implementation experts who could help teachers come to grips with the new syllabus. But there were two problems with this. One was the sheer scale of the task, involving more than 28,000 teachers in almost 1,300 schools; the other was that having initially ‘hitched its star’ to the new syllabus, QAC was tainted by the unpopularity of the syllabus. The implementation will continue, but without necessarily generating any immediate increase in interest, or other spin-off for Ontour inschools, and resources QAC invested into developing new programs to complement the syllabus may ultimately show little return
For some teachers curriculum relevance is less of an issue. One said, “We’ll take whatever we can get.” Another said, “I’m not going to knock back any of the arts councils that come along, because the more exposure the kids can have to arts and performance and so on, well great.” Another had previously accessed RADF to fund school art projects, but had moved to a new local government area where the RADF committee was less sympathetic. She said she had fallen back on arts council because it’s all there was. She considered arts council less valuable because of the shortness of school visits, whereas RADF had allowed her to conduct extended workshops. Others preferred PCAP and other more flexible programs for similar reasons. They saw relatively little value in the short exposure – “Thirty minutes, forty minutes, whatever.” – offered by arts council programs, and wanted to develop more intense participation over an extended period.
Actors and other arts professionals tend to take a different view. Some consider school programming too didactic and politically correct. They have taken all the enjoyment and life out of it, was a common response. One said, “For God’s sake, give them a bit of fun.” One teacher with inside knowledge of OTIS lamented what she called the degrading of the program to provide light entertainment in the attempt to boost income, and expressed the view that the school program was being treated as a ‘cash cow’. This view should be considered in the light of QAC’s need to meet budget targets. School touring is generally more financially viable than community
138 touring, but still incurs substantial loses, and limited government subsidies are rapidly exhausted by regional touring.
Amongst this range of opinions there is a clear division between those who demand explicit educational and developmental outcomes, not necessarily curriculum specific, although some demand this as well, and those who value the arts for their entertainment value and don’t consider them in explicit educational terms.
The close involvement of Education Queensland in the Ontour inschools program – two teachers are currently seconded to the program as advisors45 – means that the program is, in effect, constantly monitored by Education Queensland, and departmental agendas and priorities will be constantly represented within the program. The general instability that has characterised QAC staffing, as the consequences of reform continue to cascade through the organization, has affected Ontour inschools, and programming policy has changed as program managers and staff rotate. From 2002 - 2004 focus shifted towards more explicit educational relevance. Because of the need to program eight to twelve months ahead, these shifts take time, this presents a serious obstacle when corrections need to be made. Student numbers fell well below target in 2004, and in 2005 the pendulum will swing back towards more overt entertainment values.
Ontour inschools artists have occasionally performed to adult audiences, and have been very well received. And as far back as 1979, QAC had acknowledged the benefits of combined school and adult touring, and encouraged school touring companies to provide adult entertainment in the evenings. (QAC Annual Report, 1979) In practice, combined touring has been difficult to manage. It greatly complicates the planning and logistics of touring, and places additional demands on artists. Some artists do not want to do it.
A global programming initiative introduced in early 2004, promises to maximise efficiencies between Ontour inschools and Ontour onstage by promoting the adult touring program within the high school program. By cutting back on tours into high
45 The first teacher was seconded in 1987 and was later joined by a second. Teachers are rotated regularly and can be attached to QAC for a maximum of 3 years.
139 schools, and directing high school students towards suitable ‘in theatre’ productions in the Ontour onstage program it is hoped that both programs will benefit. Results from early tours in 2004 appear promising. 46
5.3.3 QAC as an LAC Support Organisation
To the extent that QAC is a support organisation for LACs it becomes subordinate to the agendas determined by LACs on the basis of their community needs and interests, and QAC should implement its strategies to foster and nurture LACs accordingly.
As independently incorporated organisations LACs now come under the regulation of the Queensland Office of Fair Trading. Every LAC is a small business. This is not to say it must comprehensively adopt small business values, but at a minimum it must be properly and responsibly managed, and exercise diligence in administration. If it is to prosper it needs to develop its profile, links and allegiances within its community just like any other small business. Because of these increased demands, and the workload they impose, the least active LACs are unlikely to survive. Mere existence exacts a cost, and unless significant benefits are seen to emerge, the maintenance of an LAC is more trouble than it’s worth.
Each LAC needs to discover how it can contribute most effectively to the enhancement of local community life, and on the basis of this develop a sense of purpose, and design and implement appropriate strategies. For each LAC this will be largely determined by local conditions, and the personnel involved. One LAC strategy is to take on the role of an umbrella organisation, coordinating the activities of other organisations in the community, and providing advice, information, communication, funding and access channels, and so on. But such a dominant role can generate resentment amongst other groups. One regional director noted that while it had long been intended that branches take on this sort of umbrella
46 I deal with Ontour inschools relatively briefly here, because this project was established specifically to study QAC in the context of network reconfiguration and the incorporation of LACS, and OTIS is the program least affected by these reforms. Those interested in a more sustained examination of schools programming should turn to the Education and The Arts Partnership Initiative, a combined project involving collaboration between the Australia Council, Arts Queensland, Education Queensland and QUT. (EAPIQ, 2004)
140 responsibility, very few had been able to do so. An alternative strategy is to focus on a specific interest group, minority or niche market.
To operate effectively LACs need to be representative of their communities, and able to tap strongly into those communities for patronage and support. They need to embrace or forge strong links with key persons, and with other arts and cultural organisations, and political, community and business organisations such as shire councils, government agencies, chambers of commerce, local businesses, tourism bodies, charities and so on.
During the branch years it was common for local office holders - branch presidents, secretaries, treasurers and so on - to describe themselves as ‘arts council volunteers’. Their perception was generally that they were helping out QAC. This perception still lingers amongst many LAC personnel. One crucial perceptual shift they must make, is to the awareness that they are working for themselves, and their own communities.
In this respect, the health and prosperity of individual LACs, and the network in general, is paramount. LACs, as decentralised service delivery agencies in most direct contact with regional communities, servicing them as local cultural industry support groups, are the primary organisations. QAC’s role is to adapt to and service the needs of LACs, in so far as these LACs present local agendas and priorities on behalf of their constituents. This is, in large measuree, a reversal of the traditional head office branch relationship, which saw centrally determined policies and programs disseminated to the regions. It is also readily understood in terms of the broader shift from supply driven to demand driven product and service delivery.
This relationship reversal poses possibly the greatest challenge under the new structure for QAC, as it seeks to negotiate, rationalise and balance these locally determined agendas between, with and against corporate agendas, which are centrally determined, and promoted and held with considerable conviction by the Brisbane managerial elite. The old branch structure evinced a similar contest of local and central agendas, but it was ultimately a ‘no-contest’ with head office holding all the cards. With incorporated LACs replacing branches that is no longer the case. (I discuss the mundane example of letterheads below.)
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Various degrees of importance and emphasis have been applied to network maintenance and LAC support over the years. A Branch Development Officer employed from 1989 to 1999 managed programs variously described as the Branch Development Program and the Training and Branch Development Program. After the QAC restructure the BDO position was replaced by that of Regional Development Officer. More recently this position has attracted additional responsibilities – including management of the DCITA funded Regional Arts Fund which funds projects but not infrastructure – and the incumbent has limited time to address the development needs of LACs.
Since QAC’s restructure, branch development has been largely subsumed by other programs or projects, especially Australia Council funded audience development projects conducted first by Vicki Simons during 2000-2001, and then by Patrick Mitchell, from 2002 onwards. A number of other QAC staff also have contact with LACs and regional members, but the approach to network development and LAC support is not fully focused, and there is a risk that important issues fall through the gaps. Some LACs feel they are neglected, and that their needs are ignored.
In reality, finite resources mean there is a limit to what QAC can do for LACs. While more independent LACs should in theory require less servicing from QAC, the greater degree of autonomy for individual LACs inevitably means that the arts council network will encompass greater diversity as individual LACs forge their own independent identities, and develop activities suited to their own particular circumstances. This, allied with the fact that many of the newly autonomous LACs are struggling to find their feet, means that LAC support and network maintenance are likely to become more critical and more difficult issues for QAC.
Organisational change, despite the benefits it promises is often disconcerting, and sometimes threatening, and it would be surprising if there were not some ambivalence about the new relationship on both sides. Some LACs have welcomed the increased independence and responsibility that came with the new structure, and express a new entrepreneurial vigour. Others struggle with the changes,
142 uncomfortable with their own lack of direction, and looking for guidance. The increased administrative load consequent to incorporation generates some complaint.
Central agencies are almost invariably reluctant to relinquish control (Rhodes, 1999: 20), and a similar ambivalence manifests within QAC. Management and staff advocate, and genuinely desire, local initiative and independent action by regional LACs, but when LAC activities or behaviour challenge established procedures, the instinctive response of QAC personnel is often to maintain the status quo. It takes some time for this initial resistance to subside, and for issues to be exposed and considered on their merits. Management and staff have negotiated several very challenging years, and it is to their credit that organisational reforms, and the network transition in particular, have been implemented with relatively few major problems, although some problems arose which had not been foreseen.
As previously noted, differences of interest have been intrinsic to the QAC throughout its history, but they’ve reached a new dimension where LACs which have reacted enthusiastically to their new independence have sought to embark on idiosyncratic endeavors not consistent with QAC’s corporate style or policy. A mundane example, which appears trivial but generated considerable heat, arose from the desire of several LACs to use their own logos or letterheads, either with or in place of, QAC logos or letterheads. The proposals generated vigorous debate. To date, these differences have been resolved by amicable compromise, but similar differences have the potential to cause serious division. Future conflicts may arise over incompatible sponsorship commitments, where a local business enlisted to sponsor LAC activities is seen to compete with a statewide sponsor enlisted by QAC. Amidst such potential clashes of interest, both QAC and individual LACs need to be convinced that their affiliation is mutually beneficial, if the relationship is to survive.
The future of Queensland’s arts councils is largely in the hands of the relatively small number of individuals, all volunteers, who form the active heart – the local managerial elite – of each individual LAC. This is usually no more than five or six
143 people, of whom two or three will do most of the work for each LAC, in total perhaps 200 people across the state.47
These people provide the crucial link between QAC and its constituency. It is in their hands that the future of QAC and the arts council network ultimately rests. It is therefore essential for the ongoing effectiveness and viability of QAC and the arts council network that Local Arts Councils are able to attract and engage the most appropriate and effective people in their communities – people who have an interest in, and a commitment to the arts, and the time and energy to become involved. They should also have a wide range of applicable skills covering fields as diverse, and as specialised, as long term planning and policy development, financial management, personnel management, public relations and promotions, event management and support, and many more. But we must remember that these people are unpaid volunteers. They often juggle conflicting demands on their time and energy, work with limited resources, lack some appropriate organisational and management skills, and they are impatient with bureaucratic processes.
5.3.4 Policy and Program Innovation at QAC
QAC’s critical self-examination had begun with an organisational review in 1997. This review reaffirmed the 1993 mission statement which dedicated the organisation: “to provide access to quality arts experiences for everyone in Queensland.” The 1997 statement was followed by a new strategic plan released in 2000, for the years 2000- 200248. This again affirmed the 1993 mission statement, but backed it up with statements of artistic policy, critical success factors, and key result areas. A revised strategic plan was released along with corporate re-branding, with the mission specified simply as Arts Access Statewide. It was accompanied by a statement of corporate vision that acknowledged the arts to be an integral part of life, and sought to strengthen the ‘arts fabric’ woven through the lives of individuals and communities, to tangibly enrich the lives of all Queenslanders. It specified objectives
47 This critical group provided the participant pool for the postal survey of 262 key LAC personnel conducted in August 2001. That 45% of survey recipients did not respond to this carefully targeted internal survey may suggest a limited commitment on the part of many LAC committee members. 48 In its final form this became the Queensland Arts Council Strategic Plan, 2001-2003.
144 in terms of four goal categories: programming, touring, partnerships and corporate excellence.
During the extended period of readjustment and strategic planning that followed the restructure, a recurrent theme was the need for new or extended activities to be supported by increased funding from new or existing sources. Priority was given to those activities thought likely to attract sponsors or well-funded partners, and to those which might allow existing QAC resources to be applied more effectively.
A number of important strategic shifts and project innovations emerged. Others are still in development. Among the most important initiatives are: o more rigorous policies and procedures governing the formation of LACs, which will ensure that new LACs are more strategic, more competently managed, and that they engage more fully with their communities; o the addition of a fifth goal to the QAC strategic plan, relating to capacity building: “Developing the capacity of regional communities to achieve social, creative and entrepreneurial capital through arts enterprise”; o an increased focus on youth activities that has resulted in a number of significant projects such as a mobile mural painted on the side of a bus by primary school students in Gladstone, and a proposed series of film making workshops; o a cross-programming initiative aimed at offering ‘in-theatre’ (rather than ‘in- school’) theatrical experiences to secondary school students, by inviting them to selected Ontour onstage productions; o a series of five Regional Leadership Forums conducted in partnership with Arts Queensland in Townsville, Barcaldine, Biloela, Stanthorpe and Mitchell, in June, July and August 2004. A key function of these forums has been to reach outside of QAC’s accustomed regional constituency, and engage with a broad range of community representatives.
145 5.4 The New Critical Role of LACs
The transmogrification of branches into independently incorporated Local Arts Councils has affected aspects of the way they operate, particularly in relation to governance and finance. It may also have impacted on the way they understand, define and prioritise their various arts facilitation functions, and the roles they fulfill within their communities, but it has not fundamentally changed these functions and roles. Well managed, enterprising and effective branches have previously done, in various degrees, all those things that as LACs, they are now more manifestly required to do.
These include: advocating, promoting and supporting the arts in general, and arts council in particular; initiating, supporting and managing local arts activities; facilitating, promoting and providing on-the-ground support for QAC touring productions; liaising with QAC on administrative matters, and providing QAC with community information and feedback. Effectively carrying out these roles is contingent upon an LAC’s ability to securely establish a public profile as an effective service delivery and entrepreneurial organisation for the arts within its host community, and to liaise, collaborate and form strategic partnerships with other community organisations and institutions including local government, schools, businesses, other arts agencies and so on.
Support for touring productions might include distribution of publicity material such as posters, handbills and press releases, venue preparation and front of house support for the performance, and provision of food and drink. In the early years it often involved providing billets or other accommodation for traveling artists and support crew, and it may also have included more extensive promotional work including placing advertisements and arranging press conferences and interviews, before these activities were progressively assumed by QAC’s in-house marketing department.
While many branches saw themselves, and justified themselves to their communities, primarily as the agency which brought QAC touring productions into town, it was the measure of more active and effective branches that their activities extended far
146 beyond this. They worked to build awareness, generate activity and develop the artistic and cultural climate of their communities.
However many branches did not consistently, and some did not even occasionally, do these things. If the branch was not active it incurred no significant costs, and the impost on individual members was only the annual membership fee. During the 1960s, this was $2 per head. In 1988, fees were $7 for an individual member or $10 for a family. They increased to $10 and $15 respectively in 1992, and remained around this level until the restructure. The branch paid only a portion of each membership fee to Brisbane in the form of a levy. So, regardless of the size of its membership, each branch was guaranteed, on membership alone, to be in surplus.
A branch could, either by intention or by default, linger on as a largely inactive and ineffectual appendage of the central body. As long as it could retain a handful of financial members and nominally fill key committee positions it was able to hang on from year to year, possibly rather lethargically hosting and supporting the occasional touring production, and possibly not even doing that. Moreover, in the event that it did embark on more active and adventurous program, a branch was ultimately protected from the consequences of financial delinquency or misadventure. Debts incurred by branches were the debts of QAC, and they were ultimately the responsibility of QAC’s administration and Board of Directors.
Incorporation changed this. As previously discussed, LACs now come under the regulation of the Queensland Office of Fair Trading and must exercise due diligence in administration. Each must comply with administrative and documentation requirements specified by Queensland legislation and pay an affiliation fee to QAC. In 2003 this fee was $550 plus GST, a total of $605 for every LAC, regardless of membership. Government incorporation fees boost mandatory subsistence costs to almost $650 per year for an already incorporated LAC. There may also be book keeping expenses, bank fees and so on.
147 These are real costs, and a constant drain on every LAC regardless of size. So, unless an LAC is able to sustain more than a token membership49 and attract or generate a certain minimal degree of activity, the cost of simply existing is more than it is worth. To attract the requisite level of support, the LAC must deliver a significant benefit, and be seen to deliver that benefit, to its community. To do this effectively it must define itself in relation to the community, develop a sense of purpose, and design and implement appropriate strategies to provide something the community values. It must make a genuine, visible and distinctive contribution to the enhancement of community life. This will allow it to attract community goodwill and support, and to develop the profile, patronage and partnerships that allow it to prosper.
No LAC will be able to successfully appeal to, embrace and enlist the allegiance of everybody in a community, or even of everybody within any readily identified demographic sector. However, an LAC may be either relatively narrow based or relatively broad based in its membership, and in its broader appeal to the community.
Simple arithmetic dictates that in a large community an LAC might attract substantial membership, participation and other support from a relatively narrow segment of the population. However for all LACs, and in particular for those in smaller communities, viability will be enhanced if they appeal to the broadest possible cross section.
Individual LACs may or may not receive public monies, or other direct or indirect benefit from the government sector. Frequently they do so through association with local government, or by accessing funding programs such as RADF, or QAC’s own arts funding programs. In addition, all LACs are to some extent the beneficiaries of public monies through affiliation with QAC, and the services QAC provides. It is therefore pertinent to consider which community sectors, as provisional and internally diverse as these might be, primarily benefit. I suggest we consider LACs, by virtue of the public resources they consume, to have a responsibility to service the community as broadly as possible.
49 For example an LAC with typical membership patterns and fees will require around 20 family memberships and 15 single memberships merely to cover its annual affiliation costs.
148 There are around sixty LACs spread across five state regions which encompass huge geographic and demographic diversity. Population density varies greatly. In the Boulia district there are 0.009 persons per square kilometer. In the town of Dalby the figure is 199 persons per km² – and for LACs adjacent to major population centres it is much higher. To look at it another way, there are only 393 people living within a 100 km radius of Boulia, while more than 17,000 live within 50 km of Dalby, and over 80,000 live within 10 km of the centre of Ipswich.
Consequently some LACs have access to a vastly greater population of potential members, patrons and participants than others, and these host populations vary greatly in character. I have previously noted that LACs are generally driven and managed by a small nucleus of most involved members. They are often dominated by one or two strong personalities, and to some extent, they take on the personalities of these dominant individuals.
Many communities in rural Australia are in decline, with populations commonly shrinking by around one or two percent a year. Of the 60 shires where LACs currently exist, around half have growing populations, and half have populations in decline.50 The percentages are not high, generally around 1-2%, but this has a significant effect on a community. Growth induces optimism and vitality, as it attracts outsiders into a community, new people with new ideas, new skills and new energy – seen in cultural and creative industries theory in terms of building clusters and generating a creative milieu or ‘buzz’. (Landry: 2000: 22) Decline casts a pall of pessimism and negativity, particularly as business and service agencies close down, because even though the percentage decline in population may be small, those leaving are often influential persons holding key roles, business owners and managers, professionals and other functional elites.
Small variations in the demographic make-up of a community are also important. The 16-24 year age group is crucial. Across Queensland this age group constitutes 15% of the population. A drop of 2-3% is enough to lead to the common perception, expressed in town after town, that “all the young people are leaving town.” In fact, if
50 In 2001, there were 63 LACs. Of these 31 were in areas of growing population, and 32 declining.
149 this age group drops from 15% of the population to 12%, which is typical, it means that only one in five of that age group has left town, but the perception is invariably that almost none stay. This has a powerful psychological effect on a community, particularly because those leaving are likely to be the brightest and most ambitious.
A largely discrete phenomenon, but also linked to general rural decline and exacerbating its effects, is a perceived decline in community engagement. This is not exclusively a Queensland or even Australian phenomenon. It has been thoroughly documented, in the US for example by Robert Putnam ( 2000), in Bowling Alone. While many challenge Putnam’s analysis of the phenomenon, and argue that it indicates changing modes of engagement, rather than an overall decline, there is no doubt that participation in many traditional forms of community, has declined and continues to decline in Queensland towns. It has been seen to affect a host of organizations as varied as the Girl Guides, volunteer fire brigades, service clubs such as Rotary and Apex, and even the CWA, leading to the common perception that there is “a crisis in volunteering”. I discuss this issue further, along with related issues of volunteer burnout, the aging of committees, and the need for effective succession planning in LACs in following chapters.
In the next section I briefly profile seven LACs in the context of their host communities, and discuss them with respect to issues touched on above. These profiles do not pretend to be definitive or exhaustive. I have selectively drawn on extensive data favouring that which appeared characteristic – to provide a cross- sectional sample of the great diversity amongst LACs and to illustrate pertinent factors and issues. It will be apparent that at any time in its history each branch/LAC was driven by a small number of key individuals. These people have been unpaid volunteers concerned both for themselves and their communities, working from a combination of motives, both self-interested and altruistic.
150 6. Case Study Profiles
As previously discussed, LACs for case study were selected so as to provide a sample broadly representative of diversity manifest across the state-wide network. This involved consideration of a range of characteristics including geographic location and degree of isolation, regional demography and economy, the character and history of individual LACs, and so on. (See Chapter 1.3.3 for more detail.)
6.1 Gympie – Cooloola Community Arts Council Inc. (CCAC)
Gympie proudly claims the mantle of the town that saved Queensland. In 1867, only eight years after Queensland separated from New South Wales, the state economy wilted under the twin impacts of drought and falling prices for wool. Banks failed, there was huge unemployment, and civil disturbance threatened the state. The discovery of gold by James Nash sparked the Gympie Gold Rush and saved Queensland from bankruptcy.
Gympie grew to over 20,000 and produced more than four million ounces of gold, but by 1924 recovery had become uneconomic and mining effectively ceased. By then Gympie was a significant regional centre. It’s now a busy town of 15,500, and is the administrative centre for Cooloola Shire. The economy is diverse. Agriculture generates many millions of dollars from milk, beef, pineapples, sugar, beans, nuts, fruits, flowers and other crops. Timber is a major industry, and there is still a little gold. There is some ma nufacturing, the government sector is important, and Gympie has become a tourism gateway to the Cooloola Coast.
A community database1 distributed by the Cooloola Regional Development Bureau lists sixteen arts and crafts organisations including the Cooloola Community Arts Council, alongside spinning and weaving, quilting, cake decorating, woodworking and pottery groups. There is a separate listing of twelve music and theatre groups.
1 Many communities have databases or listings of this type, and I have referred to them where available. I do not suggest that such listings are in any sense definitive. They are ad hoc publications, and the selection, categorisation and description of groups and organisations is highly variable. They do however provide a valuable introduction to the social infrastructure of communities, and in large measure because of their idiosyncrasies, emphases and omissions, they also provide valuable insights into the way communities perceive, understand and organise themselves.
151 There are also three historical societies, thirty schools and other educational institutions, and eleven organisations devoted to commerce and tourism. There are 112 sporting organisations.
Cooloola Shire has a five page Cultural Policy which aims: “.. to provide a framework that enhances the quality of life of all residents …” and to ensure that “the cultural resources of Cooloola Shire are developed in ways that are culturally, socially, environmentally and economically sustainable.”
The biggest event on the calendar is the annual Country Music Muster, first held as an Apex charity fund raising party in1982. The Muster has grown into Australia’s second biggest celebration of country music, annually attracting up to 60,000 people.
The Gympie Branch was formed in 1968, following a public meeting convened by Shire Mayor Alderman Ronald Witham, C.B.E. Gympie had already received a number of touring arts council productions but community leaders wanted to attract these tours on a more formal and regular basis, and forming a branch was the way to do that.
The standard procedure was for head office to notify branches of proposed tours so each branch could choose those it wanted. Gympie was independent and assertive. In its second year the Branch had already accepted several tours, when in July the imminent arrival of one more, the Marionette Theatre’s production of The Explorers stirred President Dr. Kesteven to send Brisbane a vigorous protest. He said it was expecting too much of local volunteers and audiences, and threatened to dissolve the branch. State Secretary Mrs. J. Davis apologised and explained that it was very difficult to please all branches. As Gympie was complaining about having The Explorers, Barcaldine complained of missing out.
Branch fortunes fluctuated. Gympie almost collapsed in 1978 but subsequently recovered to claim 290 members in 1991. Audiences for individual programs ranged from a low of 16 to a high of 401. By 1997 the branch was struggling again, and President Kay Kerr lamented: “The shows presented were all of the highest quality
152 and advertised as widely as our budget allows and yet were all but ignored by the general public.”
Membership dropped to 125 in 1997 and 84 in 1999. By October 1999, as incorporation loomed, the Branch had run out of steam. The committee voted for incorporation with four votes in favour, two against, and one abstention, and the branch became incorporated as the Cooloola Community Arts Council Inc. (CCAC). But the general feeling was that it had “just about fizzled out”.
By March 2000, CCAC had only 25 members and $41.50. Two new arrivals, Angela and Neil Brown, were puzzled to find an organisation that provided an essential service so out of touch with its community: “Nobody knew what the hell was going on. No communication. It was elitist, and the top end of town were the only ones going ...”
Angela had a background in amateur musical societies. Neil had extensive marketing experience. Together they set out to rescue CCAC. Neil attended meetings of service clubs such as Rotary and Apex. He wrote, telephoned, and spoke personally to every school principal, art teacher, and local identify he could reach. He contacted the Shire Council, social clubs of local factories and corporations, residential homes for the elderly, and other organisations. By 2002 CCAC claimed 300 members and had over $2,000 in the bank.
Neil Brown believes that there’s something in the arts for everybody, and that CCACs role is to provide a range of activities that will draw audiences from across the community.
Music at Midday, a free lunch-time concert, held for the first time in 2002, epitomised Brown’s philosophy. He organised the concert as a charity fund-raiser, securing free use of Gympie’s Cultural Centre auditorium, and convinced the Brisbane Army Band to perform in Gympie for free. The concert drew around three hundred people and raised $600 through gold coin donation. Shire Mayor, Mick Venardos, was on stage to present the cheque to a local charity. There was no direct financial benefit for CCAC (although it did gain several members), but more
153 importantly the concert cemented a collaborative relationship with Gympie City Council, drew in the community – buses brought elderly people from nursing homes – and was a public relations coup for CCAC.
Brown’s strategy is to establish enduring and mutually beneficial partnerships. CCAC has continued to work closely with the Shire Council. The lunchtime concert was repeated in 2003, with the Brisbane Army Band joined by four singers from Queensland Opera. CCAC’s biggest project has been Bands in the Park, convened in 2002, and again in 2003 and 2004, each time drawing around two and a half thousand people to Gympie’s Memorial Park. The event was billed as a “FREE family picnic day” featuring music for pleasure from around the world. Brown intended to: “Take arts to the people, make it free to all, include activities for children, make it entertaining and enjoyable for all age groups, obtain the best bands and artists you can afford, and have them provide a range of music for all tastes.”
Bands in the Park was by LAC standards, a big event. Total budget was $22,800 with a cash component of $6,200 (largely covered by donations), and $16,600 provided in-kind. Cash outlays included payment for the entertainers (including $1,200 for a support band, and $540 for meals for the Brisbane Army Band). In-kind support included advertising ($5,000 from The Gympie Times, and $1,000 from Radio 4GY), and 400 hours of labour supplied by CCAC members costed at $20 per hour. In all there were seven major sponsors including Telstra and McDonalds. Cooloola Shire Council provided $2,500 cash, 45 wheelie bins, and free use of the park.
Another event, held in 2002, enjoyed more equivocal success. CCAC engaged the Australian Revue Theatre Company from Maleny to present Fascinatin’ Rhythms, a song and dance revue featuring: “34 singers, dancers & musicians to thrill you with music from the 40s to the 90s.” Neil Brown worked hard to sell the event, and it drew a big audience. Reactions were mixed. A newspaper review by local dance teacher Leaha Hosking was charitably enthusiastic:
“It was wonderful that so many Gympie theatre enthusiasts braved the cold and came along to see the Australian Revue Theatre strut their stuff
154 in some catchy and colourful tap and jazz dancing routines ….. there was a large range of ages, one member being a mere 77 years – showing us all that you are never too old!... The audience admired the bravery of the cast to get up on stage and was forgiving when small mistakes occurred.”2
Others were less kind. One described the performance as: “A chorus line of old hoofers.” A critical letter from Glynn Byers to the editor of the Gympie Times ended with the observation that: “In this age of uncompromising values, it is fascinating to know that the Queensland Arts Council still perceives rural communities to be easygoing, undemanding and appreciative of even the smallest gesture made on their behalf … It is a quality that apparently separates us from our city cousins, who are obsessed with the notion of ‘value for money.’3
In response, QAC CEO Arthur Frame wrote to the Editor of the Gympie Times making it clear that Byers had got it wrong: “This was not a production staged or toured to Gympie by Queensland Arts Council and we find his imputation regarding the motives of this organisation in relation to people of regional Queensland to be offensive in the extreme.” Frame went on to explain that QAC provided arts access to productions of “the highest professional standards” and commented that if Byers were to examine details of QAC’s 2002 touring season, “he will find no reference to any production called Fascinatin’ Rhythms in our program.”
What the QAC letter did not say, but in retrospect could have said, was that this was a community event in which the focus was on participation – it was about inclusiveness and nurturing – and it ought to have been judged according to social outcomes for participants rather than being subjected to the response of a critical audience on the grounds of artistic standards. This was certainly the view of producer Paul Atthow, but CCAC’s enthusiastic promotion of the event had led its audience to expect more. At a deeper level the dispute represented a clash between different
2 Gympie Times, Tuesday July 16th 2002. 3 Gympie Times, Tuesday July 16th 2002. (It subsequently emerged that Byers was a pseudonym, and that that Gympie letter writer had a long-standing grudge against the art council in Gympie.)
155 regimes of cultural value, with aesthetic excellence aligned in opposition to social and personal development goals.
QAC’s response was concerned more with deflecting criticism by disassociating QAC from the event, than with supporting CCAC and the community performers. It was symptomatic of an organisation still grappling with its new role in relation to LACs and unsure of where its responsibility lay.
QAC and CCAC have both learned from the experience. For QAC the lesson goes to the heart of the new affiliation relationship. QAC cannot directly control or even influence many LAC activities, and it is possible for LAC activities to embarrass or otherwise trouble QAC in ways it cannot always predict and may not even be aware of. Issues of this type were addressed in the QAC strategic planning workshops of 2001 and 2002, and I expect that similar criticism would today elicit a more comprehensive response.
The resurrection of CCAC since 2000 has been spectacular and provides a striking example of what enthusiasm and dedication can achieve, and of what an LAC can do for its community. However it has largely been the work of one man. Neil Brown is a skilful networker and an astute manager and marketer. But the workload has been enormous. Brown is over seventy, and has signalled his intention to step down at the end of 2004. He has attempted to place CCAC on a sound footing for the future by establishing a more broadly based committee, and encouraging it to work as a team. But since 2000 CCAC has been very much dominated by Neil Brown’s energy and style. Who will succeed him, and how CCAC will manage in the future, remains to be seen.
6.2 Maryborough – Maryborough Regional Arts Council Inc. (MRAC)
Maryborough, 260 kilometres north of Brisbane, had its genesis as a trading post on the Mary River, from where the first sixty-five bales of wool were shipped in 1847. A township grew rapidly on the site. Within two years, there were three public houses, several other liquor outlets and a substantial law and order problem. A surveyor arrived to lay out streets in 1850, and by 1851 Maryborough was already a
156 prosperous town, and the commercial centre for the district. It continued to grow rapidly, becoming a centre for industry and a significant port. It was also a gateway for immigration, and by the turn of the century 22,000 arrivals had passed through the port.
The city’s first major arts infrastructure was a School of Arts established in 1861, as one blossom in that “carpet of wildflowers” that spread across the continent. (Candy and Laurent, 1994). Initially housed in a single story building, the School of Arts was re-located around 1887 to a purpose-built two storey structure that cost 3,000 pounds, featured gas lighting, and accommodated 5,482 books. The library became its main function and the building eventually accommodated 20,000 books and a museum. When Maryborough City Council established a dedicated public library in 1977, the School of Arts building was put to other uses. (MWB&B Hist soc, 1998: 107)
Maryborough matured as a working class city with a broad base that included logging, sugar growing, shipbuilding and heavy engineering. The economy prospered such that during the 1950s and 60s Maryborough was reputed to have the highest per capita savings bank balances in Australia. Those boom days are gone. Income is now lower than the state average, with 48% of households earning less than $500 per week. Ship building has almost disappeared from the banks of the Mary River, the heavy industry workshops are largely idle, logging was banned from Fraser Island, and the sugar industry is struggling.
But Maryborough remains a busy city of 25,000 people, testifying to the underlying strength and resilience of a broad based economy. There are strong government, manufacturing and retail sectors, and Maryborough markets itself as The Vibrant Heritage City “whose rich past is not just visible in its grand architecture, it is also the base for a thriving future”.4
The city publicly celebrates community life through weekly street markets, family picnic days in the park, historical train rides and river cruises. The City Council
4 2002 Visitors Guide published by Maryborough City Council and The Heritage Herald newspaper.
157 supports a RADF program totalling around fifty thousand dollars a year.5 City Councillor Barbara Hovard supports a program of public street art highlighting the city’s industrial heritage: She sees RADF making a critical contribution to the city’s cultural environment: “From a few seeds, gradually things are growing.”
The Maryborough City Council Arts and Cultural Development Policy was written in 1992. It was established, as were many local government arts and cultural policies across the state, as an essential prerequisite for participation in the state government RADF scheme. Maryborough’s policy recognises creative expression as fundamental to people’s lives and intrinsically related to the maintenance of a healthy, dynamic and vital community. It defines the arts to include: the practice and performance of arts and crafts, both public and private; cultural and multicultural events; heritage; performing arts; education promotion and information services; and civic design and development. 6
Maryborough was visited by arts council tours as early 1963, but it wasn’t until 1980 that community interest was strong enough to sustain a branch. The City Hall auditorium, originally built in 1908, became the primary venue, with a smaller venue at the Wide Bay club used for some events, while the Maryborough State High School provided a room for meetings.
During the 1980s, as new purpose-built venues spread across the state, it became apparent that Maryborough’s venue was not up to standard. A steering committee was formed and in March 1990, QAC branch president Rollo Nicholson was enlisted to lead the campaign for a new theatre. He became president of the Maryborough and District Entertainment and Cultural Association (MDECA).
Nicholson built the MDECA campaign on the “the inequality of funding (for both capital works and performances) between Brisbane and Regional Areas”7 and
5 This amount is not guaranteed and may vary from year to year. In 2001 it was made up of $30,000 provided by the Arts Queensland and $20,000 from the City Council. 6 It has been common practice for local councils and nascent RADF committees around the state to refer to already existing policies and adapt them for their own use, sometimes uncritically adopting large slabs with little change. There is a rather dull uniformity about some of these local government policies, but the Maryborough policy goes beyond some of the usual cursory acknowledgements. 7 Letter to Peter Dent 9th March, 1992.
158 requested a fair go for Maryborough in the context of this inequality. The campaign lasted some ten years. Nicholson lobbied local members and party leaders, governments and oppositions alike. He presented Labor Premier and Arts Minister Wayne Goss with a petition of 4,000 signatures, and in the context of a looming state election travelled to the Sunshine Coast to meet deputy opposition leader Joan Sheldon. When the coalition subsequently won power, the Borbidge-Sheldon Government approved $3 million for a Maryborough entertainment centre. The Coalition lost the next election, but the commitment was honoured by the new Beattie Government.
Another $4 million was provided by Maryborough City Council, $2 million came from the Federal Government’s Centenary of Federation Fund, and $1 million was raised from the community. The Brolga Theatre complex, with a main auditorium seating over 900, was finally opened in July 2000. More than 700 local citizens have subsequently signed up as ‘Friends of the Brolga.’
The Brolga Theatre has brought a cultural change to Maryborough. Councillor Barbara Hovard acknowledges that some people dismiss art and culture as a waste of time, but points out that the Brolga’s policy of mixing popular entertainment, including brass bands and singers, with those of more esoteric appeal8, has drawn an audience from a broad cross section of the population and energised the city.
Graeme Crouch who managed the Brolga from 2000 until 2003 agrees, but with some qualification: “We reach a much broader cross-section of the community, but even so there is still a perception that ‘The Brolga is not for us. It’s for the people with money.’ A huge slab of the community will never come here. I don’t know how you break through that.” The Brolga has presented popular singers including Slim Dusty, Toni Lamond and Kamahl, and the children’s musical Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, along with a diverse range of exotic fare such as Puppetry of The Penis and Lady Salsa.
8 Inaugural General Manager Graeme Crouch implemented this policy from July 2000 until his resignation in October 2003.
159 During the 1990s, the Maryborough Branch of QAC had performed solidly, bolstered by Nicholson’s energetic advocacy, but was increasingly being overshadowed by the MDECA campaign. Between 1988 and 2000 Maryborough hosted 38 QAC touring programs, for a total audience of 7,260 people at an average of 191. It became incorporated as the Maryborough Regional Arts Council (MRAC).
But after the Brolga opened, a pattern seen elsewhere became apparent. The advent of the professionally managed theatre complex left the branch adrift. By the end of 2001, the MRAC was at a dead end. Having successfully worked to bring the Brolga to town, it had subsequently lost purpose and direction. Some members wanted to close the branch, but a small group decided to keep going. They identified an opportunity in cinema. Around the middle of the 20th century Maryborough boasted three cinemas and a drive-in theatre. These had closed down after television came to the area in 1965, and although a new multiplex cinema catered to the mainstream there was nothing for lovers of classic cinema, art-house movies, or foreign films. MRAC hired the cinema for a night in August 2002, sold tickets and screened its first foreign film. It was so successful that the screenings became regular events. At time of writing MRAC has shown films in Chinese, French, German, Hindi, Inuit and Spanish, as well as several English language classics.
Monsoon Wedding, with dialogue in both Hindi and English was shown on 19th March 2003. MRAC volunteers personally greeted every arrival at the door – Rollo Nicholson and President Robyn Lowe were prominent – and more than seventy people were seated by the time the movie began. Late arrivals brought the total audience to 80. The usual arts council demographic was strongly represented – white anglo-saxon, middle class, middle aged and predominantly female – but there was also a scattering of younger groups and couples. The movie was received with warm enthusiasm and almost everybody stayed afterwards for wine and friendly animated conversation. As people left the venue Rollo Nicholson and other volunteers assisted several elderly wome n and provided transport for them. It was a fine example of a community cohesiveness and cooperation.
There is an awareness both within and without MRAC that it represents a narrow demographic. One outside assessment was: “They are all the snobs of the town.” My
160 observation suggests this to be rather unkind, but it does represent the perception of many. Even one insider admitted: “I suppose we have always been seen as an elitist group. I don’t know if the others will like me saying this, but we are conservative.”
Rollo Nicholson is aware of how the Brolga impacts on community groups such as MRAC. As prime mover of the Brolga campaign – it’s generally recognised that “without Rollo there wouldn’t be a Brolga” – Rollo expresses an acute concern for the fate of these smaller groups. “We’ve tried to manage it, in as much as we’ve tried to protect the existing organisations, the arts council, the players, the choral society … I think the arts council can survive here, which is a bit unique. They’ve folded in most other places (where NARPACA venues had opened). The whole point is that in building the Brolga these were the people, whether the organisation was operating or not, these were the people you relied on for support. You don’t want to pull the rug out from under them immediately you’ve got it. That’s not my way of operating.”
MRAC has demonstrated that even where a major cultural facility such as The Brolga dominates the environment, there remain opportunities for smaller cultural organisations to make a real contribution if they can identify and effectively meet niche interests within the community.
6.3 Hervey Bay – Hervey Bay Council for The Arts Inc. (HBCFA)
Hervey Bay, on the mainland adjacent to Fraser Island and at the heart of the Great Sandy Region, is one of the fastest growing areas in Australia. Previously home to the Indigenous Budjilla people it was settled by white Australians during the 1850s and 60s.
Until late in the 20th century Hervey Bay remained sparsely settled with population dispersed inland and across a string of seaside villages. (MWB&B Hist Soc, 1998: 13) In 1961 total population of the bay area was little over 4,000. Maryborough dominated the region, but in the final decades of the century, as the industrial base of Maryborough declined, Hervey Bay began to prosper. Its casual lifestyle attracted young and old. Tourism and recreation on the one hand, retirement on the other, swelled the population, and associated industries boomed.
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Today those sleepy coastal villages – including Polson (which later became Point Vernon), Pialba and Urangan – have merged into the City of Hervey Bay, home to more than 45,000 people. Despite its rapid growth Hervey Bay is one of the poorest areas in the nation. Unemployment is double the state average, and 54% of households earn less than $500 per week. Retailing is the single biggest employer, while agriculture and fishing, once economic drivers, have severely declined.
One commentator observes that the community is difficult to motivate, conservative, basically very poor and highly parsimonious. “One of the largest events is the Rotary Club’s annual swap meet. People pay three dollars to go and look at other people’s left overs.” This annual “recycling of junk” fest commonly draws up to 6,000 people.
A Community Services Directory lists over 400 groups and organisations. Fourteen arts and crafts listings include Hervey Bay Council for The Arts, a pottery group, the porcelain doll makers organisation, a gem and mineral club, quilters association, the point Vernon/Pialba branch of the QCWA, and the amateur Wine and Beer Makers Guild. The Bay Writers Inc. is listed under Recreational Activities along with groups dedicated to bird watching, four wheel drive vehicles, aero-modelling and bush walking.
The arts groups tend not to work together. One professional artist characterised them as: “The traditional arts groups. They consist of a lot of older people, very closed minded. They’re hobby groups.”
Hervey Bay had no formal arts policy prior to the formation of the RADF committee in 1996. There was no significant arts infrastructure, and council chambers were used as an occasional gallery. Soon after it was founded the RADF committee was disbanded because city councillors saw no virtue in funding local arts practice. More enlightened views soon prevailed. RADF was resurrected in 1998 and quickly became an effective cultural agent, with total funds as high as $75,000 in some years.9
9 Because of the huge demand for RADF funds, as the program becomes better known, the current Hervey Bay pool is expected to fall to $55,000 at the time of writing.
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The city now has a seven page arts and cultural policy that acknowledges the economic benefits the arts deliver and expresses a desire to attract creative industries. In 2003 the city council also approved a 32 page public art strategy intended to give the city a dynamic image, reflect its vibrant and diverse communities and build civic pride.
The arts council movement in Hervey Bay was driven by prominent local businessman and politician George Bezant. A self confessed “meat pie and beer” man who says he’ll never be an opera fan, Bezant was motivated by concern for the community. “I used to have a philosophy that if you made a living out of a place, you put something back into it.”
The inaugural meeting of the Hervey Bay Branch was held at the RSL in Pialba on August 15th, 1984. Bezant became the founding President. In her opening speech, QAC State President Mrs. Buckley, who had travelled from Brisbane, stated that QAC was dedicated to achieving wide participation from “Pop to Symphony” so that there was “something for all”. This suited Bezant who is uncomfortable with elitism, but sees the arts in terms of leisure and entertainment. Bezant resigned when infighting and power struggles disrupted the committee. “Some of these arty people can be rather nasty. They can be divisive … and I said, I don’t need this …and it was still going quite well, so I left them to their little pettiness, but it didn’t detract … the thing still kept going …”
Membership rose and fell as fortunes and personalities changed, with membership dropping as low as 91, but usually holding around 200. There was an acrimonious split in the committee in 1996 but membership strengthened to reach 240 in 1997.
In 1996 the president’s report noted a phenomenon frequently observed in other branches – membership invariably collapsed at the start of the year and progressively recovered during the year as touring productions arrived. If tours arrived early they boosted membership and got the year off to a good start.
163 Springing to life in an artistic desert, arts council had rapidly become the public face of the arts in Hervey Bay, and by 1997 the city council was taking more interest. Branch members had been lobbying for a cultural facility for several years, and in 1997 a partnership between Hervey Bay City Council and The University of Southern Queensland culminated in the opening of a cultural centre with art gallery and library.
The branch initially maintained an amiable relationship with the centre management, and raised enough money to donate a grand piano. In return, management gave the branch free use of the gallery for meetings and functions. But bureaucratic restrictions, and a ‘user-pays’ policy restricted arts council access and forced the branch to look elsewhere for venues. 2002 branch President Maureen Gay expressed her indignation: “I mean, my God, I was at the planning of that gallery, and all of a sudden I’m being told what we can and cannot do. If it wasn’t for the arts council they wouldn’t have a grand piano in the gallery. It’s our piano but we can’t use it.”
The Hervey Bay Branch became incorporated as Hervey Bay Council For the Arts Inc. (HBCFA) and in 2001 offered a $1,500 music scholarship for a local secondary school student, with funds raised through raffles to be presented at a musical awards night. The event was so successful that HBCFA offered the scholarship again in 2002 and planned to make it an annual event.
Activities in 2002-2003 included a Sunday Morning New Year Breakfast, a St. Valentine’s Day Dinner, Poetry in the Park featuring eight local poets, Singers Unlimited featuring nine choirs and groups in a two hour concert, and a violin recital by the winner of the 2001 HBCFA Music Scholarship. HBCFA also hosted the Ontour onstage tour of La Boite’s production of Still Standing, and accessed an exhibition of art work by Brisbane artist Simon Mee through Ontour byrequest. There were a number of other events including several “private” movie screenings that drew up to sixty people, regular excursions to the MRAC film screenings in Maryborough, and a trip to Brisbane for the Soweto Gospel Singers.
164 There is a view in Hervey Bay that Maryborough’s Brolga theatre was built in the wrong place. One local explained: “Hervey Bay wanted the Brolga but Maryborough got it. There was a big bitch fight about that.” Another gleefully predicted that the Brolga would become a “white elephant” and an unsustainable burden on Maryborough’s finances. “Maryborough is traditionally the centre of the area, but Hervey Bay would generate more wealth.”
The Brolga has affected Hervey Bay. “The Brolga is taking the bigger shows. We used to have a chance of getting some of those, but now they’re just going to that “A” classification theatre and they won’t come to Hervey Bay. The newspaper is Maryborough based and we can’t even get publicity. We get shoved to the back seat.”
The Hervey Bay community is becoming increasingly divided as growth creates a two tier society. The booming tourism and lifestyle sector has boosted property values and rates along the Hervey Bay esplanade, leading to the physical and social displacement of long established residents. The esplanade is still a family zone frequented by locals, and still offers budget food and accommodation. But this is changing as hotels, motels and eateries along the seafront move upmarket. Locals going out for an evening meal are more likely to eat at the RSL, while visitors pay two to three times as much to eat along the esplanade.
Rapid growth is disrupting existing community culture and social networks. It strains infrastructure and service delivery, and poses complex planning problems. HBCFA, like the community around it, is struggling to cope with these dramatic changes. It’s keen to attract young members but is already perceived by some observers to be slipping behind. One local artist characterised HBCFA as “backward looking, conservative and out of touch.” Another called the organisation “a painful exercise in middle-age, middle-class Anglo”.
HBCFA is struggling to find its niche in a competitive environment. “There’s so much on. We’ve got whale watching, the seafood festival, the various theatre groups, and of course we just have to raise the profile just one level above them.”
165 Growth brings opportunity, and the dynamic environment of rapid change in Hervey Bay provides opportunities for HBCFA to mark out a distinct role for itself and grow with the community – but the opportunities will attract and stimulate competition as other individuals and organisations seek to exploit these opportunities.10 After having been the face of the arts for most of two decades HBCFA has lost its pre- eminent role.
6.4 Biloela – Biloela Arts Council (BAC)
Biloela – White Cockatoo in the language of the local Indigenous people – was initially selected as the site for a railway town, and surveyed by Queensland’s Railways Department in 1924. A small township grew on the site. Over subsequent years Biloela became an administration and service centre for surrounding agricultural producers. The development of Callide Valley coalfields and the building of the Callide B Power Station during the 1980s boosted the town.
Today Biloela has a population of around 5,500 and is the main population and administrative centre of Banana Shire. The area’s economy is diverse, including coal, cotton, beef and various grains among main products. There is also peanut farming, ostrich farming and a nascent aqua-culture industry. In all agriculture provides around 20% of all jobs, and mining another 12%.
The big mining companies (CS Energy, Callide Mines and Thiess Bros) have injected money into infrastructure and the economy, but shift work disrupts social and community life. It’s difficult to attract audiences because a significant part of the population is always unavailable
A cultural audit conducted by consultant Jill Jordan during 1997 identified 158 community clubs or organisations, including nineteen arts related, twelve schools or education related, twelve churches or church groups, forty-five sport, and thirty-five service groups.
10 Opportunity is unpredictable. One businessman commented in 2003 that SARS was “the best thing that’s happened” for local tourism.” We can expect that the “War on Terror”, and the 2002 bombing in Bali have helped too.
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Under art, Jordan lists the RADF committee, and Queensland Arts Council, along with groups dedicated to lacemaking, embroidery, pottery, the Biloela Art Group 11, Biloela Amateur Theatrical Society, Biloela Community Arts Association, Biloela Crafts and Friendship Group and the Biloela Country Music Festival. In addition there are separate categories for dance, (five listings), and music (seven listings).
Jordan identifies 35 service groups, and there is a separate listing of 62 Biloela Events ranging across the “Nipper” Netball Carnival, Glass Painting Workshop, Dog Shows, Gymkana (sic), Charlee Marshall Bush Poetry Competition, Filopino (sic) Independence Day and Vietnam Veterans’ Day.
Jordan also identified a total of 105 individuals with specific arts or culture related skills, talents or interests. These include 46 focusing on arts and crafts including painting, spinning, patch working, embroidery, cake icing, making jewelry and making furniture. There are separate categories for Music (37) Writing (11) History (6) and Pioneers (11).
Jordan was: “pleased to report that culture is alive and well, not only in Biloela but in every nook and cranny of the Shire.” Jordan attributed this, in part, to the multicultural history of the area, identifying Russian, Albanian, German, Italian, Greek, Dutch and Scandinavian influences, and the proactive stance of the shire council encapsulated in the Shire logo “The Shire of Opportunity”. (Jordan, 1997)
The Banana Shire’s current Art and Culture Policy was adopted in 1998. Like many such policies it views arts and cultural policy in terms of the enhancement of the community’s identity and quality of life. Its central rationale is the recognition that local government has a role and a responsibility in supporting the community’s arts and cultural development. It also acknowledges “the need for equity of expenditure in relation to other Council activities.”
11 I have discussed the ambiguous and anomalous use of art. It has long been used simply to refer to painting, and that is how it is used here.
167 This 26 page document defines 14 policy objectives which address the need for: developing awareness, understanding, participation and enjoyment; concern for identity, diversity and access; heritage and history; building networks; and maximising economic benefit to the community.
QAC tours had visited the area as early as 1962, but the Biloela branch of Queensland Arts Council wasn’t formed until 1966, when a meeting was convened by the president of the local Rotary club. In those days touring artists and crew were variously accommodated in billets, motels and hotels depending on availability. Biloela quickly established a reputation as one of the most hospitable branches in the country, making billets available for all.12
But as many branches, and QAC itself discovered, it was difficult to find the right balance. Tours were either too frequent or too few. Within the space of two weeks in June 1973, the branch was expected to host four different touring programs: A school ballet program (6 people to be accommodated for 4 nights); Queensland Opera (17 people to be accommodated for 2 nights); Australian Dance Theatre (13 people to be accommodated for 1 night); and a secondary school drama program (6 people to be accommodated for 2 nights). Little wonder that President Jill Gill wrote to Peter Dent “I feel that our resources are being strained to the limit in the month of June!”
In 1974 the situation was reversed. By the end of March, Biloela had already hosted tours of Cosi Fan Tutte, the Trinidad Cavaliers, and the Queensland Ballet, but on 27th March secretary P. Myers wrote to Peter Dent expressing disappointment that The Rainmaker had bypassed the town. In response Dent pointed out that Biloela was “one of only five branches in our circuit with stages on which the play cannot fit.”13
On 4th June 1975 Biloela secretary J.C. Gerard wrote to QAC noting that the branch was “extremely pleased” at the number and quality of tours provided so far that year, but complaining about the lack of tours planned for the second half of the year, and at the cancellation of a planned Queensland Theatre Company performance. “Our
12 Some History – Biloela Arts Council Branch, a single sheet of reminiscences from Jill Gill, July, 1991. 13 Letter of April 8th to P. Myers.
168 local branch feels that a drama is overdue in Biloela and many enquiries have been directed to our committee on these lines. The cancellation by the QTC brought quite an angry response from the public and we feel that their reasons were rather weak.”
The problem, as Peter Dent pointed out to District Director Col Hamilton, was that the Biloela venue was inadequate. “It is all very well for them to get fed up with our stock answer that the productions will not fit on their stage, but that does not alter the facts; and of course Biloela is not the only centre with this problem.”14 The Biloela branch lobbied strongly for a Civic Centre, and this finally bore fruit when a modern cultural facility with a large, well equipped, auditorium was opened in 1977.
Biloela continued to be an active branch. 1991 was a typically busy year. Branch initiated activities included a music workshop, a speech and drama festival involving seventy children, circus skills workshop and performance as part of a Dynamic Living Festival, a “hugely popular” raffia hat making workshop, and a performance of Chinese music. Biloela also hosted two art and craft exhibitions, hosted the Central Zone Conference at which a local bush band performed, and donated thirty trees for landscaping at the Community Arts Centre.15
In her president’s report for 1992 Dominique Tan expressed satisfaction that the branch was well known in the community. She observed the need to strike a balance between doing what had been successful in the past and looking for involvement with new constituencies that could benefit from the interaction. “I think particularly of the suddenly enlarged aboriginal community in this town and the aged community. We also should turn our minds again to whether we have something to offer the 18-25 years group, whether they want us and if so what do they want from us” (emphasis in original).
Tan, who had also been a regional director and QAC board me mber, noted that QAC had always envisaged branches might become umbrella organisations for the arts in their area, but it had never happened. The communities were too fragmented.
14 Letter of April 9th to District Director Col Hamilton. 15 Not to be confused with the Cultural Centre, the Community Arts Centre is a more modest building with several meeting rooms and/or workshop spaces.
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When Tan withdrew from involvement to concentrate on other business interests the branch went into decline. It incorporated as Biloela Arts Council (BAC) and began to recover when president Sarah Larsen became involved. Larsen is a professional painter, one of few dedicated practicing artists to take a leading role in an LAC. Larsen set out to combat the prevailing perception of arts council. “… a slightly older generation thing, and also … a little snobbish … it had this sort of upper crust slightly snobbish feel about it and I’d like to see that change …”
Larsen recruited a team of young enthusiastic people with fresh ideas. In recent years the BAC has been associated with a number of innovative ventures including a food and comedy festival. But the community retains a limited view of BAC. Even on the RADF committee, where most members are also BAC members, there is a concerted view that arts council has a limited role to play – that arts councils job is to import entertainment, and it should leave local activity and community development to RADF.16
Biloela Mayor Glen Churchill strongly supports RADF.
The RADF committee is a prime example of success, in working with partnerships. This is about elected members working with staff, working with people in the community who have a genuine interest and passion for the arts and the cultures … there’s a broad perspective on the arts and cultures all the way from our senior citizens right down to our youth … it provides an enhancement of our social fabric … It brings us all together.
Biloela has to some extent suffered the same erosion of community life that has affected other towns where shift work at the mines has disrupted regular patterns of work and leisure. Many workers travel to the coast for recreation - Gladstone, Tannum Sands, Turkey Beach, Town of 1770 – and many of their families live there.
16 Even those on the RADF committee, either aren’t aware of or don’t recognize BAC’s autonomous existence as an incorporated organisation independent of QAC. – even though they are all Arts Council members
170 Although agriculture is still important to Biolela, its future will inevitably be influenced by the mines. There is a growing awareness among the big companies, and in Biloela itself, that improving the town’s living environment and lifestyle helps attract and retain managerial staff and skilled workers. Shire Councilor Rosemary Munroe explained an initiative by local business interests:
At Enterprise Biloela we recognise that arts and culture help to keep people in town. We have two big companies that bring people in from overseas, often professional people, and the women just can’t get work here and they have no lifestyle to speak of .. they arrive here and decide they’ll be here twelve months and then they’ll go … We recognise that lifestyle issues affect every business in town … our big industry and corporate people tell us that it’s not money, it’s not the climate, it’s lifestyle issues that keep people here, and the arts and culture are one of the things that enhances our lifestyle and helps to keep skilled people in our area.
In August 2004, QAC combined with Arts Queensland to conduct a Regional Leadership Forum in Biloela.17 The forum drew more than 60 participants, the great majority of whom were not arts council members, including artists and others interested in the arts, as well as business people, local politicians and other community leaders. Feedback from participants was very positive with more than 80% believing the forum had identified new opportunities for the organisations they represented, and for the community. (QAC survey, August 2004).
6.5 Moranbah – Moranbah Arts Council Inc. (MAC)
Moranbah was established in 1971, making it, even by Australian standards, a young town. Prior to that, the land on which it stands was part of Moranbah cattle station, fine grazing country in a good season, but brutally inhospitable in the dry, and
17 Five of these forums were conducted, in Townsville, Barcaldine, Biloela, Stanthorpe and Mitchell. They were a QAC initiative, emerging from a series of internal strategic planning sessions held in the second half of 2003. I moderated the first of these sessions, at which the leadership forums were proposed, on July 2003. Arts Queensland subsequently became involved as a funding partner.
171 largely unchanged since explorer Ludwig Leichardt had passed through early in 1845.
In 1968 it was proposed that a town be built on the site to provide accommodation for workers at the nearby Peak Downs and Goonyella Coal Mines. Eleven hundred acres of land were excised from Moranbah cattle station, purchased by the crown and leased back to Utah Development Company which built the town “from scratch”. From its inception Moranbah was one of the most thoroughly planned towns in the state, neatly laid out, with all infrastructure and essential services built in.
Today Moranbah is a busy and modern little town of 7,500, and joint administrative centre (with nearby Clermont) of Belyando Shire.18 Agriculture is still important (mostly grain and beef), but mining is by far the biggest employer – there are four mines in the area – and directly provides 45% of all jobs. Intermittent job losses and changes to the nature of shift work led to some local decline and the shire population fell marginally over several years, before beginning to grow again late in 2003. Even when population was falling, this was a prosperous community. Unemployment is around half the state average, and in 2002 Moranbah’s income was second highest in the state, with average annual earnings at $60,000.19
There are around a dozen sporting clubs catering to pistol shooters, bow hunters, and BMX bike riders, as well as the more usual football, tennis, hockey, netball, golf and so on. The Moranbah Aquatic Centre features a 50 metre Olympic pool. There is a single screen independent cinema, a community radio station, a modern community centre with a well equipped auditorium, a youth centre, several pre-schools, two primary schools, a high school, a TAFE and an Open Learning Institute.
High income and corporate patronage shapes community attitudes and values. People are used to having services provided and are reluctant to pay out. There is a sense in
18 Nearby Clermont is more than 100 years older than Moranbah, and had previously been the administrative centre of Belyando Shire, but now much administration is centred in Moranbah, provoking some resentment from Clermont residents. 19 The highest was another mining town, Tieri. In Moranbah, an extraordinary 39% of households earn more than $2,000 per week compared to the state average of less than 4%, and only 10% earn less than $500 compared to the state average of 36%. Unemployment in 1996 was 4.7% compared to the state average of 9.6%.
172 which Moranbah is seen as a good place to make money, but people don’t want to live there. The society is split between locals and “blow ins”.
“The problem you’ve got here is that there’s a lot of people on contract. Most people don’t see themselves as part of the community. They’re here to do the job for three months, take the money and get out.”
Changing shift patterns – the ten day roster – mean that workers are less likely to live locally. Many have permanent homes in Mackay or other communities along the coast. One local said, “I hate them. They’re grubs. They won’t live here. They rip money out of the town and send it to their families in Mackay. They don’t take any interest in what’s going on in Moranbah. … Some pull their kids out of school and go away every time there’s six days off.”
The town shrinks through the peak of summer heat as many people leave for the duration of the school holidays, heading east to the coast, or south towards large cities. Local volunteer groups are languishing. At the time of my visit, the local Girl Guide troupe was on the brink of collapse, schools were unable to fill volunteer committees, and even the Country Women’s Association had only a handful of members. There appears to be a widespread attitude that the mining company should provide community needs, and a general pattern of reluctance to become actively involved in organisations.
Men constitute 60% of the population. The arts have been a very low priority for the Belyando Shire Council and the general population. Although traditional forms of arts and crafts are largely invisible, there is a strong undercurrent of interest and involvement in these forms, particularly amongst women – including a pottery club, two artists groups, a Gentle Crafts Club, book club, photography club, a writers group and a theatre arts group. The women of the gentle crafts club, devoted to quilting, joke that they may be taken more seriously by the men if they call themselves “the gentle football club”. The men call the Gentle Crafts Club “Bitch And Stitch”. Observation has revealed that the club provides a secure oasis of feminine culture within which women commune intimately. This feminine communion, amplified through gender specific social capital networks, helps sustains
173 women, and makes their lives tolerable, in an overwhelmingly masculine community.
The town is also divided on class lines. The perception of townspeople is that the mining company is very class conscious – managers live on “Nob’s Hill” – and conversation is pervaded by subterranean resentment. This is vastly exacerbated during industrial strife when the split becomes extremely visible and the town can be almost totally paralysed, and “an extremely unpleasant place to be”.
Popular entertainment at venues including the Worker’s Club and the Black Nugget hotel draw good crowds. Country music, comedians such as Rodney Rude and Steady Eady, and male and female strippers draw big houses.
The Moranbah branch was formed at a public meeting convened by the President of the Moranbah Amateur Theatrical Society on 29th August 1974, when the town was barely three years old. Belyando Shire Council provided council facilities at nominal cost, and the branch experienced modest growth. As in many other small towns Moranbah branch relied heavily on school teachers, often young city people, recently qualified, who were completing their obligatory rural posting and yearned for the leisure and entertainment opportunities of coastal towns and cities. “They don’t stay long. As soon as they accumulate enough points for a transfer they are gone.”
Moranbah acquired a relatively stable committee and consistent membership. From 1989 to1996 membership in successive years was: 138, 187, 148, 164, 154, 132, 163.20 The town was prepared to deliver big audiences to the right events. 328 people who attended The Queensland Ballet in 1989 represented two and a half times the branch membership. The ballet drew 243 people in 1992 and the Queensland Philharmonic Orchestra drew 449 over two performances in 1994.
The branch cooperated with, and donated money to other community organisations and events. During 1991 donations included $200 to the Pottery Club to pay for a
20 Only 1991 figures are missing.
174 workshop, $100 for a workshop at the High School, and $200 to Moranbah Special Education unit.
Branch fortunes fluctuated – as is typical of all branches – according to unpredictable events. In 1993 the branch attracted 253 people to a cabaret performance. Other activities included workshops in lead lighting, painting, quilting, patchwork and textured clothing, and several exhibitions. The LAC also contributed an arts and crafts component to the May Day Festival, sponsored a mime contest and the High School Cultural Awards, and helped secure funding for the Central Highlands Eisteddfod. For this range of activity, Moranbah was awarded the Branch of the Year Award. Then in 1994, several key members were struck down by illness, and three meetings were cancelled for lack of a quorum.
Moranbah branch become incorporated as Moranbah Arts Council Inc. in November 1999. By this time membership had dropped to 120. Despite this, MAC remained active and innovative, largely driven by the one woman powerhouse and new president Lynley Paine. During 2001 MAC successfully applied to the Gaming Commission Community Benefit Fund for more than $12,000 for improvements, including air conditioning and picture rails for the gallery/workshop premises it shared with other arts and crafts groups.
During 2002, the LAC supported two QAC Ontour Onstage musical productions, a visit by QAC Writers ontour Outback, several exhibitions. It produced three arts newsletters, provided cultural awards for the Moranbah State High School Awards night, conducted fund-raising raffles, supported Photography Club activities and workshops, and drew 700 people to arts and crafts displays as part of the MorFest cultural festival, and was involved with various other activities.
The MAC gallery newly air-conditioned and with hanging tracks and lighting installed was successful for around twelve months, but then interest waned and exhibitions were poorly attended during 2003. Drawing people to the arts remains a
175 struggle. According to Paine: “This town is a hard nut to crack. It’s sports mad.”21 A common perception is that: “Arts council is seen as limited to the intelligentsia. It’s not for the ordinary people.”
For Lynley arts council often seems to be a full time job.
I suppose the bottom line for me is that – “Yes” – our LAC does too much for a volunteer organisation. Mainly my fault at present as I have made it that way since I have the time and the inclination to do much of the work. There is so much a LAC can contribute to the community – but the challenge is getting the balance right and having the people supporting it. Should I be unable to keep on with it I suspect at this time our input into promoting the arts in Moranbah would drop off somewhat – until someone else with the “passion” and “time” will get things going again. 22
Late in 2003 MAC suffered a damaging split when the photography club which had acted as a sub-committee split away and became independently incorporated. This not only cost MAC the immediate loss of 16 members, but also left soured relationships. For Paine, after several years of hard work supporting the photography club, its loss was a “real kick in the teeth”.
Lynley Paine plans to step down at the end of 2004. “I’ve given it all I can. … it’s time for new blood, some new ideas. I’ve got a full committee now and it will be interesting to see what they do, how the new committee goes when I step down.”
Moranbah’s fortunes are inevitably linked to the activity and wealth generated by the mines. Late in 2003, with a new mine planned and establishment work underway, Moranbah was booming. As in Biloela the big mining corporations are coming to recognise the importance of arts and cultural activities in providing a quality of life
21 This typifies a common complaint made by arts council volunteers, which has been evident since the early days of CEMA, as typified by the comment, “This is a Very Difficult Centre.” (Macdonnell, 1997: 127) 22 E-mail to Michael Richards at QAC, 25th March 2003.
176 and lifestyle that will attract and retain management staff and skilled workers and their families.
Local activities are important, but Lynley Paine is aware that QAC’s touring program attracts many members. She believes Moranbah needs at least two QAC touring productions a year if MAC is to survive in the long term. MAC’s short term health depends above all on who steps forward to fill the vacancy left by Lynley Paine, what that person’s vision for MAC is, and how they work with arts council members and others in the community to generate a real sense that MAC does provide something valuable to life in Moranbah.
6.6 Atherton – The Arts Council Tableland Inc. (TACTIC)
The Atherton Tablelands is a rich volcanic plateau to the west and south of Cairns, separated from the narrow coastal plain by a rugged escarpment clad with dense rainforest. Grazier John Atherton discovered tin at Herberton in 1879, but the plateau remained isolated from the adjacent coast, and there was little development until a dray track was carved out of the rainforest, and up the escarpment from Cairns in 1884.
In 1891 the Cairns to Kuranda railway opened the way for timber cutting, and the area’s wealth was built on timber and tin. As the timber was cleared farmers moved in, establishing tobacco in the dryer west, and sugar and dairy farming in the east.
Today small towns and villages dot the district. Administration is apportioned between three local authorities, Atherton Shire in the north and centre, Eacham to the south, and Herberton in the west. Atherton is the biggest town with almost 6,000 people, and is at the hub of the Tablelands. Smaller towns of Kairi, Malanda, Tolga, Tinaroo, Walkami and Yungaburrra are all within about 30 minutes by road, while Herberton, Mareeba, Millaa Millaa and Ravenshoe are little further away.
With timber and tin largely exhausted, and with tobacco, sugar and dairy all in decline, the Tablelands has been “doing it tough” for years. Agriculture provides only 15% of all jobs. However, the area has traditionally provided a haven for those
177 wanting to drop out of the rat race – retirees, cultural renegades and artists. Hospitality and tourism employ 30% of all workers, and sustain the economy.
Immigration has given the area a rich ethnic diversity. More than 8% of people speak a second language at home, mostly Italian, German or Spanish, with some French and Swiss. Of the 24,000 people who live within 30 km of Atherton, 5.5% identify as Indigenous – this is almost double the state average of 2.8% – and they are highly visible. Almost 25% of students at Atherton State School are Indigenous.
There is a strong arts and crafts sub-culture across the Tablelands, from tourist oriented Kuranda in the north, to cottage industries scattered around Yungaburra and Malanda to the south. Yungaburra hosts an annual Folk Festival. There are six drama societies, and several painting, pottery and music groups.23
Atherton Shire Council (ASC) provides some support for the arts, apparently driven by the commitment of one keen advocate rather than by any broad based interest. The ASC Cultural Policy totals less than 200 words. It curtly acknowledges that local government “has a role and responsibility in supporting the community’s arts and crafts activities.” It goes on to briefly list eight objectives, and notes that arts and crafts can contribute to quality of life, attract visitors to the area, and generate economic activity and employment. 24
Atherton is keen to promote cultural tourism and has three local sites registered on the Queensland Heritage Trails Network: The restored Hou Wang Chinese Temple, Halloran’s Hill Recreational Park and the Nyletta Wetlands Bird Sanctuary. Atherton
23 Far North Queensland claims to have “the highest percentage of professional practicing high quality artists per capita in Queensland” and Kuranda, with only 2% of FNQ’s population, claims to have 16% of the artists. 24 I discovered this one page Cultural Policy while visiting the Atherton Shire Council Offices. My request for a copy elicited from one senior employee the response: “I don’t doubt that we have one, but I have no idea where it is.” The same employee later handed me a copy of the Exhibitor’s Guide for the councils Foyer Gallery where local artists are able to display work in the foyer of the shire premises, and expressed surprise when I discovered the Cultural Policy on page 2. The Exhibitor’s Guide, in revealing contrast to the cultural policy, runs to 16 pages and includes information on fees and insurance as well as sample invitations and a list of suggested snacks to be provided on opening night, including cheese platters, dips and crackers, olives, nuts and so on – presumably an indication of where those responsible for the cultural policy, and the guide, feel on solid ground.
178 Shire also participates in RADF and, in 2002, distributed a total of around twelve and a half thousand dollars.
Arts council tours visited Atherton as early as 1963. In that year The Young Elizabethan Players brought a selection of works to Atherton, Herberton, Malanda, Mareeba and Ravenshoe, and to Innisfail at the base of the eastern escarpment. 25 An exhibition of colour reproductions of famous paintings sponsored by UNESCO was toured to Herberton and Atheron.
At that time there was no Atherton Branch, and tours were arranged through cooperation with The Atherton Choral Society (ACS) and an amateur theatrical group, The Atherton Players (APA).26
Several branches have since sprung up across the tablelands. The first formed in Herberton and Ravenshoe in 1963.27 Innisfail formed a branch in 1966, and Atherton in 1974. Ravenshoe went into recess in 1977, reactivated in 1978, and then closed down in 1980. Herberton closed in 1983. Innisfail lasted until 2000, but closed down when incorporation loomed. In the meantime a branch had formed at Kuranda in 1987. It survived until 1994. Another branch opened at Mareeba in 1992 but lasted only until 1995.
Regional Director R. Brown was not in favour of forming an Atherton branch, and when Shire Chairman G.A. Kattenberg convened a public meeting in the Atherton Fire Station on 20th June 1974, Brown travelled from Cairns to advise against it. He wanted Atherton people to join the existing Herberton branch. But Atherton was determined, and over the following days 22 residents applied for membership and
25 This was the first major tour arranged from Brisbane by the newly independent Queensland Division. 26 In November 1968 for example QAC State Secretary J. Perrier wrote to both Atherton Choral Society and The Atherton Players informing them of proposed tours and inviting each to nominate, and to host, the performances which fell into “the category of your own interest.” This type of liaison was common. In 1963 there were only 22 branches, but tours visited another 43 “cooperating centres” which, like Atherton did not have branches. Many of these “cooperating centres” went on to form branches over the following decade or two. 27 Herberton, site of the original tin discovery on the Tablelands, and initially the source of much of its wealth, was for a time the most vigorous settlement in the district. A School of Arts had been opened there in 1881. Like many other such institutions across the nation its primary function was as a library and it soon came to house almost 1,600 books.
179 paid the requisite two dollars. The QAC Board gave approval. Kattenberg chaired a second public meeting in the Fire Station on September 5th and Atherton Branch became a reality. 28
It came into being because people wanted to attract more QAC tours. During the early years tours included The Queensland Symphony Orchestra, British theatrical offerings such as The Hollow Crown, Leonard Teal’s And While the Billy Boils, and international performers such as Tschaika Cossacks who performed in an old converted aircraft hanger known as Merriland Hall.
The branch remained closely associated with the Atherton Players Association (APA) and The Atherton Choral Society (ACS), and co-operated with other groups including Atherton District Arts Society, and Atherton Light Orchestra to co-host productions. The close networks between these organisations made it unnecessary for many people to join QAC – as long as Atherton Branch had sufficient members to satisfy bureaucratic formalities, members of other groups would benefit from its existence, and membership of QAC itself was redundant. The branch struggled, with membership barely into double figures.
The 1989 statewide membership drive boosted Atherton membership to more than 80. This was a 500% increase, but still left Atherton a relatively weak branch. In 1992 it changed its name to Tablelands Branch in an attempt to attract a broader audience from across the plateau, and in that year it managed activities in four towns, Atherton, Ravenshoe, Tolga and Yungaburra.
The branch was intermittently very active during the 1990s. It initiated concerts, cabarets and other performances, and was involved in major events organised by others, such as the Yungaburra Folk Festival and the Atherton Maize Festival. Membership held at around 70 to 80 throughout the 1990s, but was never strong.
28 At that time the QAC constitution required an expression of interest, accompanied by membership applications, from only ten people. These initial applicants then formed a steering committee to guide the formation of the new Branch. It was QAC policy to return $1.70 out of each $2 inaugural subscription to assist the new branch build its funds. Accordingly, QAC administrator Peter Dent sent a cheque for $37.40 to Atherton on 21st October 1974.
180 In 1995 President Douglas Tait noted the difficulty of enlisting active volunteers and commented that the branch had “felt the effects of a dwindling committee, mostly due to key people moving away or leaving on extended holidays.” He noted that the local arts calendar was very full, with many local groups presenting exhibitions, workshops, theatre performances, and music and dance. He ended by expressing reservations about the branch’s viability.29 In 1996 he reported:
We began the year with our AGM and duly appointed people to the committee who promptly left town. The press gang went into action and promptly filled the positions with others who immediately left town. The mainstays of the committee however have stayed true and willingness to pick up another’s workload is our branch’s mainstay.
In reporting on 1997 Tait observed: “Most committee members began by confessing to having other band-wagons such as the Folk Festival and The Arts Expo (and in some presidential positions – a love child!) to look after.” Nevertheless, a dedicated core battled on until Tait resigned to travel overseas. A coincidence of circumstances reduced the involvement of other key members, and the branch became almost dormant. In 2000, President Phyne Hartridge noted that 1999 had been a quieter year than most, and commented that demands in the personal and business lives of committee members had led to a conservative safety first approach and a determination not to “bite off more than we can chew”.
In 2000 Atherton Branch became incorporated as The Arts Council Tableland Inc. (TACTIC) While average audiences held up reasonably well, the organisation had become largely invisible in its own community. Arts council tours were publicly understood to emanate from Brisbane, and the role of the local organisation was overlooked. Even many local artists have never heard of TACTIC. A survey of arts patrons around Kuranda in the north showed that TACTIC was “not even on the radar.”
29 President’s annual report, 1995.
181 As in many rural towns social life rotates around hotels and clubs. The historic Barron Valley Hotel in Atherton is a major cultural venue. It provides essential infrastructure, and financial and in-kind support for more than twenty community social and sporting groups, and The International Club just out of town supports at least another fifteen. Both regularly provide popular entertainment, bands, singers and comedians. By comparison with these popular commercial cultural venues, TACTIC is peripheral, and in statistical terms at least, almost inconsequential.
One problem for TACTIC is the fragmented nature of the tablelands community. There are, at the time of writing, separate amateur drama societies in Atherton, Malanda, Mareeba, Julatan, Ravenshoe and Kuranda. These organisations inevitably compete to some extent for members, resources, sponsors and markets – a circumstance that offers plentiful opportunity for participation, but possibly jeopardises the viability of individual groups. The community is further fragmented by the usual division between “farmers” and “townies”, and the presence of various counter-cultural groups (cultural renegades, “new age” artists and lifestyles seekers, drop-outs).
This fragmentation is exacerbated by internal divisions and turf wars. During one month in 2002 there were public splits in three Atherton community groups: the APA (Atherton Players Association) fractured bitterly and one group broke away to form ACT (A Community Theatre); there was a split in the dog training club between those who wanted to teach their dogs to jump and those who did not30; and there was a rift in the group planning the Yungaburra folk festival between those who wanted to keep to the traditional format and those who wanted to see it grow.
In 2003 TACTIC was in trouble. It twice failed to attract a quorum to meetings before managing to hold an AGM in July, thus guaranteeing its survival for another year. The fluctuating fortunes of TACTIC, and of other branches that have sprung up and intermittently prospered on the tablelands, suggests that there is a good level of underlying interest in the arts, but that commitment to the arts council itself is equivocal.
30 A dog that can jump is difficult to keep at home.
182
6.7 Tambo – Tambo Arts Council Inc. (TAC)
Tambo, surveyed and laid out on the banks of the Barcoo river between 1862 and 1864, and originally known as Carrangarra, claims to be the oldest town in Queensland’s central west. This is open downs country, black soil, lightly wooded and with broad expanses of native pasture, inhabited for thousands of years by Indigenous Australians, but first explored by whites when Sir Thomas Mitchell led an expedition through the area in 1846.
Pastoralists moved into the district around 1862. The first birth was registered in 1865, and when an auction of crown land was held four years later Tambo already had a population of over fifty. A police sergeant arrived in 1867, a magistrate in 1872 and a courthouse in 1874. There was soon a substantial community of ethnic Chinese market gardeners and merchants; when they appeared in court, those who could not speak English took the oath by blowing out a lighted match.
Tambo became a staging post for Cobb & Co and other carriers and grew into a prosperous little township. Within a few years it gained a hospital, a branch of the Queensland National Bank, and a state government school. There were eventually five hotels and four stores. Tambo became an important stop for early mail and passenger flights, and was the site of the first fatal crash by a QANTAS aircraft when, on the 24th March 1927, DH9C-G-AUED stalled and crashed while approaching the claypan that served as an airstrip.
Tambo’s importance declined as improved transport made it possible for people and freight to bypass the town. During the 1960s population stabilised at around 400. Towards the end of the 20th century the population began to shrink under the impact of industry restructuring and changing work patterns brought about by economic and technological change.
Today Tambo is a sprawling little town of around 350 people. A handful of public and commercial buildings scattered along the main street includes two hotels, a motel, the old (1957) shire hall (now used as a community education centre), a
183 modern shire office building, a general store, post office, credit union, a historical museum, old (1888) courthouse, now used as the public library, and a truck- stop/cafe. There is a state school for primary and early secondary years, but in 2003 there was still no pharmacy, and no permanent doctor, dentist or ambulance. Medical care was provided by nursing staff at the Tambo Primary Health Centre.
Agriculture (primarily beef and wool) dominates the local economy and provides a third of all jobs. A sawmill employs around 20 people.
Despite the difficult times, local wisdom has it that “Tambo people always have money”, and although the shire population is shrinking, the town is going through a process of rejuvenation. A main street beautification project involved the restoration of public buildings including the shire hall and the Old Telegraph Office museum, and the building of a new aquatic centre. A new business and cultural centre planned for late 2003 was to include a pharmacy, which would operate several days a week, along with other retail outlets.
To make way for the new centre, Tambo’s only picture theatre, the Rivoli, was demolished in May 2003 after almost eighty years. The Rivoli had been built in 1925. Originally open to the stars and with a dirt floor, it could be used only at night until a roof was added in 1928. Patrons sat on canvas chairs, often with their dogs beside them, and were warmed in winter by wood fires burning in 44 gallon drums. The Saturday night movies were an important part of cultural life in Tambo for more than half a century until The Rivoli was killed off by the arrival of television in 1981.
Tambo Shire Council has no dedicated cultural plan but has incorporated cultural objectives into its Corporate Plan and Operational Plan. Tambo Shire Council CEO Anthony Lyons, stated in 2002: “Everything we do is culture.” The positive and progressive stance taken by the council is largely responsible for the ongoing rejuvenation of the town.
The active RADF committee has been successful in attracting funds for a number of projects to beautify the main street, but sport dominates community life. Favourite activities are: bowls, golf, shooting, tennis, and anything to do with horses including
184 camp drafts, rodeos, pony club and polo-cross. The annual agricultural show and stock show are very popular, and the race track outside town hosts several meetings a year.
Appraisal of any community can portray it in an admirable light:
Tambo has always been a rural centre, and the town in the 1990s is little altered in its outlook and attitude from the town of the late 1880s. Town and country then enjoyed a close work and community relationship, a relationship which is even stronger today in cementing the town and district’s proud heritage. ( Volk, 1992: 30)
But dispassionate examination reveals categories of fragmentation. Much of Tambo’s social life centres around its two hotels, the Club and the Royal Carrangarra. Road-workers and labourers patronize the Club, while graziers and town people patronize the Royal Carrangarra. The graziers visit town for business, but this is often the limit of their interaction. Graziers calling at the hotel for a meal talk mainly amongst themselves.
There is relatively little mixing. As one townie put it: “I’ve been involved in the swimming club, the brownies, the hospital auxiliary, the community care organisation …We were all battlers basically … a shearer’s wife, a disabled pensioner’s wife … there was no cocky’s wives in them, there’s no business people. They’re in the polo-cross and the sports club and the racecourse and the golf club.”
Some townspeople lament the lack of community spirit. “Some people are hermits. There are some I’ve never seen in three and a half years. They don’t go out at night. They don’t go out at all.” Another said: “They need to get off their bums and do something. Even at the football you only get half the people you should. There’s some people in this town who’ve never been to anything except their own baptism and birthday.”
185 Some townspeople particularly target the ‘cockies’. One well-read interviewee called them the “bunyip aristocracy”31 and the “pastorocracy” and complained: “There’s no reciprocity. If they’re involved in something like polo-cross they’ll expect everyone to go to it, but they won’t go to anything else.”
Property owners don’t deny the criticism. One admitted: “We are the lucky ones. We can afford to buy a property. People try to take you down. There’s a chip on the shoulder.” Another said: “I don’t care. I’m not interested in what happens in Tambo. I can drive to Brisbane in a day.”32
There are deep divisions in the community. This is not to deny that people can be both friendly and hospitable. They can be extremely so, if a visitor or new arrival is seen be ‘one of us’, and the community can come together, united by common interests and purpose in time of crisis or celebration.33
Tambo is also home to Tambo Teddies, a cottage industry that makes pure wool teddies out of local sheepskins. Tambo Teddies was registered as a small business in 1994. Since then it has made and sold more than 25,000 bears at a range of prices up to $225, and currently employs more than 20 people part time.34
Tambo branch of the QAC was formed at a public meeting on 12th October 1960, when tours into Queensland were still managed from Sydney. Eighteen persons were initially appointed to the committee with Reverend Father R. Benjamin as President and Tambo School Headmaster Mr. L. Tambling as secretary.
31 He attributed this descriptive term to Charles Manning Clark, but it appears to have been first used by Daniel Deniehy in 1853. (Deniehy, 2004: 369). 32 Tambo to Brisbane is approximately 860 km by road. Those who make the trip regularly consider it a nine hour drive. 33 I was made warmly welcome and stayed for several days in the home of the local police constable Terry McCullough, whose wife Marcia was TAC President at the time. Tambo is not necessarily any more fragmented than many other communities. I have described the seven case studies so as to present a wide and varied spectrum of typical characteristics, and I discuss each issue in the context of the community where I encountered its most explicit expression. Social fragmentation was particularly obvious in Tambo largely because it is a very small community, but I also noted fragmentation in other sites. Fragmentation may be less obvious in larger communities, but it is still there. 34 It has been suggested by some participants that QAC was instrumental in the founding of Tambo Teddies. I have been unable to confirm this, although some of the founders of Tambo Teddies have been Arts Council Members.
186 During the 1960s Tambo Shire Council made the shire hall supper room available for arts council meetings free of charge, and provided the hall itself, also free, for performances. The shire council also agreed to help meet performance income guarantees requested by QAC, in order to ensure that it was viable for touring shows to visit Tambo.
Television had not reached Tambo, and despite its small host community the branch became very active and tours drew comparatively large audiences. Teachers were key members from the beginning, and were recognised as playing an important role in the arts council. TAC still relies heavily on the contribution of school teachers, perpetuating a community perception that arts council is “school teachers and cocky’s wives.”
Even in good times, arts council competes with other interests. In a small community events like birthdays, anniversaries and sports fixtures can dominate the calendar and regulate people’s lives. The president’s report for 1989 noted that after a good start to the year, attendances declined as the tennis season got under way. Attendance at another event was down because rain made roads impassable and prevented country people from getting to town. The report ended with the observation that life in Tambo was hectic, and that: “Anybody who thinks of coming to the bush to live the quite life, must be mad!”
Tambo was the first branch to incorporate, becoming Tambo Arts Council Inc. (TAC) in 1999. In recent years membership has been as high as 92 and as low as 30.
In 1998, Tambo Branch was granted almost $8,000 from the state government Gambling Machine Community Benefit Fund. to buy photocopying equipment which would allow it print a community newspaper. The first edition of Grassland Whisperer, photocopied on A4 paper, was published in April 1988. It has been published once a month since, distributed to all LAC members, and is available to others by subscription. Circulation is around 200. It is the only newspaper that provides local content for residents of Tambo shire.
187 Some TAC members express frustration at lack of community interest in arts events: “It’s always the same people coming. It’s so hard here because people don’t go out of the house. They watch T.V.” One explained: “They’d rather go to the rodeo. A lot of people don’t like new experiences. You’re frightened of what you don’t know. Most of the shows don’t mean diddly squat to you.”
The LAC committee works hard to exert a positive role in the community. Several of the more active members are driven by a real commitment to the town, and an untutored sense of civic responsibility.
Tambo is one of the wealthier LACs, owning a building in the main street, which has been leased out at commercial rates since January 1988.35 TAC regularly makes donations to other community groups or organisations. In 1999 the LAC donated a total of $7,561 including $5,000 for extensions to the Tambo Sports Club, $400 to the kindergarten association, $150 for a quilting challenge at the Tambo Stock Show, and $1,600 to buy an ECG machine for the Tambo Primary Health Care Centre. Money for the ECG machine was raised through a night of musical comedy, Desperados, starring local talent, which drew a full house of 160 – almost 50% of the town – to the shire hall.
7 Case Study Demographics
7.1 Comparing The Case Studies
The preceding profiles represent a cross-section of Queensland’s LACs. I have tried to suggest the community cultural context within which each germinated and grew, how it has been sustained by the community around it, and has contributed to that community, reflecting community resources, interests and aspirations, responding to community change and to broader environmental change.
35 The branch used its own accumulated funds to purchases this plain low-set clapboard building in 1988, but was not legally entitled to own it. The title was therefore held in the name of Queensland Arts Council, while the Tambo branch managed the property and received the rent. The title was signed over to Tambo Local Arts Council following incorporation, when QAC give all its regional assets to LACs.
188 I might have chosen other communities and other LACs: Barcaldine, a cental western town of 1,800 people where the LAC owns and manages the only cinema; Boulia in the remote west, where 600 people live in a shire with an overall population density of less than one person per 100 square kilometres; Gayndah, which opened in 1967, went into recess in 1985, opened again in 1995, largely driven by the enthusiasm of one prominent local family, and within twelve months grew its membership to 273; Kenilworth, only 100 kilometres by crow from Brisbane, yet considered by residents to be highly isolated because there is no air, rail or coach link to the outside world, no local bus or taxi, all travel is by private transport, foot or thumb, and there is limited telephone and mobile phone reception; Monto which was once comatose, with a membership of five, but regenerated through a determination to make itself relevant and ‘echo the heart’ of the community, and became one of the most active and consistent LACs; or Redlands, bumping against Brisbane’s southern boundaries and within easy daily access of all of that city’s major cultural institutions, yet one of the most independent and entrepreneurial LACs.
Or I might have reviewed a number of LACs no longer in existence: Theodore, which opened in 1975, collapsed in 1981, reopened in 1989 and was presented with the Branch of the Year Award in 1996 (for 1995 activities), only to close again in 1998, its committee exhausted and disillusioned; Kingaroy where arts council had three lives, initially as Tarong Branch from 1963 to1966, reforming briefly as Kingaroy Branch for 1977-78, and then operating as South Burnett from 1982 until it finally closed in 1994; or Bloomfield, nestled in the rainforest north of the Daintree River, the only LAC with a predominantly Indigenous constituency, as well as one of the most isolated, which struggled to maintain membership in double figures, driven primarily by one dedicated campaigner until she finally acknowledged defeat in 2002.
The general configuration and operation of LACs is uniform. It was established in the branch years according to expediency, subsequently determined by precedent which became corporate habit, then by QAC’s Constitution and Branch Manual, and, since incorporation, according to QAC’s Constitution, LAC Constitutions and Model Rules, and an Affiliation Agreement between QAC and LACs. Individual
189 circumstances and characteristics vary, but the same general forces, and relationships, concerns and interests operate.
The ethos and outlook that drives an LAC at any time is the net result of internal and external forces acting on it, moderated through its management group. Its history reflects the flux and interplay of these forces over time, the macro forces at play in the broader environment, and the micro forces and sectional interests operating within the immediate community, and in particular within the management group itself.
External forces may be as blunt and pervasive as the El Nino weather pattern and its impact on Australia’s national weather and agricultural production, the SARS outbreak, multi-lateral trading agreements with other nations, and the international price of wool, beef, oil and other commodities. These factors and many more impact directly on regional economies and therefore ultimately, albeit indirectly on membership of LACs, and patronage of arts council events.
On a narrower scale, micro forces may be as particular as the fortunes and whims of individual LAC office holders or members – the charismatic personality of one president, the abrasive personality of another, the reluctance of a third to let go of the reins, a secretary’s retirement due to ill health, or the muddled accounting of a reluctant treasurer, one person’s distaste for the ballet, or another’s enthusiasm for silent films, and so on.
These parochial concerns are not inconsequential. On the contrary, they lie at the core of how LAC committees are formed and operate, and therefore directly determine the fortunes and fate of every LAC. Such is the variability and potency of these micro forces that, notwithstanding the macro forces, and the general network trends discussed in previous sections, we cannot chart the history of LACs according to any standard or common progression. There is no irrevocable historical or developmental template, as the pattern of branch start-ups and closures reveals.
The formation of each branch or LAC has been driven by a group of key people, often only one or two primary catalysts, who came together with a common aim, but
190 often for different reasons. Tambo formed in 1960, at the beginning of what I have called The Evangelical Period, when QAC was about to expand across the state. The Branch was initiated by prominent local citizens including the school principal and a minister of religion, who aimed to bring the arts to “a cultural desert.” Biloela was one of eleven Branches that burgeoned during 1955-66, with a similar intention. Inauguration in Biloela was driven by prominent local citizens including the president of the Rotary Club. In Gympie, it was the Shire Mayor who convened the foundation meeting, and drove the process, in 1968.
In Moranbah, a town constructed by a mining company and lacking the history, heritage and durable social networks that give a community its heart, it was the newly established performing arts group that drove the process. Atherton Branch formed in the same year, fostered by the Shire Chairman, and with strong links to the local choral society and the amateur drama group. Maryborough Branch initially rode upon strong community interest in amateur theatre. In Hervey Bay, the movement was driven by prominent local businessman and politician George Bezant, who saw the community missing out, and wanted to correct the disadvantage.
The forces that drive an LAC will not all be so readily evident. Macro forces may be so embedded in our lives that we overlook them. Micro forces may be equally invisible – people do not always reveal the full extent of their personal interests and ambitions, or the diverse strategies they use to further them. In this section I examine how case study LACs sit within their communities, with additional examples from across the network. Is there a typical LAC membership? Who attends arts council performances and other events? How representative are they of the broader community and how accurately do they represent its interests in culture and the arts?
7.2 Catchment Demographics – Lifestyle and Labour Sites
To guide analysis of host populations and how LACs sit within, represent and service them, I have defined a nominal catchment with a radius of 50 km for each LAC, this being a distance which country people readily travel for casual social and recreational purposes. In fact, they often travel much further. Biloela residents drive over 100 km to visit the cinema or go shopping in coastal Gladstone; Moranbah
191 residents travel 200km to coastal Mackay. On the other hand people from these coastal towns are very unlikely to travel to Biloela or Moranbah, unless for work. People living between the towns are far more likely to travel to Gladstone and Mackay on the coast than to Biloela or Moranbah – and people living inland from Biloela and Moranbah will travel through them to reach the coastal towns.
I have adjusted catchments to avoid obvious anomalies, such as topographical peculiarities around Atherton (Tablelands LAC or TACTIC) that make 40km more appropriate. The 50km radius, taking in Cairns suburbs, would have provided a higher but unrealistic figure. I initially examined catchments for key demographic characteristics including population density, gender, age, education, employment and income. By the same logic I could have considered a radius of 100 km or more around Tambo, as people will drive this far to get to the nearest pub, but population in the area is so sparse it would have made little difference to catchment statistics.36 The seven sites fall naturally into two categories. Population size provides the most obvious distinction, but there are corresponding configurations in gender, age and income. Accordingly I have classified each site as either Lifestyle or Labour site. (See Table 7.1.)
The Lifestyle sites of Cooloola, Maryborough, Hervey Bay and Atherton Tablelands, are less geographically isolated, have higher populations, and offer extensive quality of life and lifestyle options, but unemployment is high and average income is low to moderate. The Labour sites of Biloela, Moranbah and Tambo are more isolated, have smaller populations, and offer limited quality of life and lifestyle options, but have low unemployment and high to very high average incomes. The distinction is between places people inhabit for a variety of reasons associated with lifestyle and employment options, and places people inhabit primarily because they offer a good livelihood, regardless of lifestyle options.37
36 Of course roads are rarely radial. Actual distances vary, as will road condition and other factors (kangaroos on the road at night, unpredictable creek crossings, rain on gravel roads, etc) so while these catchments provide a useful frame for comparison, they aren’t definitive. 37 I initially used the labels Lifestyle and Livelihood to define these sites, but found the use of two such similar terms cumbersome. I settled on Lifestyle and Labour as providing a much crisper distinction, although Livelihood is more apposite.
192 TABLE 7.1 Case Studies - Characteristics of Lifestyle and Labour Sites
LIFESTYLE LABOUR Cooloola, Maryborough, Biloela, Moranbah, Tambo Hervey Bay, Atherton Tablelands Host town size Substantial Small Catchment population Large & growing Small & declining Remoteness Accessible Isolated Unemployment Moderate Low Average income Low to moderate High to very high Gender balance Females in majority Males in majority Age Older than state average Younger than state average Lifestyle options Extensive Restricted Amenities and services Comprehensive Limited
A Lifestyle site such as Hervey Bay offers a pleasant living environment and a range of lifestyle options – employment, social, domestic, leisure and entertainment – and a comprehensive range of amenities and services. Many lifestyle options are consequent on population and the diversity and enterprise that come with it. Others derive from geographic and climatic factors such as proximity to the coastline, temperature and rainfall. Hervey Bay is a recognised gateway to a vast marine playground. The Atherton Tablelands is considered by many to have the most beautiful natural environment and the best climate in Australia. Gympie (Cooloola) and Maryborough are both small cities, close to the coast, and to other population centres, including Brisbane.
Labour sites offer far more limited options and amenities, and most people would not live in them if not for particularly favourable, albeit very specific, employment options. This is clear in towns like Moranbah and Biloela where many workers on extended shift rosters leave town whenever they are rostered off. These workers have little interest in the place where they work, and no commitment to its community. It is in part because of their smaller populations, and this lack of commitment by many ‘inhabitants’ that these Labour sites offer limited lifestyle options.
The distinction is not absolute, and does not mean that Lifestyle sites don’t offer some people a handsome livelihood, or that Labour sites don’t offer a lifestyle pleasing to some people. It is possible for a site to offer the best of both – Atherton
193 did when the sugar and dairy industries were strong, and Maryborough did in its heyday as an industrial town – and we might consider that all larger cities do so simply because their larger populations provide the economic base to support an extremely wide range of human activity. The growing populations of Lifestyle sites such as Hervey Bay and Gympie (Cooloola) provide business and employment opportunities, and if Labour sites were to grow in population they would increase their Lifestyle options.
Each of the Labour sites centres on a relatively isolated small town. Tambo population is around 350, Biloela 5,500 and Moranbah 7,500. The four Lifestyle sites are generally centred on less isolated, bigger towns or cities with an average population of over 22,000. There is one anomaly. The biggest of the Labour towns, Moranbah (7,500), is bigger than smallest of the Lifestyle towns, Atherton (5,800), however when we look outside the town itself at the surrounding catchment, the relationship is reversed, and the Lifestyle/Labour differential reaffirmed – Atherton’s catchment is four times that of Moranbah. (See Table 7.2.)
TABLE 7.2 Case Study Sites – Host Town & Catchment Populations
CASE STUDY LAC / SITE Host Town Local Gov. Catchment Predicted % Population Area Population change to Population 2011 CCAC (Cooloola) 14,499 33,670 77,456 + 18
MRAC 25,145 25,145 73,810 + 4 (Maryborough)
Lifestyle HBCFA (Hervey Bay) 43,419 43,419 71,239 + 37 TACTIC (Atherton) 5,800 10,611 32,206 + 17 BAC (Biloela) 5,500 14,369 8,532 - 10
MAC (Moranbah) 7,500 9,936 7,810 = TAC (Tambo) 350 625 544 - 15
Labour
Each of the Labour sites has a 50km catchment population of under 10,000 people (Biloela: 8,532; Moranbah: 7,810 and Tambo: 544). The Lifestyle sites have much greater catchment populations. (Cooloola: 77,456; Maryborough: 73,810; Hervey
194 Bay: 71,239; Atherton (32,206)38 Catchment population provides a useful measure of a community’s isolation. The three Labour sites are each significantly more isolated than any of the Lifestyle Sites.
Lifestyle Shires are all growing or projected to grow between 2003 and 2011, by an average of 19%. Growth is expected to be minimal in Maryborough, but significant in the other Lifestyle sites. An expected population increase in Hervey Bay of 37% over 8 years indicates the rapid, almost unmanageable growth of this city. In general Lifestyle sites remain attractive regardless of the economic climate, so that even in the Atherton Tablelands, where the collapse of tobacco, dairy and sugar industries has cast a terrible gloom over the economy, Atherton’s population is expected to grow.
Population in the Labour sites, on the other hand, is generally expected to fall, except for around Moranbah (Belyando Shire) where there is an established pattern of rise and fall, with little long term change, in accord with the coal export market, and the consequent fortunes of the mines.
In a previous era, the locations I have characterised as Labour sites might have been called frontier towns deemed to represent the fringes of colonial civilisation, and today they still exhibit a characteristic that would have been considered typical of such towns: a predominance of males in the adult population. The opposite applies in the four Lifestyle sites, where females predominate.
38 ABS Figures. These catchment figures are derived from the 1996 ABS census because the radius facility is not provided with 2001 census data. Unless stated, all other statistics are drawn from the 2001 census.
195 TABLE 7.3 Case Study Sites – Distribution of Gender within Communities
Total Married Single REGION / SITE % male % female % male % female % male % female
Queensland State Average 49 51 28 28 21 23 Lifestyle Sites Cooloola 49 51 30 31 19 20 Maryborough 48 52 29 29 19 23 Hervey Bay 48 52 31 32 16 21 Atherton 48 52 30 30 18 22 Average 48 52 30 31 18 22 Labour Sites Biloela 52 48 32 30 20 17 Moranbah 60 40 36 29 23 12 Tambo 56 44 33 31 22 14 Average 56 44 34 30 22 14 All Case Study Sites Average 49 51 31 30 18 20 (Rows and columns may not total due to rounding)
The overall gender imbalance in Lifestyle sites is not large, being only one or two percent from equilibrium, and it generally reflects the state imbalance which favours females by the same degree. What is significant about this imbalance is its consistency, particularly in relation to the reverse imbalance in the Labour sites. Here there is a predominance of males – it is moderate in Biloela and more pronounced in Tambo and Moranbah. In Moranbah there are three adult males for every two adult females.
These variations and the differences between sites become more marked when we look at single people. Here there is a moderate predominance of females in all Lifestyle sites (an average margin of 4%) and a strong predominance of males in the Labour sites (average margin, 8%). These differences are more significant than they appear, and have a strong impact on the character of a community. For example, the 11% difference between the single male and single female components of Moranbah is based on their prevalence in the population as a whole. It means there are 23 single males for every 12 single women in Moranbah, almost 2:1. (See Table 7.3.)
Regional towns and areas are less attractive to single people. Across all case study sites, the percentage of married people is invariably higher than the state average (61% compared to 56%), and the percentage of single people is lower (38% compared to 44%). This tends to be even more apparent in the Labour sites, where
196 married people make up 64% of the population. It is tempting to deduce that the comfort and companionship of married life helps to compensate for the rigors and relative disadvantages of living in these sites. Descriptive data tends to confirm this.
Men who live unaccompanied by their wives make up 2% of the total population in Biloela and Tambo, and 7% in Moranbah. Again these percentages are not large in relation to the overall population, but in relation to the percentage of married men, their significance emerges. In Biloela and Tambo 6% of married men are not accompanied by their wives. In Moranbah the figure is 19%.
If we include these married but unaccompanied men, the percentage of ‘single’ males in Labour sites is everywhere greater than the state average (22%, 30% and 24% compared to 21% for the state). The female partners of these men tend to live in adjacent towns and cities on the coast which have a more ‘female friendly’ ambience.39
The populations of Labour sites are on average younger than those of Lifestyle sites. In Labour sites 59% of people are under the age of 45, and 20% are over 55, but in Lifestyle sites 46% of people are under the age of 45, and 37% are over 55. Retirees often move to the coast, from Labour to Lifestyle, and all Labour sites are younger than Cooloola, which is the youngest of the Lifestyles sites.
Average unemployment across all case sites, 8.1%, is very close to the state average of 8.2% at the time. For the four Lifestyle sites, unemployment is generally higher than this, and averages 11.5%. Unemployment in the three Labour sites is much lower, and averages 3.6%. These figures may be interpreted in two ways – as indicating that it’s easier to find employment in Labour sites because there are more jobs – or that if people become unemployed they leave town. Either or both may true.
Averaged across all case study sites, income is low, with more families on a low income (32% compared to 22%), and fewer families on a high income (11%
39 Other factors may account for some of this discrepancy. For example couples in de-facto relationships, or who have separated, may provide inconsistent descriptions of their relationship.
197 compared to 18%), than for the state as a whole.40 This supports the notion that regional populations are generally disadvantaged, as the lower income impacts disadvantageously on many aspects of their lives, but there are big differences between Lifestyle and Labour sites.
Income is below the state average in the four Lifestyle catchments, Cooloola, Maryborough, Hervey Bay and Atherton. This is generally so throughout the income range, and particularly visible at the extremities. There are more families on a low income than for the state as a whole, 34, 32, 39 and 28% respectively (an average of 33% compared to 22% for the state); and fewer families on a high income, 9, 9, 7 and 12% respectively (an average of 9% compared to 18% for state).
The opposite is true in the three Labour catchments. There are fewer families on a low income, 18, 8 and 16% (an average of 14% compared to 22% for the state); and more families on high income, 24, 43 and 19% (an average of 29% compared to 18% for the state).
People are less educated in all regional case study sites than for the state overall. Across all sites, the average prevalence of tertiary qualifications (diploma or higher) is 13% compared to the state average of 20%, and in no site does it approach the state mark. The dearth of post-graduate qualifications is even more marked – on average the prevalence is less than half the state level, 0.8% compared to 2.1%. There is no clear distinction between Lifestyle and Labour sites.
Vocations vary considerably between locations but without a clear pattern of distinction between Lifestyle and Labour sites. The one exception is the prevalence of trade workers in the Labour sites of Biloela, Moranbah and Tambo (22% compared to 12% for the state). There are local anomalies, such as an extraordinary prevalence of business owners and managers in the smallest town of Tambo 17% (state average 5%), explained by the many properties, businesses and agencies run by owners or managers, with minimal staff.
40 I have defined a family income of less than $500 per week as low; more than $2,000 as high.
198 Taken overall, the populations of these regional sites are reasonably representative of the state, although they are a little less educated and less well paid, and on average a little older and more likely to be married. I take these sites to be more or less representative of the diversity of regional sites in general, so the real distinction to be made is between regional and metropolitan populations. We might see these differences as symptomatic of, and contributing to the bush / city cultural divide.
There are important variations in gender, age, and income between the residents of Lifestyle and Labour sites. In following sections I examine the demographics of these populations and the demographics of arts council membership, to discover how the one is reflected in the other, and what implications demographic factors have for LACs and the contribution they make to their communities.
7.3 Community Population and Membership.
There is a distinct difference in the prevalence of LAC membership between Lifestyle and Labour sites. LACs in Lifestyle communities are able to draw on a much larger pool of potential members, and we might reasonably expect them to have bigger memberships, and draw bigger audiences than those in Labour sites. In absolute terms this is so, (average membership 225, compared to 170). However, if we take each LAC membership as a percentage of its host town population, LACs in these larger Lifestyle communities have less than one fifth the community subscription of those in Labour sites. (Average 1.57% compared to 8.32%)
If we consider the larger pool of possible members in the 40/50km catchment, the average for Lifestyle sites drops to 0.4%, while the average for the Labour sites holds up at 5.61%. The highest of the Lifestyle sites, Cooloola, at 0.52%, has less than a quarter the subscription rate of the lowest Labour site, Moranbah, at 2.30%. (See Table 7.4.)
199 TABLE 7.4 Case Studies – Catchment Population and LAC Membership, 2003
CASE STUDY LAC Members Members as Members as Average Attendance Attendance / SITE % of Host % of Attendance as % of as % of Town Pop. Catchment 2001-2003 Host Town Catchment Population Pop. Population Cooloola 399 2.75 0.52 155 1.07 0.20
Maryborough 168 0.67 0.23 84 0.33 0.11 Hervey Bay 192 0.44 0.44 82 0.19 0.12 Atherton 141 2.43 0.43 70 1.21 0.22 Lifestyle Average 225 1.57 0.40 98
Biloela 267 4.86 3.13 87 1.58 1.02 Moranbah 180 2.40 2.30 59 0.79 0.76 Tambo 62 17.71 11.40 48 13.71 8.82 Labour Average 170 8.32 5.61 65
It is significant that Tambo, with the smallest membership of all case study LACs, has the highest subscription rate. This is because Tambo, the most geographically isolated of all case study sites, has by far both the smallest host town community, and the smallest catchment. In such a small and isolated community, an LAC does not need a numerically large membership to establish itself as a significant community agent.
These figures also show the importance of catchment. Atherton township is smaller than Moranbah, and around the same size as Biloela, but draws on a much more densely populated rural area of small farms and villages. Atherton’s more densely populated catchment (40 km radius) increases Tableland LAC’s membership pool by more than 26,000 people. Biloela’s larger catchment (50km radius) increases its membership pool by only 3,000. For Moranbah the equivalent figure is 310. (See Table 7.2.)
Thus, while a larger population is likely to deliver more people sympathetic to arts council, and this is likely to generate greater membership numbers, it is in smaller and more isolated towns that arts council draws relatively much greater support. It is in these smaller towns that membership networks will be most densely woven through communities, and most coincident with other networks. One interviewee explained: “All the same people are on the committees. You can go to any meeting
200 you like and there’ll be somebody from every committee in town. So it’s like, who are we today? Like, which committee are we? What hat are we wearing today?”
An organisation such as arts council is potentially more readily able to exert influence, and generate impetus, becoming a potent driver of attitudes and activities within smaller populations where influence and power are concentrated in a relatively small number of people, than in larger communities, where influence is spread more diffusely, and key individuals have more restricted influence, and be harder to reach.
Similar dynamics operate with regard to attendances. Average attendance is numerically higher in Lifestyle sites but it represents a far greater section of the community in Labour sites. In Cooloola, an average attendance of 155 is only 0.2% of the catchment population, but in Biloela an audience of 87 people is 1.02% of the catchment, and in Tambo an audience of just 48 people is nearly 9% of the catchment. In 1999 a performance of Brentleighs on Tour in Tambo drew 125 people which is 36% of the town’s population, and 20% of the entire LAC catchment.
7.4 Attendance and Membership
I have previously noted that attendance and membership statistics indicate different things. I take attendance41 at arts council events as the most direct measure of actuated demand for arts council services. It indicates immediate community support for what arts council is doing, but is specific to context as patrons selectively exploit entertainment or lifestyle options provided by arts council and other agencies.
We might consider members to constitute a special class of audience, to which they have elected themselves by paying fees and ‘signing on’ as members, rather like subscribers to an urban theatre company. Membership may still primarily reflect exploitation of available options, as those joining capitalise on membership benefits such as discounted tickets, but it does indicate more enduring interest, and although it does not necessarily imply commitment to the organisation and its goals, we might
41 I use attendance here as the most generic term. Depending on context it might be appropriately thought of as spectatorship, participation, consumption, public patronage, or just ‘bums-on-seats’.
201 consider it a step towards such commitment. So while the motivation of individuals varies, I take overall membership numbers as a general indication of community commitment to the organisation.
It is tempting to assume a correlation between the membership of an LAC, its organisational strength (hence its vitality and viability), and attendance at arts council events. Thus, when an LAC has plenty of members it will be organisationally strong and able to draw on an effective team of willing volunteers, and this will spin off into improved attendance at events. At the same time, strong attendances at events will help to generate increased membership, and ensure the sustainability of an LAC. These assumptions have become axiomatic for QAC management and staff over many years, as they learned to associate effective committees with strong membership and attendance, and to recognise a dysfunctional committee and reduced attendance at events as key symptoms of a branch or LAC in distress.
Descriptive data (QAC staff experience, discussions, interviews) supports this and suggests that attendance both leads and follows membership. On the one hand a popular touring program can stimulate membership or an unpopular program depress it; on the other, strong membership can stimulate attendance, while weak membership will do little to help. Many LAC local managers consider popular QAC tours, particularly if they come early in the year, a very effective stimulus to membership. Some consider these tours essential to the maintenance of their membership base.
But examination of data suggests a much more complex and less predictable relationship between membership and attendance. Data recorded for the seven case study sites over ten years from 1991-1995 and 1996-200042 – when considered as two consecutive five year periods – suggest that membership and attendance tend to correlate, but reveal significant variation. (See Table 7.5)
In six of the seven sites membership and attendance moved in the same direction, with both declining in Cooloola, Maryborough, Atherton, Biloela and Tambo, and
42 These are the only years for which I have been able to find comprehensive and reliable statistics.
202 both increasing in Hervey Bay. But in Moranbah, membership grew by 12% while attendance fell by 40%.
TABLE 7.5 Attendance and Membership Trends, 1991-2000
Average Average Attendance as Attendance Membership Attendance Membership % of Trend Trend Membership in % in % 1991- 1996- 1991- 1996- 1991- 1996- 1995 2000 1995 2000 1995 2000 Cooloola 204 176 200 162 102 109 - 14 - 19
Maryborough 208 184 172 143 121 129 - 12 - 17 Hervey Bay 102 123 123 254 83 48 + 21 + 106 Atherton 163 98 109 91 150 90 - 40 - 17 Lifestyle Average 174 145 151 162 115 90 - 17 + 7
Biloela 193 113 206 186 94 61 - 41 - 10 Moranbah 165 99 170 190 97 52 - 40 + 12 Tambo 51 49 101 79 50 62 - 4 - 22 Labour Average 163 104 160 152 102 68 - 36 - 5
The Moranbah membership statistics reflect local economic conditions. Membership had actually been at its highest (235) in 1991, but that was followed by several bad years for the mines, in which membership dropped. Membership picked up in the second five years, but didn’t return to its 1991 high. So the apparent membership growth in Moranbah is more accurately seen as a partial recovery from a fall.
This being so, we can see that membership generally fell in all case study sites except Hervey Bay over the ten years 1991-2000. If we ignore Hervey Bay (which I discuss separately below) average attendance also declined in all sites. Attendance declined more than membership in Atherton and Biloela, and less than membership in Cooloola, Maryborough and Tambo, and in Moranbah as already discussed average attendance fell by 40% while membership recovered from a fall.
This overall fall in both membership and average attendance reflects the broad trend across the network (discussed in Chapter 4.2), which saw an almost constant gradual decline in both from 1960-2000, even while the number of branches, the total number of events, and total attendance were all growing.
203 This renders the performance of Hervey Bay, where both average attendance and membership increased, even more notable. Local factors are important. During much of this period Hervey Bay benefited from the leadership of a very dynamic and ‘well- connected’ President who made arts council ‘the social scene’ in Hervey Bay, and drove a number of innovative and ambitious ventures such as the National Line Dancing Festival in 1996, and YagUbi Multicultural Festival in 1997. It’s also significant that throughout this period Hervey Bay was the only case study site to experience significant population growth, with many people moving into the area, thus increasing the pool of potential arts participants and attendees.
Significantly, the huge increase in membership (106%) was not matched by a corresponding increase in average attendance (only 21%), confirming along with the other case studies, that there is no direct correlation between the two. A closer examination of some individual cases further confirms the slipperiness of this correlation, and the importance of site specific factors.
In Biloela, average attendance dropped 41% while membership dropped only 10%. The drop in attendance is explained by high numbers in the first five years, generated by a small number of exceptionally well-attended events, which were not reprised during the second five years. Difficult economic conditions also contributed, with many rural producers suffering from drought and depressed markets.
In Atherton, average attendance dropped 40% and membership by 17%. Rural recession was a major factor with the general rural slump compounded by the particular decline of three industries (tobacco, sugar and dairy) that had long underpinned the region’s wealth. The Atherton branch also lost several key personnel during this time.
How site specific factors affect average attendance at individual branch sites can be seen in Graph 7.1, which shows the attendance across all case study LACs from 1991-2000. Average attendance simultaneously increased in some sites and decreased in others. Some LACs attracted relatively constant community patronage, while others exhibit dramatic volatility.
204 Peaks in different sites in any one year may be related, but they can also be entirely un-related. Of three substantial peaks in 1993, Maryborough and Cooloola hosted the same popular productions by three major companies (La Boite, Queensland Ballet, and Queensland Philharmonic Orchestra) but the simultaneous peak for Tablelands Branch was entirely unrelated and due to a single independent production Let’s Dance. Again in 1995, Cooloola and Maryborough enjoyed simultaneous attendance peaks because their programming coincided, but Hervey Bay and Biloela which also peaked, hosted different tours. Maryborough and Hervey Bay both peaked again in 1997, although they hosted different touring events, but when Maryborough and Cooloola both peaked in 2000 it was because they hosted the same events.
GRAPH 7.1 Case Study Sites – Average Attendance at QAC Touring Events, 1991-2000
Graph 7.2 shows a similar asynchrony in membership, with some branches going up, and some down in any given year. There was a rare period of synchronism between 1997 and 1998 when membership of every branch was on the way down. It was around this time that QAC was approaching the peak of its financial crisis, conducting an internal review and considering restructuring, and the organisation was surrounded by an air of great uncertainty.
205 GRAPH 7.2 Case Study LACs – Average Number of Members, 1991-2000
Graph 7.3, of average attendance and membership in Gympie (Cooloola) shows a typically loose correlation, with the overall trend similar in both, but attendance showing far greater volatility according to the drawing power of different productions, the effectiveness of publicity, word of mouth and other more capricious influences such as the alternatives on offer on any particular day or night. The World Expo in Brisbane was blamed for disappointingly small audiences across the state in 1988. The Country Music Muster marks a date to be avoided every year in Gympie, and in towns across the state, agricultural shows, sports competitions, school fetes, popular television programs (especially State of Origin Rugby League) and a host of other events – even birthday parties and funerals in small towns – regularly bite into arts council attendance.
206 GRAPH 7.3 Gympie - LAC Membership and Av. Attendance at QAC Touring Events 1991-2000
In 1998, when Gympie branch was in decline, there was still enough broad based community interest, stimulated by QAC’s Brisbane based advertising, to deliver audiences averaging 213 to QAC tours, but the 1999 average attendance of 107 was a clear indication of distress. It coincided with the LAC’s organisational crisis and membership nadir. This simultaneous trough with the subsequent strong recovery of both attendance and membership in 2000 is a rare instance where the two can be clearly seen to coincide.
Moranbah (Graph 7.4) indicates how dissonant attendance and membership trends can be. There were huge attendance peaks during the first five year period, with several very high drawing tours (Queensland Ballet drew 243 in 1992, and the Queensland Philharmonic Orchestra drew 305 in 1994), but there were none of these big drawing events during the second five year period. Membership does not reflect this. It fell during the first five year period, and rose during the second five year period, when tours were less well attended.
207 GRAPH 7.4 Moranbah LAC Membership and Av. Attendance at QAC Touring Events, 1991-2000
Figures from across the network further illustrate the complex and variable relationship between average attendance and membership figures, and underscore their unreliability as indicators of an LAC’s health, and future prospects. It is instructive to look at the statistics of some branches in the years immediately before they closed. The Alpha branch (shire population: 1,015) averaged attendances of 93 persons over ten arts council tours up to 1996. The average attendance fell to 40 over the next seven years, and 25 (over 4 events) in the last two years. Over the same period Alpha’s membership43 climbed from 38 to 93 and then fell back to 37. Alpha closed in 2003.
The Charters Towers branch drew an average audience of 105 in 1998, received no tour in 1999 and closed in 2000. Cairns branch drew an average audience of 97 in 2000, but still closed in that year, with its final membership listed at 88. Toowoomba
43 Because members renewed their fees at different times throughout the year, non-financial members were sometimes counted, and branches reported membership numbers irregularly, it’s difficult to ascertain the membership of many LACs with any certainty, and historical comparisons must be regarded with some caution. For example at different times during 1993 Alpha membership was recorded as 57 and 71. In 1994 it was recorded as 25 and 52, and in 1996 it was recorded as 63, 77, 90, 92, 94, 96, 100 and finally 93.
208 was still drawing audiences of over 300 just before it closed. Blackwater drew 86 people (its highest audience for many years) in 2003 and then closed early in 2004. Others have survived acute membership crises, or subsisted for years with very small memberships.
Charters Towers, Cairns and Toowoomba are all NARPACA sites. Although QAC tours were still drawing healthy audiences, local committees saw their role to have become redundant, and so they closed. In Blackwater and Alpha more personal factors were involved with exhausted or over-committed office bearers deciding it was time to ‘pull the plug.’ What these figures show is that each branch/LAC travels to the beat of its own drum, so while membership and audience statistics are useful indicators of LAC vigour and viability, they need to be regarded with some caution in term of the sustainability of LACs, and in the historical and local contexts appropriate to each branch.
Membership and participation (measured by average audience numbers), despite assumptions to the contrary, don’t appear to be directly related. They may drive each other to some extent, but both are also driven by other factors. Participation exhibits high volatility driven by the particular appeal of individual touring programs and fluctuating arts and entertainment options, while arts council membership to some extent reflects a more enduring endorsement of QAC and what it represents.
7.5 The ‘Typical’ Arts Constituency
Females are over-represented in LAC membership at every case study site. On average they constitute 51% of host communities, but 59% of arts council memberships. Males are under-represented in every site. They constitute 49% of populations but only 41% of LAC memberships. This imbalance is amplified if we look at single people. Single females make up only 23% of populations but 29% of memberships. Single males make up 21% of populations but only 12% of memberships.
This is generally what we would expect on the basis of informal observations and audience surveys carried out by QAC, and other arts companies. It is consistent with
209 observation and audience surveys carried out for this project, and with findings by Saatchi and Saatchi (2000: 25) who found that “Men and boys are much less likely to value the arts than women and girls.”
Couples44 are over-represented in Labour sites and under-represented in Lifestyle sites. These statistics support interview data which suggests that in Labour sites where there are fewer leisure and entertainment options, couples value the arts and arts council more because these sites offer social, leisure and entertainment opportunities they can enjoy together.45 In Lifestyle sites couples feel less need for arts council, because there are more alternatives, and they see themselves to benefit relatively less from arts council in relation to other needs and interests.
Overall single women are more likely to join arts council than any other segment of the population. Single males are least likely to join. Women are more likely to join arts council, whether married or not, but married men are far more likely to join arts council than single men. This suggests, and interview data confirms, that within couples it is women who drive participation in the arts.
All LACs have a preponderance of older members, and a relative dearth of young members. Persons aged 15-25 constitute around 15% of adult catchment populations, but less than 3% of LAC memberships.46 Persons 35 or younger constitute 32% of catchment populations, but only 8% of LAC memberships. In each case study site persons over 55 are greatly over-represented in LACs – they constitute 16% of adult catchment populations, but 46% of LAC memberships. On average the membership in Lifestyle sites is distinctly older than the membership in Labour sites. This approximately reflects catchment demographics. Overall these figures confirm the widespread generational bias across the arts council network.
44 Arts council membership records don’t distinguish between married and unmarried couples, and for my purposes the distinction is unimportant. A same-sex couple is likely to be recorded as two singles. 45 The only exception is Moranbah, where married men, but not married women, are under- represented. This is not surprising in a community where almost 20% of married men (7% of the population as a whole) are living without their wives. These men are effectively single, and therefore most unlikely to be arts council members. If we remove them from consideration, the representation of married men in Moranbah approaches that for Biloela and Tambo. 46 I have excluded persons under the age of 15 from all calculations, and LAC figures do not include the dependent children of adult couples.
210 The statistics confirm data gathered by QAC management which has been concerned for some years that the membership is aging and that this poses a potential threat to the organisation’s future. An internal survey carried out in 1996, found 38% of members to be 54 or older (QAC Annual Report 1996: 3) compared to the 46% of members over 55 today.
Surveys and observation of audiences at QAC tours confirm that there is a ‘usual’ arts council audience demographically typical of the broader membership – middle aged or above, middle class and more or less Anglo Saxon. However audiences vary according to programming, and in some cases they vary considerably. Performances by the Queensland Ballet, for example, attract many mothers with young girls, and have often drawn touring audiences well above average – 401 in Gympie in July 1993 for example, where the average for all touring programs over 15 years is 187. Early in 2004, the Funky Beats tour by Raw Metal Dance Company drew an unusually young audience that exceeded usual expectations in almost every site by 100%, 200% and even more – 178 people for example in Hughenden, where the average audience over the previous five years had been 45.
Nevertheless it is clear that the default arts council audience has a substantial core that reflects the more mature age of the me mbership, and that this age pattern is also reflected amongst the ‘usual’ non-member audience. Women are almost invariably over-represented in this default audience. Two or more women often attend together without male company, although a group of women will sometimes escort a ‘token’ male, but males rarely attend unaccompanied by women.
It must be understood however that this default audience, like the arts audience defined by Saatchi and Saatchi is entirely a function of what we, or in this case arts council, has defined as art. It has accrued to arts council productions and touring programs over many years as attendees gradually became accustomed to and came to expect a certain style of artistic entertainment with which they felt comfortable. That is not to say that all QAC programming is conservative or entirely safe – the organisation does take artistic risks – but the general tenor of programming is conservative, and tours by major state companies (such as Queensland Ballet,
211 Queensland Theatre Company and Opera Queensland) come with a certain indemnity against offence or disappointment.
I have noted the concern expressed within QAC for a decade or more, about the ageing profile of the membership. This concern was most explicit in relation to volunteer branch committees, as the energy of these committees was gradually leaking away. One by one, it was feared, these branches would close. This concern exemplified a tendency to ‘put the cart before the horse’ that has typified much arts council thinking over the years, and to some extent still colours policy today. It is not the future of branches that should have been the primary concern, but the benefit delivered to regional people and communities. If an LAC is seen by its community to be delivering tangible benefits, if it is delivering something the people value and want, then we can expect it to attract vigorous people to it, and draw the support it needs from that community.
The age of LAC members and the audiences that attend touring QAC productions is a frequent topic of jokes, with references made to people too deaf to hear the music, or too blind to see the stage, or the likelihood of a more risqué or energetic production causing heart attacks amongst the audience. One Maryborough member joked that until recently the average age of members had been 83, but that he was trying to get people to bring their baby grandchildren along to reduce the average.
Part of Cooloola LAC’s spectacular membership increase since 2000 has been generated through specifically targeting nursing homes. President Neil Brown, himself in his seventies, has engaged buses to transport residents to some events. At the Music at Midday free lunchtime concert in 2002, several listeners at the rear of the Civic Centre Auditorium reclined on gurneys, on which they had been transported from a nursing home, and wheeled into the venue.
Nor is the issue exclusive to arts council. In Hervey Bay, founding Branch President George Bezant quoted a local politician’s view that the area was dominated by “the newly wed and the nearly dead.”
212 The ageing of arts council members is not itself a problem, nor is the deliberate targeting of elderly people as audience, or their enrolment as members. Indeed it can be argued that elderly people, in particular those in regional communities, constitute a disadvantaged and often poorly acknowledged group. “Older people feel the breakdown in their social structures, and yet their diminished incomes prevent many from engaging with the arts as much as they might like.” (Saatchi and Saatchi, 2000: 25) For these people participation in the arts offers an effective way of ameliorating disadvantage and improving quality of life.
Thus, one legitimate and socially progressive option for individual LACs and for QAC, is to champion older Australians and design and initiate arts programs specifically to meet their interests and needs. Indeed, such a strategy would be an important aspect of any holistic approach, and if implemented effectively could deliver considerable benefit to communities. Programmes designed for children might also be promoted towards grandparents as a strategy for attracting whole families. Events of broad appeal such as Cooloola’s Bands in the Park, or Moranbah’s Morfest Street Festival deliver great family entertainment and become important community events, reinforcing mutual interests and the sense of interlinked and shared destinies.
QAC and individual branches had often tried to attract younger members in the past, but younger people were generally not interested. Upon leaving school, where the great majority had at least intermittently been exposed to QAC’s school touring programs, most young people found little to interest them in QAC. Youth arts councils were inaugurated in a number of towns, but they were moderately successful at best, and most did not last long. The key question – what do young people want – was often asked, but it was generally asked within, and inflected by, the relatively narrow programming parameters that constitute the arts, as QAC has defined them through its practice over many years. The question needs to be asked outside of this traditional framework. That is now beginning to happen, and QAC has, during 2003 and 2004, embarked on a number of innovative programs specifically directed at young people.
213 Arts council members in all sites are highly educated by comparison with the broader population (see Table 7.6). The effect is very marked in all sites. In the most educated, Hervey Bay, two thirds of all members have a tertiary qualification, an incidence five times that in the host population. In Atherton and Cooloola the incidence is four times that in the population. Even in the least educated LAC, Tambo, one third of members have a tertiary qualification, at a rate three times that in the population. For post-graduate qualifications the effect is even greater. In Cooloola the incidence of post graduate qualifications among members is thirty-two times that in the population, in Hervey Bay, thirty times, in Atherton, eighteen times. In Moranbah where the incidence is lowest, it is still ten times that in the host population.
TABLE 7.6 Educational Qualifications in Community and LAC Membership
All Tertiary – Diploma & Above Postgraduate SITE / LAC % of LAC % of population % of LAC % of population members with a 25+ with a degree members with a 35+ with a degree degree degree Cooloola 52 12 16 0.5
Maryborough 46 12 13 0.7 Hervey Bay 65 12 24 0.8 Atherton 65 16 24 1.3 Lifestyle average 57 12 19 0.7
Biloela 56 15 16 1.1
ur Moranbah 50 13 13 1.3 Tambo 31 11 6 0 Labo average 51 13 13 1.1 7 sites average 55 12 18 0.8
Averaged across all case study sites, the incidence of diplomas and above is nearly five times, and the incidence of post graduate qualifications twenty-two times that of the host population. 47 These figures indicate a very highly educated membership. Their significance is reinforced when we look at vocational statistics.
47 These figures are based on a 2003 postal survey, with responses from 380 LAC members in case study sites and another 150 volunteer office bearers across the network. I have taken a number of steps to ensure that these figures are not misleading. These include considering only persons aged 25+ and 35+ respectively when calculating community percentages for general tertiary and post-graduate qualifications. I also considered that more highly educated members (in a conventional, institutional sense – high itself reflects a bias towards a particular attitude to knowledge) might be more likely to respond than others. They could have a predilection towards linear and text-oriented forms of
214
Highly educated workers – professionals, managerial staff and para-professionals – are highly over-represented within arts council memberships. In total, these people constitute 15% of the workforce in case study communities, but 56% of LAC memberships. The people I have called para-professionals (teachers, nurses, technicians etc) provide 40% of LAC members. Teachers and teacher-aids48 are consistently the most prominent vocational group, consistently providing 19% of LAC members across all sites. Less educated workers – tradespeople and labourers – are under-represented. They constitute around 14% of the workforce but only 7% of LAC memberships. This is also consistent with Saatchi and Saatchi (2000), who found a strong correlation between education and participation in the arts.
In summary, the demographic characteristics of arts council membership are remarkably constant across all sites. In any individual site the membership tends not to reflect characteristics particular to that community, and arts council members have more in common with arts council members in other sites, than with non-members in their own community.
7.6 The Cultural Omnivores
The demographic characteristics that typically dominate arts council membership and audience conclusively align members and the ‘default’ audience with the knowledge class identified by Bennett, Emmison and Frow (2001: 193-218), and which they describe as culturally omnivorous, enjoying both highbrow and lowbrow cultural forms. They make the important point that this may have “… more to do with conspicuous consumption of prestigious events than with any deep-seated
knowledge, and greater sympathy for this research project than other members. What if more highly educated members were more likely to respond than others? To accommodate this possibility I have calculated a full set of percentages based on the assumption that none of the members who did not respond had any tertiary qualifications at all. Even such an extreme scenario confirms that arts council membership is more highly educated than the rest of the population. Interviews and observation of arts council audiences also strongly confirm that survey results are representative of the broader membership. 48 Teacher-aids should probably be considered as clerical workers, or, in the terminology adopted for the 2001 census, either Intermediate or Advanced Clerical and Service Workers. Considering the educational component of their work I have included them with teachers. The number of aids, relative to that of teachers is small, and their inclusion here has little impact on the statistics regarding teachers.
215 appreciation of the genre.” (ibid: 201) This is consistent with my understanding of how arts council branch committees came to dominate the cultural life of many Queensland towns during the heydays of the 1960s, 70s and 80s.
John Frow (1995) has also written independently of a group of ‘cultural’ intellectuals situated within a more general professional-managerial class. As I have noted, there is congruence between these conceptions of a knowledge class, Florida’s Creative Class, Brooks’s ‘Bobos’ and Lasch’s global elite.49 While acknowledging that there may be specific characteristics that differentiate these various concepts, I consider them for the purposes of this project effectively co-incident, and use knowledge class or knowledge elites generically to refer to them all.
Arts council members have travelled relatively frequently. More than 80% have travelled overseas at least once, 66% more than once, and 25% five times or more. Almost 20% of members have travelled overseas around ten times or more. Members from Lifestyle sites have travelled more often than members from Labour sites.
These statistics confirm the general knowledge class ‘hypothesis’, and are in turn congruent with interview data. Two examples are particularly instructive. The grazier already discussed living out her dream who disdained the community of the local ‘service town’, and explained that she and her family travelled overseas frequently to associate with the people they identify with, the international community who devoted their lives to “excellence in beef production”. Another very affluent family living in a regional town explained that they maintained a second home in a capital city overseas, and travelled between their two homes several times a year. They considered themselves to have “more in common” with their highly affluent international friends.
For these people mutuality and community are not defined by the minutiae of every day life within a shared geographically defined local ecology, but are considered to exist in more intangible and abstract associations maintained across vast distances by
49 Latham identifies a similar privileged class of tourists whom he distinguishes from residents. (Simons, 2004) Fisher and Preece (2002: 20) identify a group of dedicated arts goers they call “culture vultures”.
216 communications and travel technology, and they have transferred their allegiances accordingly. This transfer of allegiance from the local to the global is typical of knowledge elites. It helps explain the changing nature of community, and the shifts in community participation documented by Putnam (2000), and supports the proposition that these represent changes in the nature of community engagement rather than the absolute decline which Putnam inferred.
It also helps to explain why in local contexts, the Creative Class has, in Florida’s terms largely failed to acknowledge its leadership responsibility. As Florida makes clear geography remains fundamentally important to the creative class, but – and this is a critical qualification – the creative class does not usually develop commitment to any particular geographic location per se. They are interested only in the lifestyle it offers, and because they are affluent they have the mobility to go wherever the lifestyle suits them. At its extreme, the global elite is a floating elite that has links to everywhere but belongs nowhere. These are Latham’s tourists. (Simons, 2004)
The examples I have quoted above represent extremes of a trend that characterises the lives of a great many people. Arts council membership primarily represents the knowledge class of cultural omnivores, but they live amidst a community most of which is culturally univorous in favour of ‘lowbrow’ forms. They will get out of town whenever they can, in order to indulge their omnivorous tastes. A number of the cultural omnivores I spoke to were prepared to, and did, bypass their local communities and travel to Brisbane regularly for entertainment, particularly for big budget spectaculars such as Cats or Les Miserables. One arts council member in a North Queensland town had travelled to both Brisbane and Sydney to see Cats on a total of three separate occasions, but often failed to attend LAC events in her area.
Members of the knowledge class may be less likely to be committed to their geographic location and the community around them than others in that community. They might often travel elsewhere to satisfy their cultural needs, but these omnivorous cultural consumers have an interest both in making the most of existing lifestyle opportunities, and in working to expand lifestyle opportunities in the places where they live, which is why a number of them take up arts leadership roles in these places. At the heart of their complex relationship with the community around them,
217 as they seek to be both part of that community but distinct from it, is the perennial conundrum at the heart of all community: the nexus and the conflict between the interests of the individual and the interests of the group.
7.7 The Fragmented Community
Cultural diversity is both analogous to and in part a function of genetic diversity, and it is in many respects a desirable, even essential characteristic of all healthy communities. As Florida, Landry and many others have discussed it is also essential to the evolution of a creative milieu. Creative ideas emerge at the interface between the familiar and the unfamiliar, when new information is added to an existing framework, when the routine encounters the exotic, at the nexus of difference.
Interviews have provided a host of examples of the diversity and degree of fragmentation, and its practical impact on the daily life of a community and its culture.
The organising committee behind the annual Yungaburra Folk Music Festival on the Atherton Tablelands has split during recent years over the artistic direction and future of the festival. On member observed:
“It’s been puddling along as a small festival until about five years ago, but then people that got involved in it had a bigger vision for it. Some of those people who’d been puddling along for years, some of them got very frightened, and they were very worried, they were worried about losing the integrity of the festival. And also it becomes a fighting over styles of music and that sort of thing. People wanted to include a broad base of world music and different art forms, and things like that, and some people wanted to keep if fairly traditional Anglo-Celtic sort of stuff. I mean a folk festival was your traditional sort of people sitting around wearing tweed jumpers and playing fiddles, and now it’s that, and dreadlocks playing African drums. It’s a whole range of things.”
218 At the same time the organising committee has been divided on two further issues: whether the TACTIC might be asked to take over the festival (primarily to bring it under the umbrella of QAC’s public liability insurance); and whether representatives of the Yidinge people (the traditional owners) ought to be asked to open the festival by offering a traditional Indigenous welcome to the land. The latter question in particular has generated strong feelings, and intense discussion. Any of these issues has the potential to seriously split the organising committee, change its composition and direction, or even jeopardise the festival itself.
In heritage conscious Maryborough there has been a serious schism between two groups with similar aims, the Maryborough District Family History Society Inc. (MDFHS), and the Maryborough Family Heritage Institute (MFHI). They have adjoining premises in the same historic building in Wharf Street. The MDFHS, which is longer established and more traditional, aims: “To promote and encourage the study of family history both in Australia and overseas. To provide a place where members and visitors can trace their ancestors in a friendly and helpful atmosphere.” The MFHI, newer and better funded, and housed in a modern office with slick colorful displays, is committed to: “Promoting genealogy and tourism.”
There has been considerable competitiveness, and ill feeling between the two groups. In words of one prominent local: “Yes, it’s not a completely happy ship. I think you’ll find a lot of organisations where you get a lot of retired people with a lot of time on their hands. They all build their own little dunghills.”
Glenn Churchill, Mayor of Banana Shire (Biloela) spoke on the practical difficulty of getting people in the community to work together: “You’ll hear partnerships all the time. You can have partnerships wherever you like, but the fact is that if the partners aren’t getting along, or they’re not listening to each other, or they’re not working together, they’ll end up in divorce, or domestics, and we need to make sure the issues of the partnerships are understood.”
Similar concerns were expressed by a community activist in Hervey Bay: “There isn’t much (cooperation) and its difficult to get one group to marry with another and it’s a pet thing that I have. You support one group, then another group won’t come
219 because that one’s there. So I don’t know we’ve tried over the years to build and build this, and it just does not happen.”
Another in Hervey Bay said: “There’s too many people don’t get their own way in an organisation, and they just take their bat and ball and go home, and that’s happening all the time, and they’re just having such tremendous failures, and it’s probably all ego driven.”
I have provided just a few examples of the difference, division and fragmentation endemic to and pervasive throughout LAC host communities. But the values, interests and behaviors that cause difference, division and fragmentation also provide networks of mutuality, agreement and unity. People come together in groups, both informal and formal, to express, exploit and amplify these mutualities.
In the words of one interviewee: “These groups are very important in helping to knit the community together. They are ... the painter’s group, and the weaver’s group and the musicians … because it’s a small community everybody’s got a neighbour or an aunty or a cousin who‘s involved in one of these groups … like they may not personally be involved in any of them, or in only one of them, but everybody knows somebody who is involved in these things so in that way it gives this underlying interconnectedness of things.”
Another interviewee explained: “When we arrived we didn’t join up with all the local societies because that’s how conflicts happen. You get drawn into historical conflicts you don’t understand. We waited until we settled in on the basis that they would happen naturally.”
Cooloola President Neil Brown is now a prominent citizen of Gympie with a wide network of associates, collaborators and friends, but when he first arrived in town he was less comfortable: “I’m from the city as you can tell. I’ve been in sales and marketing all my life. When you come into a country town you’ve got to be very, very careful because you upset people, and I found that out when … I did something, and I couldn’t understand why we didn’t get a response (and somebody said) … ‘This is Gympie you know, Neil. You’ve got to learn this is Gympie, and
220 you’ve come in and you’re telling them what to do, and what not to do, and you’ll find you’ll get a bit of resistance to that.’”
Brown found his way into the community through groups and organisations with which he and his wife Angela had some affinity, including service clubs, hobby groups and arts council. Once accepted into these groups, Brown had to exercise restraint in putting forward his ideas, to “hasten slowly” so as not to repel people.
The extent to which the artistic life of a community expresses, affirms and creates difference and differentiation on the one hand, and similarity and commonality on the other, impact on and feed into the broader culture of the community with consequence for its vitality, adaptability and sustainability. The balance between diversity and mutuality is critical. Both are essential to creative community culture.
These complex dynamics operate even within the relatively narrow field of the arts. The expectation, active in QAC for many years, that branches might become umbrella organisations in their communities was founded on the notion of a general artistic sensibility or interest that was negotiable or transferable across a range of artistic fields. In fact peoples’ interests within the arts are very specific. Broadly artists classify themselves as painters or sculptors, visual or performing, writers or musicians, and so on. Even more specifically they may be interested in water-colour painting but not oils, sculpting with steel, but not clay, hand built pots but not thrown, classical music but not jazz, strings but not brass.
Studies of crossover between arts audiences reveal that it is significant between closely related forms, but even here it is not overwhelming. Fisher and Preece (2002: 27) investigated crossover between audiences for theatre, live orchestral music, opera, choral performance and dance, and found that while opera audiences tended to be highly “polygamous” with only 8.8% exclusively attending opera, theatre goers were far less so. More than 40% of theatre goers attended only theatre, and 75% attended only theatre and one other artistic event, over a 12 month period.
Yet we cling to the notion of a general artistic sensibility. It should be possible to get painters interested in coming to the theatre, or it should be possible to get our
221 spinners and weavers to the ballet. In fact, as Fisher and Preece also found (ibid: 26), the one characteristic that is likely to unite all these various disciplinary aficionados is their common membership of the ‘knowledge class’. LAC management groups need to activate mutualities and common interests, to develop a holistic approach that draws people together and integrates community across its fractures, encouraging people to recognise their common destiny, and work together for the common good. This is a major challenge for cultural leaders, and I turn to them in the next section.
8 The LAC and the Community
8.1 Four Attitudinal/Policy Vectors
Arts policy and practice in Australia has often been viewed in terms of a left-right dichotomy. Leftist political and social ideals were associated with and apparent in the rise of the community arts and community cultural development models, and the proponents of these models generally characterised the traditional ‘high’ arts devoted to excellence as politically and socially conservative, even repressive. But the left- right construction fails when we examine the polices pursued by major political parties – national Labor leaders from Whitlam to Keating were enthusiastic champions of excellence in the arts – and it becomes quickly apparent that reality is far more complex. As Bobbio (1996: 90) concedes, even though he defends the left- right construction: “reality is richer than abstract categories.”
I have developed a model based on attitudes encountered during this research, which organises and discusses them in terms of four archetypical attitudinal vectors. (Table 8.1) These attitudinal/policy vectors may not be explicitly stated, and are often subconsciously embraced as personal norms, unlikely to be questioned or reviewed. In practice they rarely manifest in the pure and categorical forms I have described, but co-exist and mutually adulterate to various degrees, coalescing into policies, strategies and programs which are rationalised and justified in more moderate and acceptable terms.
222 TABLE 8.1 Four Attitudinal/Policy Vectors
1: Our art is too good for you. 2: Our art is good for you. o Meritocratic – celebrates excellence o Meritorcratic – celebrates excellence. o Exclusivist – employs excellence to o Inclusive – employs excellence as a maintain distinction and assert measure of achievement and ladder of superiority opportunity o Politically repressive – serves to o Democratic but hegemonic – the entrench the power and privilege of knowledge class shepherds the the elite. community – elite policy makers and o Top down – elite policy makers and managers are responsible for and to managers are governed by self-interest the community. and not responsible to the community o Participants seen as recipients of o Restricted number of participants as experiences produced by elites members of an exclusive group or o Artist as expert/hero/teacher class. o Artists as expert/hero/superior being. 4: You can have or do what you pay for. 3: Your culture is worthy. You are o Excellence becomes a market segment worthy. – value measured in dollars. o Rejects excellence – uses social and o Economic power determines status – political measures of cultural value. access to cultural goods is determined o Egalitarian and inclusive – provides by disposable income all with equal rights to cultural goods o Repressive by default – those with and expression economic power produce – top down o Grass-roots democratic – bottom up – – entrenches the economic elite. the emancipated community makes o Participants seen as passive and manages its own cultural recipient/consumers programs o Artist as both producer & commodity o Participants seen as active producers of culture o Artist as ordinary person
I characterise the first vector (V1) as meritocratic, elitist and exclusivist, and repressive. In a nutshell this attitude is: Our art is too good for you. You don’t appreciate it. You don’t understand it. You don’t deserve it. It is readily adapted to became: We are too good for you. You don’t matter. This vector is not likely to be explicitly proclaimed, but is implicit in the world view of those who subscribe to it, and in the strategies they employ, sanctification, mystification and exceptionalism. It seeks to justify the so called high arts or fine arts as a distinguished category of arts practice. At the high end it sustains fortress-like institutions that endorse arcane practices and artworks, on the rationale that only particularly gifted or privileged people can appreciate or understand them. It makes what is essentially a class distinction, contiguous with the views of men like Sir Joshua Reynolds and John
223 Ruskin who advocated the perpetuation of a strong class system to ensure social stability in 18th and 19th century Britain. (Implicit in this attitudinal vector is the rejection of the cultural values of others. Exclusiveness works both ways. Thus V1 expressed by one party may be met by countervailing rejection: We don’t want your culture.)
I characterise the second vector (V2) as meritocratic, elitist and hegemonic but inclusive (socially integrative) and benevolent. The attitude here is: Our art is good for you. It will make you a better person. You need it. We’ll teach you to like it. This vector underlies much publicly advocated arts policy today, argues for public galleries, libraries, and museums. It largely drives arts education within schools, and in particular provides the rationale for arts access and audience development programs. It is contiguous with the views of 19th century social reformers such as William Morris and Samuel Barnett. (Borzello, 1987: 27, 33) It drove the Schools of Arts movement throughout the British Empire, and was ultimately largely responsible for the founding of CEMA and the arts council movement. (This vector has a passive or receptive obverse: We have no culture. We want you to give culture to us.)
The third attitudinal vector (V3) is egalitarian, inclusive and emancipating. The attitude is: We recognize that you have something good. We encourage you to deploy it in accord with your own interests and needs. This vector provides the rationale for community arts and community cultural development programs. It is the most democratic of all vectors, favouring local community decision making and action, and rejecting excellence in favour of popular grass-roots participation. Everybody becomes an artist. Along with V2, this third vector argues for public galleries, libraries and museums so long as they present a broad and inclusive view. This vector was largely absent from seminal 19th century art/culture debates and grew out of later ethnographic concepts of culture. (An extension of this is: We recognize your competence, and your right, to shape your own cultural development.)
The fourth vector (V4) is ruled by the market. The attitude here is: You can have or do whatever you want, as long as you can pay for it. The political impetus is conservative by default, even repressive, because V4 operates according to and
224 reinforces existing patterns of wealth and power that give sections of the population the capacity to produce, while those lacking this capacity are relegated to consumption in accordance with their more limited means. In terms of this asymmetry V4 is closely associated with V1 – differentiated only by the mechanism that perpetuates privilege and advantage – which is here financial power instead of class. V4 drives the market for an extremely diverse range of arts/cultural goods and services – everything from commercial radio and television, virtual reality arcades and theme parks, video games and the internet, to the cinema, rock concerts, fashion parades, hotel cabarets, discos, DVDs, CDs, videos and books. In operation, V4 is more complex than the other vectors, because of the interaction between supply and demand. Producers attempt both to predict and meet market demand, and to create demand for what they produce. (Consumers exert a complementary vector: Give us what we want, by their preparedness to pay for particular goods and services.)
The four vectors interact in various ways and across various fields. V1 and V2 and V4 are top down, centralist, hegemonic and politically conservative to various degrees. V1 exerts the hegemony of entrenched class-like status; V2 exerts the hegemony of merit and knowledge, and V4 the hegemony of economic power. V3 stands alone as bottom up, decentralised and democratic, even libertarian. However, whereas V1 and V2 both retain the notion of a distinct category of ‘high’ or ‘fine’ art distinguished by its excellence from popular culture – a distinction which I have rejected in this study – V4 re-articulates the high/low division in terms of up-market and down-market, and defines quality in terms of product differentiation. The market encompasses whatever it can assign commercial value, so that, as Frow observes: “High culture is fully absorbed within commodity production.” (1995: 23)
V2 and V3 both seek to transform arts/culture participants. V2 reckons participation in terms of reception or consumption of artistic goods produced by others. Thus transformation is engendered or catalysed in participants/consumers, according to externally determined parameters and mechanisms, from above. V3 reckons participation in terms of active involvement in the production of artistic goods, with transformation emerging immanently through the self-realization, energizing and empowering of participant/producers. V2 and V3 have a common concern for the public good, which is to be achieved through this transformation. V1 and V4 on the
225 other hand, seek not to transform but to maintain the status quo. They are not concerned with the notion of public good, except to the extent that it may be posited to ‘trickle-down’ or ‘flow on’ beyond immediate participation.
Any individual arts policy is likely to represent a meeting of two or more vectors. A regional public gallery, for example, is likely to formulate its mission and public policy in terms of V2, around an intention to preserve heritage, enlighten, educate, and entertain. It will present excellence as something that can both inspire and be aspired towards, but it will also be motivated by V1 to the extent that this promotion of excellence is associated with notions of art as something exceptional, unattainable for the ordinary person, arcane and even mysterious, and the extent to which this championing of excellence attracts the patronage – which the gallery may actively seek – of wealthy and self-promoting elites. To the extent it reflects the culture of a community back at it, thus validating that culture and the community itself, the gallery also expresses V3. If the gallery offers school vacation workshops for children these will likely be driven by V2 alongside V3, and if the gallery charges admission or sells catalogues, posters, books or souvenirs, or has a cafeteria or restaurant attached, this would primarily reflect V4.
8.2 The Attitudinal/Policy Vectors in Action
The four vectors I have described can be seen to operate within LACs and other arts groups. They impact on how LACs and other groups interact with their host communities, on the policies they implement and on the activities they pursue.
Where V1 dominates it encourages arts groups to operate rather like private clubs, sponsoring or supporting arts activities with minority appeal, and to some extent reveling in the exclusivity this confirms. While LACs are unlikely to acknowledge V1 motivation, commonly insisting “we are open to everyone”, the most common criticism levelled at LACs (and branches before them) across the network is that they represent a narrow segment of the population, and that they are exclusive, like private clubs. Where this is pronounced it produces within communities, on a small scale, the sort of class distinction championed by those 18th &19th century Britons who believed that the social classes represented an irrevocable natural order.
226
At one site an interviewee spoke at length about how the culture of the town had changed after the local picture theatre closed.
“… the picture theatre was a place for everyone. The grazier, the ringer, the musterer, it didn’t matter who you were. … I think it got sacrosanct … class … when the picture theatre closed down. To become elite you had to be in the arts council. I’d say it was sacrosanct. You had to go and they left the other people behind. And they did it on purpose. Now this did happen. … They did leave them behind, on purpose, for a reason of distinction. Which is quite, you know, quite normal.”
Quite normal indeed. I have already noted the role of culture in forming and expressing identity. We know, as Bourdieu established and many others have since confirmed, that differentiation is a primary function of culture. So this tendency to exclude is not an aberration. Human beings form groups. They tend to welcome those who are like themselves in various ways – and exclude others. There are cultural differences within and between all human groups.
In Atherton, where I have already noted fractures in the performing arts group, Atherton Players Association50, and on the organising committee of the nearby Yungaburra folk festival, there was also a clear distinction within the visual arts community, between painters and print-makers, to the extent that the two groups have only accidental or incidental contact, and exhibit no apparent interest in each other’s discipline or work.
People have very specific motives and interests. The visual artists, the potters, the quilt makers, the performers, even within a small community, often have very little to do with each other, or nothing at all. These divisions are not of themselves harmful, but when arts/cultural differentiation aligns with political differentiation, when it unites those with wealth and privilege against the economically deprived and
50 The issue that catalysed the disruption, was the proposed use of profane language, to which the incumbent leadership objected. The conflict expanded to encompass accusations of improper meeting procedures, attempts to manipulate the membership, and threats of legal action to restore legitimate governance.
227 incapacitated, and when it serves to both express and reinforce this differentiation, it becomes particularly pernicious.
At one site a grazier living outside of town, also an arts council member, openly expressed disdain for the townspeople. She said, “They are not our market. That’s not who we are, and what we are.” This grazier’s family is living their dream. They value excellence in beef production, have little contact with people in town and do not consider themselves to belong to it. Instead they belong to “the international community that values excellence in beef.” When I noted that the LAC was struggling to encourage participation, and asked how often the family attended arts council events, she responded: “Whether it survives or not wouldn’t matter to me. If (the events) don’t interest me, I don’t see why I should go. I don’t want to reward mediocrity.” Excellence, I have previously noted, is the province of those with power. V1 is essentially arrogant.
Another town has a problem with youth. There’s a significant Indigenous population. People complain there’s nothing for them to do. There’s a high rate of juvenile delinquency, crime, glue sniffing, youth alienation and suicide. The shire council employed a youth worker. She set out to provide something for young people to do, to provide a positive way for them to express themselves. One initiative was a rock concert. It was extraordinarily successful, attracting around 600 young people, and there was no trouble of any kind. The kids had a great time. But the music had been loud, and shire councilors feared that it was satanic. The youth worker was told, never to do anything similar again. This is V1 at its most destructive. Your culture is no good. You are no good. As discussed earlier (Chapter 8.1), V1 may provoke countervailing rejection. This will serve to entrench and intensify community fragmentation.
Where V2 dominates, local arts groups may still favour arts forms or activities with minority appeal, but they will genuinely seek to garner support within their community for these activities. This is where the arts council movement in general sits. Garran’s seminal 1945 statement of CEMA’s aims was redolent with expressions of V2. Thus art paved the road to better character, a more worthy and
228 constructive life and the greater public good, and even towards some undefined spiritual transformation.
Similar sentiments were often expressed by QAC President Gertrude Langer. A comment she made in 1962 expressed an often repeated theme.
…..the first thing that has to be recognised is the significance of art for the full development of man. Art is as old as mankind, proof enough that art is essential to man. Indeed, art is one of the things which distinguishes man from other creatures. Far from being only a form of entertainment, art - both as creative activity and as appreciation - has a deeper significance. This significance lies in art’s power to give a deeper awareness of life. Through the medium of art man becomes aware of himself. Through its art a nation becomes aware of itself. (QAC Annual Report, 1962)
V2 was also explicit in Langer’s 1963 report – evident in her determination to overcome the apathy of some regional constituents – along with a sense of frustration because they did not know what was good for them:
Another problem which faces some Branches is inadequate interest in their respective communities for productions of cultural value. It seems that only continued efforts will overcome the apathy apparent in some towns. It is an uphill battle, but one that must and will be won by unrelenting efforts.
There’s a clear sense that Doctor Langer was on a mission. QAC has always been more than a service organisation. Driven by both commercial and ideological imperatives, it has also been in the business of creating demand. More recently a staff member expressed a similar frustration to me. “They don’t understand what we’re offering them.” The attitude expressed here clearly goes beyond giving people what they like. People have to be educated to like what is good for them. The same rationale of course lies behind most audience development programs. This is the classic expression of V2.
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Many local arts councils work very hard to interest their communities in the art forms they champion. They genuinely want to attract more people to the arts they personally enjoy and endorse. They very frequently complain: Our communities won’t support us – this is a sports mad town – they think we’re snobbish – we can’t get our message across – they think we’re stuck up.
Even with the best of intentions, an LAC’s efforts may be compromised by an unintentional infiltration of V1. Hence one LAC which genuinely wanted to achieve broad and diverse community representation was seen by other members of the local arts community to be backward looking, conservative and out of touch, and to represent “a painful exercise in middle-class Anglo culture”.
One LAC volunteer in this town expressed disappointment that few local people attended the local gallery, and in the next breath expressed admiration for the gallery director who was always “beautifully, beautifully dressed” and wore a dinner suit with spotless white shirt and tie at gallery openings, “as though he had come from somewhere else, somewhere much more classy.”
The somewhere else is revealing. I questioned whether the classy ambience might not be counter-productive. Could it intimidate people and keep them away? The volunteer agreed that yes, it probably could – but subverted this by repeating, in a reflective and rather wistful tone, that the gallery director was always beautifully dressed, and that this provided a very classy atmosphere. The people who did come had not worn their usual clothes but: “they came and enjoyed it dressed nicely, and the wine flowed nicely, and the nibbles were nice, and it became a classy event …” This was in a town where shorts and thongs are de rigueur and beer is the beverage of popular choice.
In such situations the desire to be distinguished and stand apart, and the desire to be accepted and embraced, jostle with each other as individuals try to reconcile personal interests and identity with the collective agendas and identities of various groups to which they might, at different times and in different contexts, consider themselves to belong.
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V3 drives a wide range of programs aimed at encouraging people to become active in grass roots cultural production. In Australia it has found most direct expression in the emergence and recognition of the community arts and community cultural development (CA/CCD) sector – or as Hawkins (1993) puts it, the “invention” of community arts –during the 1970s, and its evolution and legitimisation, through first the Community Arts Committee, and later the Community Arts Board and the Community Cultural Development Board of the Australia Council. Over more than three decades this sector has developed a comprehensive ethic, and generated a substantial body of theory that prioritises social rather than aesthetic outcomes.
Targeted participants are marginal and disempowered cohorts within the broader population, that is people with limited cultural (economic, political and social) capital, who are normally, by default, consigned to the role of consuming arts/culture produced by others. V3 encourages these people to renounce such consumption – consumption which serves only to perpetuate existing patterns of power and wealth – and to become producers themselves. “It aims to give the community control of all stages of production, and the ideas it contains. …. a process of using art to say things that matter to them - and of recognising the validity of those ideas.” (QCAN, 1989: 1)
This preoccupation with marginal communities has seen arts workers in a range of contexts including working with Indigenous communities, remote communities, ethnic minorities, refugees, within prisons, with the aged, with the young and in particular with young people at risk, in special schools and with people with disabilities, and so on.
By encouraging these marginal communities to affirm their various identities, and the values they hold, and by aligning itself with them and promoting their interests, the CA/CCD sector has adopted a stance largely oppositional to cultural (economic, political and social) elites. It has become the most overtly political area of arts practice, and consequently V3 is the attitudinal/policy vector most likely to be explicitly invoked. The CA/CCD sector has been the crucible for generally “left wing” political expression and action through, for example, Queensland’s Popular
231 Theatre Troupe, which performed agitprop theatre between 1974 and 1983, and various trade union endorsed Art in Working Life programs that were introduced around 1982-83.
By contrast, the political impetus of V2 policies is far less visible because it is generally assimilated within broad assumptions about our society and its values. That is, it is more in line with established norms, and so does not need to be explicitly invoked to justify the policies it drives. Policies driven by V1 and V4 are highly unlikely to articulate these vectors, because it would generally not be in the interests of policy makers to acknowledge their political motivations, if indeed, they are themselves consciously aware of them.
In regional communities V3 activities typically validate and celebrate community culture, identity and lifestyle. Festivals of various types – heritage, agricultural, multi-cultural, arts – provide opportunities for the community to work together, to tell its stories, show off its accomplishments, express its values, and simply have fun. Beautification and restoration projects provide highly visible expressions of community pride. Home grown theatrical and cabaret productions can explore local issues and feature home grown talent. Projects such as these generate intense involvement, and become powerful mechanisms for strengthening a community’s sense of itself, building pride, confidence and social capital, and in other ways contributing to a stronger and more sustainable community. V3 is extended to become: Our art/culture is good. We are good.
On a broader scale this vector drives the institutionalised celebration of culture, with a particular focus on heritage and associated mythology, through institutions such as the Waltzing Matilda Centre in Winton, Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame at Longreach, 51 the Mt. Isa Heritage Mining Centre, Atherton’s Chinatown, and many more. Yet more broadly it is associated with national awareness and pride, with implications for nation building.
51 This institutionalisation of culture is not necessarily in the best interests of, or welcomed by, those whom it purports to champion. Institutions such as the Stockman’s Hall of Fame are often criticised and condemned by locals who see their own culture to have been appropriated and distorted by disengaged elites to serve political (and often nationalistic) agendas. Thus institutions of this type can alienate and disempower those whom they purport to champion. Who is telling the story – we need to ask – and for whose benefit?
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V4 permeates the entire arts/culture sector. I have characterised this vector as You can have or do whatever you can pay for. This is where the market rules, where production and consumption, supply and demand, wrestle in the dynamic arena that is simultaneously both community and market, and where the income generated by activities must meet their costs. Until 1999, QAC branches were largely insulated from the strictures of V4 because QAC provided arts services that the branches themselves could not afford, and to a degree underwrote the losses a branch might incur on other activities. QAC still provides LACs with subsidised arts products and services, but as independently incorporated organisations LACs are now more exposed to the strictures of V4. They are unlikely to adopt V4 as their primary policy driver, but they cannot afford to ignore it, and must ensure that whatever activities they undertake can be funded from existing funds and anticipated income.
In its pure form V4 measures both the cost and value of every activity in dollar terms, in a field where works of high culture are “produced in exactly the same serial forms as those of low culture.” (Frow, 1995: 23) In practice V4 mutually interacts with the other vectors, in various contexts and to different degrees. It can be mobilised as a guillotine to limit, truncate or proscribe activities driven by the other three vectors, and it may itself be subverted by various considerations associated with the other vectors, wherever any of these is seen to provide a sufficiently strong imperative.
To the extent that V4 prevails, it dictates a commercial model. In this respect the arts sector in general inhabits a highly uncertain space. It has variously been regarded as a single arts industry, as the arts industries, as the cultural industries, and now as a key sector of the creative industries, while at the same time there is a passionate and absolute rejection of the industrial model by many artists.
As Roodhouse has defined the cultural industries they are primarily driven, not as the invocation of industry might suggest by V4 – although Roodhouse expects that cultural producers should provide what communities want and will pay for – but by V3. The recognition that culture is made by individual people, and that it constitutes
233 and emerges from the substance of our everyday lives, is the essence of V3, and is at the core of Roodhouse’s cultural industries framework. (Roodhouse: 2001: 31)
8.3 LACs – The Strong , The Weak and The Willing
It was always envisaged by QAC – and it has been a central plank of CEMA even from its earliest years – that branches would do more than merely host and provide local support for tours. (This can be seen as an extension of V3. We recognize your competence, and your right, to shape your own cultural development.) The most effective branches did generate local activity, working to promote and support a range of artistic enterprises. Some became very effective agents for local cultural development, often to the extent of operating as de-facto arts and cultural agencies of local government, with the full encouragement and often the active participation of local political elites. They were instrumental in founding local cultural institutions, and even in the establishing of major ‘hard’ infrastructure – civic centres, galleries and cultural centres in many towns.
But some branches had a more restricted view of their role. As one prominent branch identity put it: “Bringing professional stage to town. In the early days, that was our purpose in life.” (This is the passive obverse of V2. We have no culture. We want you to give culture to us.)
In the early years branches often arranged accommodation or provided billets for travelling artists. They might organise local publicity, sell advance tickets, help to arrange or prepare venues and provide front-of-house support. As touring became more professionalised – the dispute with Actors Equity during the 1980s marked a key shift – these responsibilities were increasingly assumed by professional staff in Brisbane, and branches were expected to do less. The Brisbane office arranged commercial accommodation, generally in hotels and motels, and coordinated much of the publicity.
Branches were still expected to help promote tours, distributing posters and leaflets in advance, and to provide some co-ordination and logistical support once a touring company arrived in town. Some branches were very effective in these roles, but
234 others did little more than put up a few posters and send a delegation to the performance. As long as QAC was taking overall responsibility for tours, and underwriting risks, these branches could afford to remain a relatively uninvolved. Attempts were made over the years to encourage branches to take some responsibility for the success of tours – such as an income guarantee scheme implemented during the 1970s which required branches to guarantee a certain paid attendance at tours – or suffer a financial penalty. 52
In 1976 for example, a visit to Tambo by a Sydney Independent Theatre/QAC production of A Taste of Honey was played before a “small but appreciative” audience of 75 adults and four children. Total takings, including program sales, amounted to $118.70. The tour budget had anticipated income of $270 from Tambo, making a shortfall of over $150. This would normally have triggered payment by Tambo of a $100 income guarantee to ameliorate the touring company’s loss, but on this occasion tour manager Rory Sutton exercised his discretion and waived the income guarantee, “after taking into consideration the poor financial position of our branch” and pending approval by Brisbane office.53
In his letter to then State Secretary A. J. Marshman, Tambo President R. K. Hole asked for Brisbane to ratify this waiver, commenting:
As you are aware we have a constant struggle to maintain our branch in Tambo and to pay the $100 guarantee would have strained out finances to the limit and could have placed us in a position where we may have been forced to reduce our 1977 programme.
On this occasion the request was put to a meeting of the QAC Board of Directors, and as a result Tambo’s outstanding liability was set at $50. The income guarantee scheme was irregularly enforced, and a partial solution at best. Under the branch structure risks ultimately accrued to QAC and its touring partners, and this was one factor leading to the restructure and incorporation of branches as LACs.
52 Following incorporation a Guarantee Against Loss scheme has operated in reverse, with QAC helping LACs meet losses incurred by approved activities, thus allowing them to embark on entrepreneurial ventures which might otherwise be deemed unfeasible. 53 Tambo Branch President R. K. Hole in a letter to the Queensland State Secretary, 27th Feb. 1976.
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The prospect of incorporation was initially greeted with some scepticism by branches, but after it was discussed at a series of forums during 1998 and 1999, most warmed to the idea. Some became enthusiastic, welcoming the greater entrepreneurial freedom the new structure would provide, but over a two year period as the reality of incorporation loomed, 16 branches (around 20% of the network) elected to close.54
Two years after incorporation, 30% of LAC office bearers were very positive about the changes, 59% were reasonably comfortable with them, and believed they would deliver increased benefits in the future, and only 11% felt their LACs were struggling to come to grips with them. 55 Since 2000 a further five LACs have closed. It is likely that there will be more closures as some of the less active LACs decide that increased administrative demands, and the workload they impose, outweigh the benefits.
Very few LACs have so far taken a strategic view of their role within communities. In 2001 only two LACs out of sixty-three were operating according to a written mission statement or strategy document that defined their objectives.56 Many LACs are yet to discover how they can contribute most effectively to the enhancement of local community life, and on the basis of this develop a sense of purpose, and design and implement appropriate strategies.
In many locations the LAC may compete for attention, patronage and support with a number of other groups or organisations, each of which offers an alternative nucleus, around which those interested in the arts may gravitate. These alternative nuclei might include locally based organisations such as little theatres, or painters’ or potters’ groups, or local representatives or agents of other state or national institutions, such as Flying Arts, Queensland Community Arts Network, NARPACA
54 This statistic varies according to how the relevant period is defined. The 16 branches here are those which closed during 1998, 1999 and 2000 without incorporating. 55 Postal survey of August 2001. 56 In another six LACs the question about strategic planning elicited a mix of negative and positive responses. Follow up enquiries revealed that this generally meant there had been some general but inconclusive discussion during regular meetings, with no formal resolution of longer term policy or planning issues.
236 and so on. In these instances, an LAC may struggle to establish a distinct identity, asense of purpose, and an effective presence.
In some smaller communities the LAC may be the only significant arts and cultural organisation. Here an LAC has the opportunity to establish itself at the heart of community, not solely as an arts organisation, but as a broader arts-based service organisation, as the Tambo Arts Council has done, raising money for donation to the Tambo Sports Club, the Tambo Kindergarten Association and the Tambo Primary Health Care Centre, among others. In these small communities, because there are so few alternatives, the LAC is able to fill the role that many branches occupied during the early years of arts council, but which is no longer available to most, at the centre of community cultural life where it provides a focus for a broad range of community interests and activities.
Many LACs aspire to an ‘umbrella’ role, coordinating activities, compiling cultural calendars, and providing communication, funding and access channels, and so on. This is the type of role that was once envisaged for all branches, and which many originally held, but the increasing complexity and fragmentation of the cultural field mean that few have been able to achieve it.
It will be easier for newly formed LACs. Revised affiliation requirements introduced by QAC during 2002 and still undergoing refinement in 2004, require the proponents of new LACs to adopt a more deliberate and strategic approach. Whereas the old branch regime had required only a letter of interest signed by eight or ten community members (the number varied), the new requirements call for evidence of both strategic planning and broad based community support, including written undertakings from the local government authority and other community groups. 57
For example, a proposal to form an LAC in Sarina during 2004 was supported by The Sarina Shire Council and submitted by the council’s Manager of Community
57 Public liability insurance could become another significant factor. Prohibitive premiums threaten the viability of many community groups, and there is already strong tendency for independent groups to seek alliance with QAC in order to shelter beneath its insurance umbrella. QAC is carefully monitoring this trend because excessive breadth of engagement could lead to increased premiums and jeopardise QAC’s own insurance status.
237 Services.58 It was supported by letters from the local Member of State Parliament, the President of the local branch of the Queensland Country Women’s Association, the CEO of Mudth-Niyleta (the Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Corporation), the Secretary of the Lions Club of Sarina Inc., and the proprietor of an independent arts- related business. Shire Mayor Kevin Morgan headed the Steering Committee. The application listed ten objectives for the proposed Sarina LAC, five intended partner organisations, ten other organisations which had been consulted during preparation of the application, and nine prospective venues for arts events. The Redcliffe Arts Council had formed during 2003 following a similarly strategic approach.
Such a strategic approach does not guarantee success, but it does ensure that an LAC has a clear idea of its role within the community and the contribution it can make, and that the LAC initially has the support base that will allow it to undertake major activities – such as CCAC’s family oriented Bands in the Park (Gympie) or MAC’s Morfest street festival (Moranbah). In other communities the LAC may better establish or consolidate itself by serving a specific interest group or identifying a cultural niche that has been ignored, as MRAC has done by screening Foreign Films (Maryborough) or HBCFA by offering a secondary schools musical scholarship (Hervey Bay). These are examples, and there are many more, of LACs making very real contributions to their communities by identifying specific needs and interests, and working strategically to meet them.
Touring is still important. Notwithstanding attempts to encourage and stimulate local arts initiatives, most branches formed because people in their communities wanted to attract QAC touring programs. Touring remains a key driver in the foundation of LACs, and is important for retaining members.
I quote three LAC Presidents: o “The best thing we can do is have a major tour early in the year, in March or something, and they’re renewing (membership) for the savings. They come in thick and fast.”
58 Expression of interest submitted to QAC by AJ DeBrincat Manager of Community Services, March 9th 2004.
238 o “The tours are essential. It’s what they join for. We can’t keep them without the tours.” o “What motivates people to join, quite often it’s monetary, early in the season for the benefits. If they come along to the last show of the year, they’re not too keen to fork out on membership. If we had a production in March, with the full year ahead of us, our membership would be twenty-five percent higher that year, than the next year when we got the major production in June.”
Tours early in the year have been particularly important for member retention. This may be less so under revamped membership procedures which now link the renewal cycle to the date a member joined rather than the calendar year. However, tours and other activities still play an important psychological role in getting the year off to a vigorous start. Many LACs conduct social activities early in the year. Hervey Bay has for several years held an annual New Year Breakfast for members, families and friends on the first Sunday of the year.
Although LACs recognise the importance of tours in helping recruit and retain members, many do not give them effective support. Some fail to take even basic promotional measures. It can be difficult, even on the eve of a touring performance to identify the venue in many small towns. A shire hall might be locked and appear derelict until an hour or so before performa nce. Some have lacked even a poster or billboard. Others might feature a QAC-provided poster, or an isolated A-frame display board with the message advising Arts Council here tonight – but in more than one case no indication of performance time, or even a date to affirm currency. Other venues surveyed during 2003 lacked even this minimal attention.
In more than one town, I returned several times in the hours leading up to a performance before becoming reassured I was in the right place, and then only because the front door was open, the lights were on, and people were beginning to arrive for the performance. The implicit assumption by LACs in this situation is that people who would be interested in the event know where and when it will be, and those who don’t know either wouldn’t be interested or wouldn’t be welcome.
The rationale of the LAC volunteers in one town was: “We all know where it is.”
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I asked, “But what if there are other people who’d like to come?”
The response was: “We know who’s interested and who’s not.”
Even if this were true for all permanent residents, it ignores, in a town with one camping area, two caravan parks, three hotels, four motels and a range of bed and breakfast accommodation, a significant transient population. Such insularity not only means that the event itself is poorly promoted and supported, it renders the role of the LAC in bringing the event to town, the work it does, and the benefit it brings to the community almost invisible. For both the individual LAC and QAC this is a missed opportunity, and since the opportunity will come to many towns only once or twice a year, a rare and important one.
Each LAC becomes the local public face of QAC. So in this situation, where the LAC becomes invisible in its own community, and is valued only by the members of the ‘private club’, it’s to be expected that the image of QAC will suffer. The private club disposition regards non-members as outsiders. Comments made by outsiders typically express the view that arts council people are snobs, and they do not welcome participation by those not already part of the inner circle. This is attitudinal/policy vector V1 in operation.
I give three examples: o “Wherever you see the arts council there’s always this clique that sort of moves in … it’s sort of like a club … if you’re not in the club, keep off the grass …” o “It seems to be more of a social thing, where, nothing against them, the business people and the cockies … I’d like to see it come down more to ground level … they bring their wives in … it’s not the pensioner, the working man type of thing” o “I think they put off young ‘would-be’ and ‘could-be’ people ... by being so unthinking about other ways of making art …”
Not all LACs demonstrate this insular disposition, and the perception that arts aficionados are exclusivist or snobbish is not peculiar to arts council. Saatchi and
240 Saatchi found that 51% of people across Australia believe the arts attract people who are ‘somewhat elitist and pretentious’ and 42% agree that ‘the arts are a class thing’ (Saatchi and Saatchi, 2000: 13) But the perennial rider, as preceding comments illustrate, is that the attitudes we attribute to the arts audience is contingent upon our constitution of that audience, and that in turn is entirely contingent upon what we allow as art.
The exclusivist behaviour that gives the impression of snobbishness is more likely to be inadvertent, or at least unconscious, as in the case of suppers put on for members only, or even for committee only, following an event that has been open to the public. This researcher attended venues where arrivals entered without being welcomed or even acknowledged, found their own seats and waited in silence for the performance.
On the other hand I have been to events where the LAC President made a brief preliminary speech introducing him/herself, welcoming everybody, highlighting the role of the LAC and QAC in presenting the event, promoting future events, and inviting enquiries and promoting membership. I have been to events, such as the Maryborough foreign film nights where every arrival was personally greeted at the door, and invited to stay after the film for refreshments and conversation, where LAC office bearers made a point of including first-timers in conversation and introduced them to established members, where everybody was farewelled as they left, and elderly patrons were helped down the steps, escorted to their cars, and in some cases driven home by LAC office bearers. This is social capital in action. (We can see this as a complement, and an extension of V3, motivated by awareness of shared interests and mutuality. We are good. Our culture is good. Culture is something we can all share.)
LACs sometimes exhibit a surprising lack of enterprise. In 2003 QAC introduced a Box Office Rewards Scheme (BORS) which gave LACs 10% of local box office takings for QAC tours. It was expected that this would stimulate LAC personnel to promote tours more effectively and pay off in increased ticket sales. Regional ticket sales during 2003 and early 2004 suggest the scheme has had little effect.
241 These variations in LAC conduct emerge from the diverse attitudes of individual members. A written questionnaire mailed to all current and recently lapsed members of case study LACs in April 2003, drew a response of almost 32%, 380 returns out 1,197. Responses revealed consistent differences in attitude between Lifestyle and Labour sites. Members in Labour sites are generally more positive about arts council, and are more likely to feel that it: o is friendly and welcoming (82% compared to 71%); o delivers good entertainment (81% compared to 73%); o offers good value (85% compared to 69%); o provides an essential service to the community (70% compared to 63%); o and is well organised (72% to 53%).
Members in Labour sites also place a higher value on friendships formed or exercised through arts council. 43% consider them important compared to 35% in Lifestyle sites.
Members in Labour sites are more likely to consider arts council in their area to be energetic and lively (49% compared to 37%) – but also more likely to say it’s a bit tired (20% compared to 14%). This reflects a lower rate of no opinion responses (33% compared to 48%).59
Significantly TACTIC (Atherton) was the only case study LAC where a majority of those who expressed an opinion felt the LAC was a bit tired. (28% a bit tired compared to 21% energetic and lively). During 2003 TACTIC struggled to form a committee, and after twice abandoning its AGM for lack of a quorum, eventually succeeded at the third attempt. In all other LACs a majority of those who expressed an opinion rated the LAC as energetic and lively. (43% compared to 14%)
59 Labour sites tended to have a lower rate of no opinion responses across the board, in general around 10% lower than Lifestyle sties. The smallest community, Tambo, had the fewest no opinion responses (15%), while the LACs with the largest memberships and the largest catchment populations, Cooloola and Hervey Bay, recorded the most no opinion responses (49% and 53% respectively). This is likely to reflect the denser networking of a small community where members are more likely to be engaged, to know people on the arts council committee personally, and so be more confident about forming an opinion.
242 The membership in general strongly believes that arts council has a role to play in developing the cultural life of the community, rating the importance of this function 4.4 out of 5 on a Lickert scale. They also believe arts council has a legitimate role in contributing to the social life of the community (also rated 4.4), and rated this slightly higher than satisfying their own artistic tastes (4.3 out of 5). These data indicate latent or potential behaviour. A relatively small number of people become actively involved, committing time, energy and other resources to work towards these aims. They constitute the local arts council management team, and I discuss them further in section 8.5.
8.4 The Volunteers
A relatively small number of individuals scattered across the state serve on LAC committees. These are the volunteers who take on the responsibility of driving an LAC – they make phone calls, keep books, write newsletters, write applications, sweep halls, provide suppers and so on – and so provide each LAC with both its active heart and its logistical muscle, generally fewer than four or five people per LAC, a total of fewer than 300 people across the state.
QAC has always heavily relied on volunteers. The President’s Report for 1965-66 noted the amount of voluntary work carried out by the branch committees, and that the executive (rather hopefully perhaps): “feels certain that their noble efforts bring their own reward in the satisfaction they must feel in knowing that they are contributing so much to the fuller life in their community.”
Volunteers were again commended in the 1968/69 report for their “amazing amount of volunteer work” and for their generosity in “providing hospitality” for performers, and similar commendations have appeared, with minor variation, almost every year leading up to incorporation. 60
60 It’s worth noting that volunteers also contribute at other levels of the organisation. The 1965-65 report noted that: “far too great a burden had to be carried by honorary Office Bearers of the Board.” Directorship remains voluntary, and QAC staff often make the point that they contribute many hours of unpaid overtime. This sort of volunteering by staff is common in non-profit organisations because they are often genuinely devoted to and passionate about their work. (Light, 2002)
243 According to King and Fluke (1989) people volunteer in the arts because they believe in the arts. This doesn’t necessarily imply a great personal love of the arts, but it does require a conviction that the arts are important for the broader community, and the two are likely to go together for most people.
For the current LAC leadership cohort, personal interest predominates. Almost 80% of LAC office bearers practise some form of artistic activity themselves, with more than 20% involved in two, and around 15% in three or more activities. Most work with fabric in various ways (41%), play a musical instrument (36%), do photography (22%) or paint (19%).
As a reason for supporting arts council, It satisfies my personal interest in the arts – rated on average 4.2 out of 5 on a Lickert scale. The desire to do something for the community is only slightly less prominent. I’m doing something good for the community rated on average 4.1 out of 5. Other reasons commonly investigated in surveys on volunteering – the satisfaction of working as part of a team; developing new skills; making use of existing skills; building self-confidence – were significant but rated distinctly lower, between 3 and 3.7 out of 5.
The majority of LAC leadership positions – president, vice-president, secretary, treasurer – are annually assumed without contention. Filling these positions is usually a matter of finding someone prepared to take them on. Observation and interview data suggests that most committee members take office after being recruited or coopted by an existing or retiring me mber. This accords with Wymer and Brudney’s (2000: 42) finding that a person who is asked to volunteer is about five times more likely to do so than a person who is not personally asked.
The cohort of LAC office bearers or team members, which I have characterised as the LAC local management elite, has thus effectively selected itself from the broader membership to take on cultural leadership within the community. Taken overall these people are typical of the broader membership, but represent more strongly the highly educated professional and para-professional group (60% compared to 56%).
244 Given that these local leaders are highly educated, and self-selected to manage local arts council affairs, we might expect them to understand the need for diligence in fulfilling administrative and other requirements. But administrative diligence has not been a characteristic, either of branches or of LACs. Many branches were slow to comply with administrative requirements. Around two years before incorporation, at the end of 1997, 28 branches out of 74 were in arrears with some aspect of their administration. 22 had not submitted their annual report, and 26 had not returned a financial statement. For branches, this sort of delinquency could be, and often was, overlooked, but for LACs basic administrative requirements have legal force.
Even so, many are slow to comply. In January 2003, some 34 LACs had not completed an activity report for the previous year, 27 had not returned a completed affiliation agreement for the coming year, and 16 had not paid their fees. One did not have an Australian Business Number. These shortcomings were eventually corrected, but they caused a degree of uncertainty and instability, and cost considerable time and effort of QAC staff.
This staggered and incomplete response is typical of LAC compliance with QAC administrative requirements, and was reflected in the response to surveys associated with this research. In August 2001 a questionnaire was posted to 262 LAC personnel – presidents, secretaries, treasurers and other key functionaries – throughout the state. 28% were returned within two weeks, 44% after three weeks and 50% after one month. Eight LACs returned all questionnaires, while three LACs did not respond at all. The eventual response rate was 55%. A second survey in 2003 elicited a 65% response rate.
These are good response rates for postal surveys, but disappointing when we consider they were specifically targeted at the self-selected LAC management elite which is primarily responsible for the health and vitality of Queensland’s arts councils. There was no significant difference between the response rate from committees in Lifestyle and Labour sites.
Where several responses were received from an LAC, individual respondents often gave inconsistent answers to simple questions of fact. It might be expected that all
245 members of a committee would know whether their LAC had a mission statement or artistic policy to guide its activities, or whether any of their fellow committee members was also a member of the local RADF committee. But this was not so. Individual LACs frequently provided a mix of ‘yes’, ‘no’ and ‘I don’t know’ responses. The question about RADF membership, of considerable strategic importance to an LAC, elicited conflicting responses from nine LACs, and a total of 20 answers of ‘I don’t know’ – almost 14%.
This suggests that many committee members may be only marginally involved in their own LACs, and are poorly informed. Committee personnel are part-time volunteers frequently very busy people who manage with limited resources, and often don’t have the skills or experience we might normally expect of a person taking on a role in the increasingly specialized and professionalised field of arts administration. They are generally intolerant and impatient of bureaucratic processes. One third of key LAC office bearers – presidents, vice-presidents, secretaries and treasurers – surveyed in 2001 had never read the model rules that govern LAC operation.
During the 1960s and 1970s when branches were at the centre of community cultural life, their committees often included leading community figures. Arts council today generally lacks the kudos to attract local political elites, and few leading citizens serve on LAC committees. They have been replaced by a new generation of local leaders whose community profile is more limited, and whose elite status may not extend beyond the artistic field, or even beyond the LAC itself.
As we would expect from arts participation statistics, women are prevalent within this leadership cohort. They occupy 80% of all key LAC positions, but their dominance is reduced in the high profile and more authoritative positions of president (70%) and vice-president (73%). These prestigious positions are clearly more attractive to men than less prestigious positions. Men make up 41% of the membership, and often take on the roles of president (30%) or vice-president (27%), but there very few men in the less prestigious roles of secretary (7%), treasurer (14%) and public relations officer (14%).
246 The age profile of LAC committees roughly reflects the age profile of the general membership. There are very few office bearers (6%) aged 35 or less. Only 28% are younger than 46, while 40% are older than 55. This is also consistent with Saatchi and Saatchi’s findings related to arts participation, and also consistent with Wymer and Brudney’s (2000: 44) finding that the average age of arts volunteers is 54.9 years. In fact, arts council volunteers are a little younger than Wymer and Brudney’s, but different methodologies prevent a precise correlation.
The longer term risk is that as committee personnel continue to age LACs will lose energy, and eventually collapse. This has long been a concern of QAC management.
Age itself is not the problem – but an insular or exclusivist attitude can quarantine an LAC from the society around it, alienating those who might bring an infusion of fresh ideas and energy. The problem is not exclusive to arts council. A public figure in Maryborough expressed concerned because the city’s heritage attractions (Customs House, The Bond Store Museum, Brennan & Geraghty’s Store Museum, etc) are largely supported and staffed by volunteers, but volunteers are ageing to the extent that the city’s insurance policies may soon exclude them, and there are very few younger people ready to take their place. “The problem is not that there are no young people here, but that the older volunteers are reluctant to let go. They have concrete ideas about how things should be done, and they put the young people off .”
This reluctance to let go has been a significant issue for arts councils. In a number of branches or LACs, the dominance of a matriarch has discouraged younger members from becoming involved. In other LACs, the introduction of younger members onto a committee, has generated tension between ‘the old guard’ and the new. As one young member said: “… (she) thinks she’s know everything and she won’t listen. … every time we suggest something she says ‘that won’t work’ or ‘we’ve tried that’ … and she won’t listen.”
It has even been suggested by several observers that a matriarch might sometimes be content to let an ailing LAC close down, rather than see it regenerated by somebody else. Because the majority of members are not, and never have been active in the management of their LACs (60% don’t know how their LAC operates), these LACs
247 are captive to the personalties of their leading personnel. One LAC closed down in recent years because a President was “browned off” with QAC, and her apparently uncontested decision to close the LAC gave the researcher the impression that it was motivated by personal anger more than anything else. (This is the exceptionalism typical of V1 acting destructively at the level of an individual personality: I’m the only person who deserves or knows about culture, and the LAC can’t or doesn’t deserve to survive without me.)
The world of the arts council volunteer has changed. The early volunteers were enthusiastic amateurs. Today, volunteering is more like work. In an increasingly litigious, accusatory and punitive society, an era of greater regulation and accountability has recast the enthusiastic amateur as an unpaid professional. Some of the fun and goodwill has gone out of volunteer work, and it is more likely to be seen as a rather onerous duty
Volunteers are reluctant to take on long term or open ended commitments. They are particularly reluctant to serve on committees which they often consider time wasting and boring, and on which they fear becoming ‘trapped’. However they are prepared to become involved, and can be motivated to contribute enthusiasm, energy and a limited quantum of time and other resources to specific projects aimed at clear objectives within limited timelines, and which therefore require a reasonably predictable, calculable and limited personal investment.
8.5 Local Cultural Leadership
Radbourne (2003) has identified two arts leadership functions – visioning and enabling. Both are essential – the one to define objectives worth striving for, the other to facilitate their attainment. Visionary leadership may be a particular attribute of exceptional individuals, but enabling leadership is collaborative. Radbourne says the functions of enabling leaders include “supporting artists, nurturing talent, advising, mentoring, building networks and trust” – all essentially collective or collaborative functions.
248 Sustainable leadership is collaborative in two senses. It is collaborative in that leaders can lead only so far as followers consent to follow. This consent is contingent upon some recognition of benefit to the followers – that is, of mutual interest or benefit between the leaders and the led. As Limerick and Cranston (1998: 41) observe, this will be rooted in, and grow out of “the values and social contexts within which we are practising leadership”.
These views are consistent with those of Sashkin and Rosenbach (1993: 87), Limerick and Cranston (1998: 36), and others who debunk the ‘great man’ theory of leadership, and advocate participative decision making, and recognize that leadership involves the empowerment of others. Erez and Earley (1993: 172) promote the concept of transformational leadership, which provides a growth environment within which leader and followers together work towards and attain higher levels of both motivation and morality. The transformational leader’s ultimate purpose is to enlighten and empower followers to realize their own maximum potential.
The relationship is neatly expressed and taken a step further in Greenleaf’s concept of the servant leader. The servant leader seeks primarily not to lead, but to learn. The servant leader helps those s/he leads to articulate their own goals, and is devoted to their personal development. “Ultimately, the goal of the servant leader is not just to facilitate immediate change, but to liberate the innate capacity of each individual to learn and to become excited about new imaginings.” (Boyett and Boyett, 1996: 195)
This form of leadership is sustainable not only because it equips and empowers followers to become leaders, but because it diffuses leadership functions amongst the leaders and the led. Leadership is thus an emergent function that grows out of the relationship between leaders and followers, in which ultimately the distinction between them may become scarcely relevant. It is a special form of teamwork, a mutual progression in which enlightened individuals recognize each other’s specific leadership credentials and work together, leading each other towards goals which they could not individually achieve.
249 Sustainable leadership is also collaborative in the sense that any institution, organisation or group – that is, whatever is being led – must sustain itself within and evolve in tandem with its evolving environment. This requires it to form relationships with a host of other agents active around it, to recognize common values and mutual interests, to form alliances and partnerships, and to collaborate.
Following this line of argument it is possible to identify key attributes that an ideal LAC local leadership group will possess. Individuals may not exhibit all attributes, but the group should display and mobilise all of these: o Commitment and Vision – they are driven by the conviction that the arts have an important role to play in community life, and some vision of what that role is, and how the arts can be mobilised towards specific goals, objectives and community benefits. o Energy – they are predisposed towards action, with an enthusiastic and often infectious vitality. As a group, these people don’t sit around waiting for somebody else to do something. They get up and do it. o Collaboration and Inclusiveness – o Internally this manifests in cohesive and effective teamwork. They respect each other’s opinions, interests and abilities, delegate and share responsibility. They exhibit generosity of spirit by sharing credit and frequently commending others. o Seen from the outside the group is highly social and keen to involve others. They consult widely, respect and respond to the opinions, interests and needs of others. They are keen and generous applicants of the quid pro quo – mutual reciprocity is their universal expectation and normal operational mode. o Connected – they are net-workers with a strong social capital base sustained by connections at many levels throughout the community, in particular amongst local business, political and social elites. o Diverse and Culturally Tolerant – the group’s inclusive attitude towards others extends to their cultural values and practices (in so far as these values and practices are not themselves intolerant or sectarian). They endorse and support
250 a broad definition of the arts and a wide range of practices not limited to their own personal artistic tastes. o Experienced – individuals within the group have various degrees of familiarity with and experience of the arts, and possess a diversity of practical knowledge and experience. o Skilled – individuals within the group have a range of applicable skills covering fields as diverse, and as specialised, as long term planning and policy development, financial management, personnel management, public relations and promotions, event management and support, and possibly many more. Specific arts related skills such as writing and publishing or graphic design are particularly useful. o Entrepreneurial – they actively seek opportunities and take risks responsibly. o Diligent – they are well organised, and attend to administrative requirements and management issues promptly and competently. o Fun-loving – they are positive and optimistic in their general outlook on life, enjoy what they do, and positively affect others. o Most importantly they care about their community, and work towards community benefits. This is unlikely to be purely altruistic, but reflects the shared values and mutual interests at the heart of all community. We might think of this in terms of de Tocqueville’s notion of “self-interest properly understood”, or Bertrand Russell’s “enlightened self-interest”.
In practice, LAC leadership teams variously measure up to this ideal. Some, as I have indicated are insular and to an extent dysfunctional. Others work very well, under difficult circumstances, to manage and advance the LAC amidst the hector of complex and demanding lives. Most leadership groups comprise four or five people, but they may be larger or smaller, and they flux in size as the intensity of involvement varies between members, and the involvement of individual members waxes and wanes. A group larger than this is difficult to coordinate and bring together for meetings. A smaller group becomes unstable as the loss, temporary or permanent of any individual, seriously saps its energy and reduces capacity.
In many sites, LACs are not led by collaborative groups at all, but by one or two motivated individuals. Some individuals manifest many of the attributes listed above.
251 In Radbourne’s terms, they are both visionary and enabling. These exceptional individuals are the people McInnerney (2000) would call animateurs. I call them local arts council champions. They may not see themselves as CCD workers. As one observer noted: “They’re not interested in the finer points of CCD ideals. They couldn’t give a damn. They just want to do something for the community.” Such a desire to benefit the community within which a person lives can be seen as a generous manifestation of the V3 extension: Our art/culture is good. We are good.
These local champions are members of a general knowledge class. They exhibit many characteristics of Florida’s Creative Class, or Lasch’s Global Elite, but there is one key characteristic which they do not exhibit. They are not detached from, or dismissive of, geographically defined community. They are on the contrary intensely committed to local community. Whether this is a function of age – the global elite become more attached to location and geographically defined community in middle age – or whether these local champions represent a particular variant within the knowledge class – which is however we define it immensely broad and heterogenous – these are exceptional people. They are elite individuals who have not (in Florida’s terms) failed the test of leadership, or (in Lasch’s terms) betrayed their fellow citizens.
While it is important for a sustainable leadership team to have arts experience, it is not necessary for any particular individual on the team, or for a local arts council champion. In the absence of a genuinely collaborative leadership team, an arts council champion functions as a catalyst, coordinator and manager, driving purposeful activity towards desirable and beneficial objectives. This does not require specific arts related knowledge or experience because the champion enlists and directs the contributions of others who are experienced and knowledgeable in the arts.
A number of highly effective champions have had little or no personal interested in the arts, such as self-professed meat pie and beer man George Bezant. Macdonnell (1992: 400) has noted that the arts are often better served when key policy making and administrative roles are executed by “concerned generalists” rather than “practioneers”.
252
Male champions have been particularly effective in some case study sites. Prominent male advocacy seems to mark a watershed for a community, countering the gender discrimination which sees the arts and culture as women’s stuff. No longer ‘bitch and stitch’, it becomes accepted into the cultural mainstream. Obvious examples are George Bezant, businessman and local politician who was instrumental in bringing both the arts council, and the first airline passengers (by flying boat) into Hervey Bay, Neil Brown, retired self-confessed ‘work-a-holic’ who with his wife Angela resurrected the arts council in Gympie, and Rollo Nicholson, prominent businessman, entrepreneur and local philanthropist, who is “on every committee in town” and drove both the arts council and the campaign for the Brolga Theatre during the 1990s.
A number of women have also been very effective. CEMA founder Dorothy Helmrich, and QAC’s early matriarch Dr. Gertrude Langer were prime examples. More recently women have occupied the majority of branch and LAC Presidencies (currently 70%), and many women have been highly effective in the role, Lynley Paine in Moranbah, for example, who rescued the LAC from near collapse when she assumed the presidency and subsequently steered it through a period of considerable strength.
Volunteer burnout has long been a concern for arts council. As key people withdraw - because they have families, become preoccupied with business, get sick, leave town or simply become old – the viability of the LAC can be threatened. In one instance a respondent to this research quoted the WIIFM (What’s in it for me?) clause, not in selfishness, but in exasperation, worn down by unrewarded efforts to generate community support. When she resigned and nobody else was prepared to step into the leadership, the LAC closed.
There is general consensus across relevant sectors that volunteers in rural and regional Australia are under more pressure than ever, grappling with social and economic pressures, changing work patterns, and the demands of family. Many people in communities serve on multiple committees and organisations, frequently four or five, and often more.
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There is a limit to the capacity and energy of any individual. Individual leadership is brittle, and not sustainable in the long term, and the decline of branches over the years has often been seen by QAC staff to be directly associated with the exhaustion of individual leaders. For LAC champions, promoting and driving arts council is likely to become a full time job, and it is not easy to find people prepared to take on what can be, for individual champions, a very demanding workload.
The age of champions is not a problem, because one of their primary functions is to enlist others, and they have extensive community links which transcend their own demographics, attitudes and tastes. But burnout remains a concern. Many of these champions do too much themselves. The more they can facilitate sustainable group leadership, acting as catalysts rather than solo operators, the more sustainable their leadership will become, and the more likely they are to leave a vigorous and effectual LAC when they do burn out or for some other reason step down.
8.6 Melding the Fragments
It is clear from discussion so far that art/culture can serve either to emphasise difference and so further split regional communities, or to articulate mutualities and so foster unity and integration.
To be effective arts facilitation or cultural development organisations within their communities LACs they must be broad based, and they must be integrated with and representative of their communities. Only then can each LAC identify and properly understand the range of interests held by its community, and work towards them, rather than towards the narrow interests of its own leadership group. The LAC does not need to explicitly adopt Community Cultural Development as its mission. If it effectively amplifies the lifestyle sphere, by enhancing entertainment and lifestyle options, it will generate significant flow on effects that contribute to CCD.
However, as noted earlier, few LACs have taken a strategic approach to determining their audiences and objectives. In 2001 only two LACs out of sixty-three were operating according to a written mission statement or strategy document that defined
254 their objectives. Eleven LACs indicated that they consciously considered the interests or needs of the elderly when planning activities, four LACs considered their community’s young people, and only one considered the interests of Indigenous people. None considered the interests or needs of the unemployed. It is each LAC’s prerogative to formulate its own policy in this regard, but where an LAC has not established a deliberate policy – whether or not it is formalised in a document – it invariably operates by default, according to personal tastes and interests of LAC office bearers.
An LAC must engage with its community. An important aspect of this is the forging of links – strategic partnerships and alliances – with key persons, and with other arts and cultural organisations, and political, community and business organisations such as shire councils, government agencies, chambers of commerce, local businesses, tourism bodies, charities and so on.
Local government is the most important of these. Where LACs have a strong mutually supporting relationship with local government they tend to attract a high level of community participation and support. This is the case in Cooloola where the shire council now looks to the LAC, as so many councils did in the past, as a significant cultural agency and resource, and strongly supports major events such as Bands in the Park, or Tambo where the shire council and the LAC have closely cooperated on a main street beautification project.
Key to this is awareness by local government that arts and cultural activities supported by an LAC can have a strong regenerative effect on community. One significant outcome of QAC’s internal strategic planning forums from 2001-2003, was an increased awareness of the role it can play here, by working to educate local government, by building its own relationships with local government authorities, and by fostering relationships on behalf of LACs. QAC’s joint protocol with the Local Government Association of Queensland, renewed in 2003, was an important start, and the series of five Regional Leadership Forums conducted during 2004 (discussed in chapters 4 and 8) represents a significant and more practical step in this direction.
255 The RADF committee in each local government area, provides a key opportunity for collaboration, and there is considerable overlap in membership of LAC and RADF committees. In August 2000, 46 out of 63 LACs (73%) had a representative on their local RADF committee. The same number of LACs (46) reported that they had received funding from their local RADF committee.61 Eight had received funding once, 18 on two or three occasions, and 20 had been funded more frequently.
QAC also works with Arts Queensland’s RADF administrators on a state-wide basis to ensure a constructive and complementary nexus between their respective programs. RADF has supported a number of QAC initiatives including QAC State Conferences in 2001 and 2003, and the series of five Regional Leadership Forums conducted during 2004. Despite this cooperation the relationship between QAC and Arts Queensland’s RADF administrators, like the relationship between many LACs and their local RADF committees, remains ambivalent and guarded. On both sides, there is a degree of competition for government funds, and this operates to the detriment of both programs. There remains considerable potential for much greater cooperation.
Many LACs have links with other community groups. The Tambo LAC has supported the sports club, the kindergarten association, the health care centre and other institutions. In Moranbah the LAC has shared premises with the Gentle Craft Club, a photography club and other groups. In Hervey Bay the LAC has close ties to the local community radio station, and works with the Hervey Bay City Council and other groups. As LACs forge partnerships of this type they bring new constituencies of patronage and support.
Crucial decisions for an LAC revolve around the type of arts/cultural activities it pursues and promotes. These will define its audience, and its long term sustainability. Research encountered a wide range of views:
61 It should not be assumed that those LACs with members sitting on RADF committees were those which received funding. Often they were, but several of these LACs did not receive funding, while several LACs which did not have representatives on their RADF committee did receive funding. Nor should it be assumed that there is necessarily anything improper or corrupt in the nexus between LAC and RADF representation and funding. In small communities a significant degree of interaction is inevitable, and while this does sometimes lead to nepotism and other abuses, it is generally highly desirable that LACs and RADF committees work closely together.
256 o “There’s been a certain amount of snobbery about what constitutes art, what constitutes culture. One of the biggest things in the area, after the Muster, is the Sheep Dog Trials. What about the races, or the Gympie Music muster?” (a critique of V1, and its exploitation of ‘excellence’ to justify exclusivity) o “I think the arts council is a misnomer, in the sense I don’t think the arts council does it justice because we’ve had people from classical guitarist, to paper makers, to kite flyers …. so arts really is an elitist term in my opinion … you’ve got to struggle to let people know when you talk about arts council just what it encompasses …” (a critique of V1) o “We must remove the elitist attitude that people have towards arts council. Even football is art.” (a critique of V1, and an assertion of V3 – recognition of endemic cultural forms) o “It’s up to us to meet the artistic needs of the community as we know them. There’s a lot more interest in air brushed art on cars, body art and body piercing, chain saw sculpture – cars, motorbikes, country music, and rodeos.” (expression of V3 – recognition of popular cultural forms) o (On Gympie’s Bands in the Park family day that drew 2,500 people) “This thing in the park is huge, but it’s not really what arts council should be about. We should be doing professional theatre, bringing professional theatre to town.” (the passive obverse of V2: culture must be bestowed from above) o “ … (I) say all the time, art and culture are not elitist .. they are part of your everyday life, but I also think that message hasn’t completely instilled itself into the belief system of the majority of the community … as far as I’m concerned sitting on your back steps whittling wood is an art activity .. it’s a creative endeavour and that’s the kind of notion I used to try and promulgate, but the sad truth is there are still perceptions at large within certain social groups I suppose, and belief systems …what do you do about those … I mean engage with the community in their everyday lives is a fine sounding phrase … it’s the nuts and bolts of how you get down there and do it .. who is going to do it?” (a call towards V3 action) o “Our gallery is great. No parking problems. On the other hand it does frighten some people. It’s up-market.” (unwitting acknowledgement of V1)
257 o “We’d like to get some of these people along to the films. Foreign films. They wouldn’t normally see them. They edit themselves. They’re always been told they’re not intellectual and so they think, ‘That’s not for me’. They won’t take a risk because they are reinforced as who they are, and who they are wouldn’t like films like that, wouldn’t understand it. I’d like to get some of those people along, put meals on and get people talking. That’s the way to change them.” (V1 countered by V2 antidote: You don’t know what you’re missing. Try it .) o “ …. is the classic example, some of the bluebloods, for the want of a better term, up there … you know the haves and the have-nots .. they’re rather an elitist group … and arts council in those days was probably more arty, than what it eventually became … I used to argue at state meetings that we should think about another name, but, you know, the die-hards didn’t want to do that.” (a lament on the intransigence of V1)
While we might hope that a broad based LAC could attract everybody in a community, the reality is that diversity of interests and commitments, and even simple personality clashes, will usually make this an unattainable ideal. Attempts to engage one interest group will inevitably deter others, as illustrated by comments former Bileola LAC President Dominique Tan made in her 1995 report. “Outtawak: Audience numbers were quite substantial and the audience response seemed very favourable. Most of the committee thought the performance was a bit ‘tired’ and it just wasn’t one that appealed to most of us. We have no objection to QAC sometimes catering to ‘popular’ taste, but are pretty certain that while much of the audience may have come from a different sector of the population than for, say, theatre, ballet, or high-quality music performances, that different sector is not inclined to become financial members of the branch.”
While I have suggested that LACs need to become broad based if they are to be effective agents for CCD, it is difficult for them to achieve this within a mature cultural environment where other institutions are already well established. Here an LAC may effectively fill a niche, as in Maryborough, where MAC draws audiences averaging 60-80 to foreign language films around once a month, adding to the local lifestyle options.
258 In other sites, local government may inhibit cultural development – whether instigated by an LAC or some other agent – simply because the local political elite does not appreciate the critically important role art/culture plays in building better communities.
The youth worker previously referred to, who was chastised by the town council for initiating a successful rock concert, also arranged access to a workshop space in a large unused shed near the centre of town, where young people were taught trade and life skills. The shed rapidly became a very popular venue. It was well managed – clean and freshly painted when I saw it – and the young people felt comfortable there, and were proud of it. The council ordered the workshop to close – on the grounds that business owners objected to having young people so highly visible in the centre of town – and the workshop was relocated to the fringe of the town. There is minimal public transport, access is difficult, and use of the facility has fallen away.
The capacity of an LAC to operate effectively is likely to be severely inhibited in such an unsympathetic and dysfunctional environment, and it’s no surprise that the LAC in this particular town attracts irregular low level support. Over many years the Queensland Arts Council worked through its branches to develop the state’s cultural ecology. There has been a great deal of progress, but there remains much to be done.
8.7 The Relationship with QAC
LACs have generally adapted well to, or at least learned to live with the new affiliation arrangements. While their substantive relationship with QAC has changed, this has, apart from the administrative requirements mandated by incorporation, had little impact on the day to day procedural operation of most LACs. Those LACs with modest ambitions, those who remain content to operate more or less within the dimensions they inhabited as branches are able to do so as long as they can attract enough members and membership fees to meet annual affiliation costs, renew their business name with the Office of Fair Trading and pay any other essential costs – a little stationary, a few telephone calls to arrange meetings and an AGM, and possible accounting and auditing fees.
259 But as the more active LACs embark on bigger and more ambitious events, these will both promise greater benefits, and incur greater risks. The affiliation agreement between QAC and LACs insulates QAC from direct risk, but serious delinquency, outrage or scandal involving an LAC has the potential to damage the arts council ‘brand’.
QAC has limited ability to restrict or control the activities of LACs. Each LAC is free to define the arts as it will, and engage in whatever activities it chooses. An LAC might engage in unconventional or highly controversial performance arts, or exhibit pornographic art for example. The ultimate sanction would be for QAC to withdraw affiliation. This would be a major blow for an LAC because, apart from anything else it would mean loss of insurance. This threat alone is probably enough to guarantee that LACs will not readily forsake affiliation, because for an LAC to take out cover in its own right would be prohibitively expensive. However disaffiliation offers a blunt and imprecise tool.
The most pervasive tension across the network is the dissonance generated by two parallel and mutually reinforcing divides – that between metropolitan and regional attitudes and agendas, and between professional and amateur attitudes and agendas. These tensions are parallel and generally reinforce one another. They are not peculiar to arts councils, but common to many metropolitan based providers of regional services.62
There is a widespread perception amongst regional dwellers that they get ‘a raw deal’, typified by following comment.
“I find it no different to my past experiences at other isolated regional communities where it appears like sometimes we’re last on the list. Sometimes we sort of get the left-overs, and I have spoken to a few people prior to our interview and got the feedback. They feel the same way, and some have been teachers, some have been members of the
62 The regional constituency is itself also far from homogenous or unified. There is considerable alienation between regions, between communities and their institutions, including local government authorities. There is often little cooperation for example across shire boundaries, and often considerable rivalry and even enmity.
260 community, and they feel that their kids are perhaps getting a raw deal, and themselves as adults … I’m not talking specifically about what arts council provides, I’m talking about a more general provision of anything. We don’t have a cinema. We don’t have shopping. We don’t have access to theatre, any forms of cultural development options as somebody might have that closer to a city. We certainly get left behind as far as what I see happening in the major metropolitan areas in the arts. Personally I never cease to be amazed at how Brisbane just gets and gets and gets. I know it’s got more people. We’ve also got people, less people, but our people might want the same as their people … and that’s not egalitarian … that’s not an equitous (sic) way of looking at sharing.”
While QAC attempts to bridge this cultural divide, it is apparent that service reduction and the rationalisation of programs have not been well received in the regions. As one QAC director recognised.
“… in my mind the halcyon years were probably the years that we had who I thought was a very good branch development officer, David Berker … I just think it was an incredibly demanding job and he did it very well. I know he clocked up thousands of kilometres, and I know it probably cost a great deal of money and that some of the results of those visits and interest, as much have been documented, might not have been tangible, but I can say without a doubt, that my feeling was, that that made the volunteers feel really good …it will never be the same until someone is again doing that job … ”
One critic of this branch development work dismissed it as ineffectual. It was, according to this critic, more style than substance, and all about “warm and fuzzy” and “feel good”. The critic added: “I don’t have time for feel good.” However, this is exactly the point. The arts are to a large extent all about feeling good, and “warm and fuzzy” may be very important to people who feel hard done by.
There is a concern amongst regional members, that QAC is preoccupied with its corporate agenda to an extent that inhibits its ability to respond to the interests and
261 concerns of regional people. When each LAC was offered two free registrations to the 2003 Arts Torque state conference, one respondent commented: “So what. You’re not actually giving us anything. You’re asking us to give up our weekend, and travel a thousand kilometres to come to your conference to hear what you want us to hear.”
A senior LAC representative who travelled to the Regional Arts Australia 2002 National Conference in Albury-Wodonga, commented that he “got a bit sick of being lectured to” and would have liked more open discussion in which regional representatives got to put their views. QAC was not responsible for this conference, and the comment should not be seen to reflect directly on QAC, but it is nevertheless typical of a broadly expressed feeling amongst regional people that metropolitan service providers – not just QAC, but across the board – are not listening.
QAC’s newsletter Ontour provides, in theory, an opportunity for regional members to air their views, but in fact there is relatively little content from regions. Instead, the newsletter presents a QAC-centric view of the world, and regional content is presented through the corporate sensitivities of QAC. Regional members tend to be critical of the magazine. They see it, not as belonging to them, but as belonging to corporate QAC, as following comments testify: o “It’s a social thing about what’s happening in Brisbane and how nice people they are … we have local events and people say why didn’t we get that in, or why didn’t we get something else in (the newsletter) .. the newsletters from other LACs are much more interesting… I think sometimes they’re living in a world of their own.” o “It’s like a brag sheet, but it’s not bragging about us. It’s bragging about them.”
Regional people have been encouraged to contribute but rarely do. This indicates, not that regional people have nothing to say, but that for some reason existing communication channels are not meeting their needs.
262 9 Summary and Conclusions
9.1 Introduction:
This thesis has adopted a pragmatic stance, eschewing Kantian constructions of the arts as a lofty category of human endeavour without function. Instead it is founded on an understanding that the arts – to the limited extent that they can be distinguished as a discrete arena of activity with the broader cultural field – comprise a range of activities which, by virtue of their structural, functional, aesthetic and symbolic dimensions, enhance human existence through their impact on both the quality and style of human life. Accepting the aesthetic and symbolic dimensions of the arts to be what primarily distinguishes them from other categories of human activity, I have characterised them as the aesthetic-symbolic regime.
This aesthetic-symbolic regime inhabits a rather special place within the broad cultural field, representing a distillation and refinement of certain aspects of culture, whereby culture becomes self-consciously aware of its own values, practices and attributes, and uses aesthetic form to explore these and hold them up for reflection. As human cultures are both a reification and an expression of cosmologies, beliefs and values, so the arts both inherently and unconsciously reify, and consciously express, examine and reflect upon those cosmologies, beliefs and values.
Within human cultures it is one of the functions of the arts that they promise transcendent capacities to those who engage with them, but these apparent capacities themselves remain constructs within culturally determined agendas, and value sets.
I have generally adopted a Cultural Industries framework. The appropriateness of this is confirmed by historical review of arts council activities over some half a century, which shows Cultural Industries to provide the paradigm that most properly encompasses and describes them, although for most of that time the term cultural industries was not used.
263 9.2 Cultural Networks and Creative Community Culture:
In an era of unprecedented technological development, global forces drive massive industrial and demographic changes that affect communities everywhere. Electronic communications technology from the telephone to the Internet continues to drive huge changes in social structures and behaviour, while the increasing integration of the global economy overwhelms local economies almost everywhere.
The impacts may be particularly disruptive and difficult to manage for smaller regional communities, which tend to be characterised by narrowly based and therefore brittle local economies, less educated and less flexible workforces, limited commercial and industrial infrastructure, and restricted investment and entrepreneurial potential, and which are therefore inherently less flexible and less resilient than larger communities. Meanwhile the agricultural and resources industries that provide much of regional Australia’s wealth remain susceptible to the periodic impact of natural and market cycles.
Other changes driven by social evolution compound the difficulties for many communities. Populations are growing older across the state. Individual regional communities (Labour sites in particular) may be losing both their young people and their elders, as the young are increasingly drawn to employment and lifestyle opportunities elsewhere, and retired adults migrate to coastal (Lifestyle) towns. The general hollowing out of the middle class, an Australia-wide phenomenon, creates a large class of underprivileged – those who have not ‘made it’ into the knowledge class.
Some regional communities manage well. Others struggle. Some are in distress. In many country towns, amenities, services and lifestyle decline as people, businesses and agencies move out. In some regions ‘sponge cities’ prosper at the expense of smaller towns. Some coastal regions grow so rapidly that infrastructure and services are unable to cope, and many people live in relative deprivation in new but barren estates, where social alienation and crime rates are high.
264 Awareness of the problems associated with structural economic adjustment is growing, and a regional regeneration movement gathers momentum across the country. (Collits, 2000) Recognised as critical to regeneration are non-economic factors such as: optimism, community spirit and community pride; strong social capital networks; social justice and equity; community co-operation and participation; diversity and tolerance, which must advance hand in hand, allowing communities to harness the widest possible range of human capacities; an entrepreneurial outlook that welcomes challenges and solves problems; strategic self- awareness and a commitment to planning; high value placed on education and technology; and a concern for health and wellbeing, broadly conceived.
These factors are often discussed under various rubrics including community cultural development, community capacity building, community economic development, and building sustainable communities, but they are all recognised as essentially cultural factors. Problems to do with sustainability are cultural problems, and the solutions are cultural. Both problems and solutions evolve as culture evolves. What is needed for real community progress is not merely a response, or a sequence of responses, no matter how concerted and effective they might be, to problems as they are perceived, but a constant and enduring way of apprehending and interacting with a constantly evolving environment, harnessing factors such as those identified above, to enable the community to navigate most advantageously through this constant change. Such an approach is typified by what I have called Creative Community Culture.
Creative Community Culture is thus more than a way of approaching and solving problems. It is more than, in terms of the old chestnut, turning problems into opportunities, although that is part of it. It is a way of living, a way of approaching and dealing with the circumstances of our everyday lives. It means seeing the world differently and with fresh eyes every day. If we do not do this we live, in a sense, in Plato’s cave. We did not enter the cave deliberately. We settled into comfortable habits of feeling, thinking and being. Thus we erected the walls of our own cave, until, like Plato’s troglodytes, we experience only the shadows of life. It is a primary function of the arts that they penetrate the walls erected by habit and complacency, re-sensitize people to the world, and reawaken us to life. By so doing they lead us out of Plato’s cave.
265
That is why the arts make a fundamental contribution to Creative Community Culture. I will return to this shortly, but I first turn briefly to the role played by cultural networks.
As Mulgan (1991: 1) observes humans first developed communication networks – he cites the early postal networks in the service of the Persian, Roman, Mongol and Chinese Empires – as tools of administration and control, but networks also provide important avenues for feedback and reciprocity. (Mulgan, 1998: 16, 93, 198). Thus they serve dual functions, on the one hand extending the power of central authorities, on the other providing mechanisms for the mo nitoring and moderation of that power. Networks are best thought of, in so far as governance is concerned, as providing avenues for the negotiation of power.
Mulgan identifies reciprocity as the key mechanism of this negotiation. Cultural networks, such as Queensland’s arts council network, and other volunteer networks within the arts sector, thus serve as intermediaries between citizens and ruling elites, bridging social, economic and political stratification, and contributing to the dispersal of social, economic and political power throughout the constituency. They have a key role to play as vigorous organs and instruments in a civil society.
Caparini notes that civil society organisations (CSOs) are crucial agents “for limiting authoritarian government, strengthening the empowerment of the people, and enforcing political accountability.” While acknowledging that some confusion and ambiguity pertains to definitions of CSOs (and to understanding of civil society more broadly), Caparini notes that CSOs function both as partners of the state to extend governance and service provision, and as watchdogs protecting citizens from corruption and state abuse. They thus occupy what is often called the third place or third sector, and are seen to have a legitimate and important role in revitalising and protecting democracy.
Networks which are also CSOs, such as the arts council network, can foster the ethical and responsible behaviour of elites, help ensure their accountability, and contribute significantly to their normative and social integration. (See Chapter 2.5.2)
266 Networks are favourable both to the development of elites, and the integration and egalitarian moderation of those elites, because intrinsic to the network is the foundation of nodes at its intersections. By controlling the flow of information, which is in one form or another the content of all network traffic, these nodes exercise a degree of influence or hegemony, and that is precisely the function of elites. Indeed we might think of a node as an elite location. At the same time, open networks provide multiple pathways to any given destination, and so equalize the status of nodes, and allow any individual node to be bypassed. This characteristic is potentially of great importance to the arts council network, because some LAC officials inappropriately act as gate-keepers, filtering access through their own cultural preferences which often represent idiosyncratic, atypical or minority tastes. The network provides opportunities for minimising the impact of resulting recalcitrant nodes.
Cultural networks of different types operate differently, and the interactions between networks are complex. Free-to-air television networks for example, clearly operate on a vastly different scale and in manifestly different ways from more intimate personal networks such as sports or social clubs. Commercial television networks produce traffic that is predominantly one way, and transform viewers into a product which they sell to advertisers in fifteen second slots. Rarely has Postman’s (1993) proposition that ideology lies embedded in technology been more apposite. Such a network, by definition is not a CSO.
Television networks are closed, with broadcasters very much in control of the traffic they carry, whereas in more open networks, as Hassan (2004: 39, 116) observes, nobody is in control. A cultural network such as Queensland’s network of arts councils, might be better understood as a number of parallel and interacting networks that to a certain extent overlap, reinforce and complement each other. The institutional network of legally incorporated LACs is relatively formal and closed. But it operates parallel with more open and informal social networks of professional and personal associations between individuals, and each LAC or node marries into various local networks that are open and closed in various degrees.
267 Creative Industries theory is generally applied to cities and regions of high population density conducive to the creative milieu of clusters and networks that foster creativity. Both in the United Kingdom, where it has generally been applied in the context of regional generation, and in the United States, it deals with populations much greater than those of Queensland’s regions. Yet many of the principles it specifies – making use of appropriate technology, valuing and mobilising talent and education, exploiting diversity – will apply to communities of any size. Small and dispersed regional populations may lack the critical mass to generate Landry’s urban buzz, but even in small towns the main street becomes a site for communion – often focused on specific venues such as the general store, the post office and the shire hall – which generates albeit on a smaller scale, and with reduced intensity, a similar cultural cross-pollination and catalysis.
We must recognise however, that even the most vigorous small towns lack the prerequisites for a truly creative entrepreneurial milieu. In Creativity is Big Business - A framework for the future, the Queensland government expounds a 2004 strategy, by which it hopes to overcome the lack of critical population mass in Queensland’s regions through a process of statewide networking. Whereas no single region delivers anything close to what Florida, Landry or Roodhouse would recognise as a critical population mass, government hopes that unification of the state-wide population through networking will provide critical mass. How successfully this works will depend on the capacity of networking, through various matrices and configurations, to compensate for geographic dispersion and generate the intensity of stimulation and synergy that we might otherwise expect to generate within a geographically coherent critical mass. As Castells (1996: 56) observes, geographical proximity is still important, and the effectiveness of the Queensland Government’s attempts to deliver critical mass through statewide networking remains to be seen.
Irrespective of this, Creative Community Culture promises great benefits for regional populations. In its contribution to quality of life, wealth generation, vitality and sustainability, a creative culture is the most important survival characteristic a community can have. On the basis of findings and analysis so far presented here, it is possible to identify eight critical aspects of policy and practice, with which a cultural
268 network such as Queensland’s network of arts council can engage, in order to contribute effectively to the development of creative community cultures.
I will shortly define and discuss these critical aspects, but before doing so I present a brief review of transitional findings. I call them transitional findings because they have emerged progressively during the course of the research, and while they are significant and legitimate in their own right, they also serve as paving stones towards the eight critical aspects, which I subsequently discuss.
9.3 Transitional Findings
While the primary purpose of this study has been to develop insights which might inform future policy, programs and projects pursued by Queensland’s arts councils, it has also had an important secondary purpose – which is in large measure a necessary condition of the first – to inject some coherence and rationality into a discursive field rife with contention, and often characterised by partisan and passionate polemic that is not always well informed, even though it is, for the most part, sincere and intensely earnest.
It is thus with the intention to inform and sharpen debate, as well as to pave the uneven path towards its major findings, that this thesis has laid out the history of arts councils in Queensland (generally in chapters 3 and 4, and through case studies in chapter 6). In attempting to capture this history I have drawn upon data from many sources – much buried in archives, private collections and memories – and so brought into the light a summary of data that could not otherwise be apprehended and made sensible, with the intention of dispelling myths and misconceptions, and bringing a degree of balance to perceptions of QAC’s historical contribution to Queensland’s cultural environment.
It is clear that ideological fractures that emerged during the 1970s and 1980s, had encouraged critics to dismiss QAC’s seminal role, and prejudiced some current dispositions towards the organisation, within the sector. But as I have shown, Queensland Arts Council has been one of the nation’s most enduring cultural institutions. It predates both the Australia Council and the arts portfolios of all
269 Australian governments, federal, state and local. If we consider its genesis in CEMA during the mid 1940s, the arts council movement also predates the seminal Elizabethan Theatre Trust, Musica Viva, and every major theatre, dance and opera company still operating in Australia today.
In its early years QAC reanimated to some extent the exuberant spirit of the touring vaudeville era that had thrived into the early twentieth century but was largely extinguished by the rise of cinema. Emerging during the optimistic boom that followed the Second World War, QAC tours tapped into the popular yearning for entertainment and for a better and more expansive life. Attendance at peak cultural events such as QAC tours resonated with notions of the good life, perhaps not as concretely as the purchase of a new electric refrigerator, television set or family car, but we can nevertheless see it as a celebration of hope, optimism and ambition.
QAC played an immensely important part in the cultural development of regional Queensland, and in metropolitan Brisbane, where it sponsored influential public lectures and ground-breaking exhibitions of contemporary visual art, lobbied government and influenced policy, and managed creative arts workshops that stimulated and educated a seminal generation of arts educators and artists.
My discussion of the convergence between various models of arts and cultural facilitation (Chapter 3) is not new. This convergence – perhaps more appropriately seen as the emergence of new forms that merge characteristics of previously contending models – is apparent to any who critically examine the field. What is new is my application of this awareness to Queensland’s arts councils in which context it may be employed diagnostically, and in remedial and strategic planning, while also serving to further inform QAC’s own growing awareness of where it sits along the spectrum of possibility.
For those working within the sector, fully occupied with navigation and with the tasks of keeping their vessel afloat in difficult seas, and unable to spare time to re- evaluate its design, analysis of this type can be revelatory. Following a seminar at which I presented interim research results to QAC staff, a number put their responses into words. One said, “You made me think about it in a totally different way. You
270 really opened my eyes”; another, “I could have sat and listened for hours”; and a third: “You challenged all my presumptions.” Such revelation is vital for those working in the sector.
In chapter 3, I also exposed the essentially political nature of contention between various models of facilitation, the inadequacy of the orthodox left / right construction, and its spurious alignment with the politics of class and excellence. In place of the simplistic dichotomous left / right (or top down / bottom up) construction I have proposed the four vector model (Chapter 8), which offers a more illuminating representation of forces driving attitudes towards the arts.
The four vector model is not a definitive categorisation but is intended to provide a useful framework for understanding the sociological and political thrust driving various models, so as to inform and guide productive analysis and planning. The four vectors are themselves not absolute or mutually exclusive, and they invariably interact in the construction of any particular policy or practice. As demonstrated in Chapter 8, these four vectors can be applied to expose the attitudes underlying particular stances, policies and behaviours, attitudes which are normally implicit or un-stated and which need to be exposed if we are to cut through much of the obfuscation that pollutes arts discourse and contaminates policy.
Case study profiles presented in Chapter 6, like my earlier review of arts council history, assemble diverse data, which was in its original form distributed across multiple diffuse and often arcane sources. These profiles illustrate the diversity of LACs and their host communities, and the way these LACs grow out of and remain irrevocably characteristic of these communities and their individual cultures, and may provide a model for future investigation of other LACs.
Analysis of participation both in relation to these case studies and more broadly across the network (Chapter 7) illuminates some important aspects of the relationship between member and audience cohorts. These findings challenge accepted wisdom about the relationship between membership and audience, but confirm widespread informal observation of their common demographic specificity. Findings go beyond the usual categorisation of these cohorts as middle aged and middle class to identify
271 them as strongly representatively of a knowledge class along the lines defined by Bennett, Emmison and Frow (See Chapter 7.6)
I further draw together notions of the knowledge class, the creative class, and global elites, which derive from different theoretical constructs and are not precisely co- incident, but which are nonetheless largely congruent, and associate them all with Bennett et al’s construction of omnivorous cultural consumers. Whether or not the arts council movement, or individual LACs, are content to accept this characteristic member and spectator profile, is for them to decide. Generally they express – QAC certainly does – a desire to broaden their demographic appeal. The challenge in doing so, is then largely a matter of inducing univorous consumers – those not embraced by the knowledge class profile – to engage in a broader range of cultural activity or consumption.
The key point is that arts practices and their cohorts are mutually defining and affirming. The lesson we draw from Bourdieu, and from many others since, is that if we try to change a cohort’s arts consumption, we are in effect trying to change its identity. That is why traditional approaches to audience development, which are based on relatively conventional marketing strategies, often produce limited and temporary effects. Effective and lasting audience developme nt requires intensive engagement and recognises that changing cultural consumption is not merely a matter of changing cultural products, it is a matter of changing deeply felt notions of personal identity, and the way it is expressed.
Analysis of demographic and membership statistics, in the light of geographic and economic factors, has also informed my categorisation of LAC sites as either Lifestyle or Labour (See chapter 7). This distinction provides a useful way of categorising communities according to their cultural strengths and deficiencies, and may, it is hoped provide a useful tool for guiding cultural planning and service provision.
What is notable about this very simple classification is how readily communities can be defined as either Lifestyle or Labour, on the basis of three key population related characteristics, and how consistently remaining characteristics conform. Once we
272 categorise a town according to its population, the population of its surrounding catchment, and its geographical isolation from major centres, we can with a high degree of confidence predict in general terms the age and gender distribution of the town’s population, and unemployment rates and average income relative to statewide norms.
Few communities within the study catchment cannot be defined in this way. In terms of the key three population related characteristics listed, very few communities sit within an intermediate zone. It is almost as though there were a steep watershed or tipping point which rapidly catapulted a community definitively into one category or the other, and unequivocally away from the intermediate zone. Such classification must be exercised with caution, and should not be inflexibly applied to any particular site, but it nevertheless provides in broad terms a very good indicator of the richness and variety of a community’s lifestyle, of the range of options and the degree of amenity its citizens enjoy, and of the investments, interventions and services, most likely to be welcomed and to deliver appropriate benefits to that community. It might for example be applied in tailoring investment and service priorities.
In Chapter 8, I have generally reviewed the effectiveness of LACs and identified some key attitudes and operating modes, both productive and deleterious. Many LACs operate at marginal effectiveness, as discrete cultural units not integrated socially, economically or politically into their communities, thus doing more to exacerbate existing community fragmentation, which is often significant, than to ameliorate it. Most LACs exhibit limited awareness of their own unrealized potential, either as cultural development organisations and CSOs in their own right, or in terms of contributing to the effectiveness of the arts council network as a whole. They generally see themselves as individual centres linked to QAC, rather than as nodes joined to each other by multiple associations within a complex network. There is much potential for greater tactical and strategic integration, more intense and intricate locally, and more robust and broad statewide.
The often noted decline in civic engagement is evident and widespread, but it is an associated symptom of underlying change, rather than a cause, of the decline in arts council participation. Issues relating to civic engagement, and volunteering in
273 particular, deserve more dedicated research, but it is clear that despite the oft quoted decline in numbers, many people still want to volunteer. Retired people launch themselves into new forms of association, and older citizens often cling tenaciously to their existing civic connections, because they want to live meaningful lives, and feel they are doing something worthwhile for their communities. This is moderated by an increasing tendency for volunteers to shy away from open ended or long term commitment. Volunteers are more readily attracted to short term projects, which require defined and predictable commitment towards specific and readily achievable goals, within a limited time frame. What is essential is for the champions of each LAC to express a clear sense of the benefits it can contribute to community life, and to enlist the support of community minded citizens in pursuit of these benefits.
In Chapter 8, I have also provided a check list of key attributes that enhance local cultural leadership. I do not claim this to be absolute or definitive – like all such lists it provides one way, on the basis of a particular analysis, of representing reality – but I suggest it may be usefully applied in diagnosis, and in both remedial and strategic planning. Particularly important, is my characterisation of local cultural leaders as members, or latent or dormant members, of the floating global (knowledge class) elite, members who have for some reason chosen not to exercise their floating ‘international citizen’ option and relinquished their local cultural ties. Instead they remain ethically and responsibly engaged with geographically defined local communities. These people are critical to the culture of regional communities, and understanding them is vital.
9.4 Facilitating Regional Arts – Eight Observations
We might think of the transitional findings previously discussed as depth soundings in a confused and turbulent estuary. We will need many more soundings before we can draw a clear map, but river and ocean tides fluctuate and the gutters and sandbars shift constantly, so any map we draw will need to be constantly revised.
In this section, on the basis of the transitional findings, I have crystallised a set of observations which might inform future action in the study domain. Each addresses a
274 set of critical concerns or issues related to the policy and practice of regional arts facilitation. They are:
1. Individual people, and communities, generally prefer to set and manage their own arts/cultural agendas, rather than have them determined and managed by other people somewhere else; 2. Activities promoted and managed by QAC and LACs can contribute to the culture of communities so as to deliver substantial and enduring benefits which foster and nurture creative community culture, and contribute to community sustainability; 3. Different LACs, through their practice, apply various functional definitions of the arts, whether or not they have consciously formulated or delineated them, and so attract different cultural cohorts; 4. Artistic activities and institutions engage a range of stakeholder groups who have different reasons for becoming engaged, and who pursue their interests in different ways; 5. Different forms of investments and activities generate different categories of benefit, and consideration of these categories of benefit can guide investment and programming in the arts; 6. LACs that are well integrated into their communities, generating greater community engagement and support for their activities, are able to undertake more ambitious activities, and generate greater impacts within their communities; 7. Critical to integration, and in particular to the success of major initiatives, is the enlisting of local ‘movers and shakers’ – that is social, economic and political elites – in support of the arts; 8. Effective artistic facilitation requires a strategic long term approach founded on integrated planning, investment and development, sustained over many months or years.
I briefly discuss each of these observations, explicating by reference to foregoing discussion of QAC and LACs. Major issues, concepts or topics may be viewed from various perspectives, and so feature in more than one observation. Major topics are interrelated, and can be approached from different directions. The way I have
275 disentangled and exposed them for discussion here is only one of many possible ways, so my eight observations constitute only one possible configuration.
Two or more observations, for example, might have been combined. The fourth observation, which recognises diverse stakeholders, could be seen as a restatement of the third, which acknowledges that evolving definitions of the arts also define relevant cohorts – stakeholders defined by the fourth might be considered largely co- incident with the cohorts defined by the third, but they are not the same, and the articulation of two separate observations is important because they clearly focus attention on different aspects of the engagement of these groups.
Similarly the stakeholders acknowledged in the fourth observation are re-visited in a different context in the fifth, which stresses, not the interests of stakeholders per se, but the specificity of benefits that activities generate for different stakeholder groups, and this leads towards the important principle that activities should be evaluated in terms of the specific benefits they deliver. The fourth observation is essentially about cultural plurality and inclusiveness; the fifth is about the allocation of limited resources to shape programming. They are related, but two observations are required because they make two distinctly different points.
There are similar overlaps between the sixth and eighth observations. The sixth deals with structural and strategic integration, and the eight might be interpreted in terms of integration over time. It is also possible to see the seventh observation, which recognises the functions of ethical and responsible elites, as a subset of the sixth. There are many other overlaps and interactions between the observations. The desirability of local agenda setting and programming (observation one) might for example be discussed in relation to each of the other seven observations. I have settled on this configuration not because it is definitive, not because it represents any absolute typology of categories evident in the phenomenological world, but because organising key issues in this way highlights them in ways most likely to illuminate the channel and guide navigation.
276 The differentiation between them may be more clearly understood by focusing on a single core issue at the heart of each. Thus they can be seen as statements which in turn address: 1. local autonomy 2. ubiquity of benefits 3. plurality of practice 4. diversity of stakeholder interests 5. specificity of benefits 6. integration into community 7. contribution of elites 8. planning and investment timeframes
While I have chosen to articulate these observations within a Cultural Industries framework, they might have been articulated under the broad rubric of Community Cultural Development (CCD), or in terms of Community Capacity Building (CCB), Community Development, or Community Revitalisation. The eight observations and the Creative Community Culture towards which they are directed remain valid under any of these general paradigms. In the following section I discuss each of them briefly.
9.4.1 Observation #1: Individual people, and communities, generally prefer to set and manage their own arts/cultural agendas, rather than have them determined and managed by other people somewhere else.
This is the most fundamental observation, congruent with life in a democratic and pluralist society. It accords with the general principle that authority and responsibility should as far as possible lie in the hands of, and decisions should be made by, those most directly affected by them. It recognises an inevitable tension that arises whenever decision makers anywhere – and by definition these decision makers are elites – make decisions or institute policies or programs that impact on the lives of others.
We might ask: who has the cultural power; who talks and who listens; who makes decisions; and whom do these decisions affect? This observation relates not only to
277 governance or admi nistrative issues, but encompasses the preference for local production, for expression of local values, local voices, local experience, local stories and local aesthetic tastes.
Where central decision makers are geographically remote, or otherwise alienated from those whom their decisions affect, there inevitably arises a certain degree of what Rhodes (1999: 20) describes as “ambiguous confusion” in the assumption and exercise of authority between these central decision makers, and those distant agents who enact and administer policy. This has both a practical governmental and a more ethereal cultural dimension. Thus under the original structure, QAC expressed towards its regional branches an attitude that combined respect and condescension, an attitude at times similar to that demonstrated by bureaucratic colonial masters over thousands of years. (Elvin, 2004: 241)
Under the new network structure autonomous LACs, serviced and supported through the network, provide potentially the ideal mechanism for the delivery of arts related products and services, and the facilitation of locally generated and managed activities. At their most effective LACs can nourish, nurture and support Creative Community Culture. Whether an LAC desires to do so, or whether that is what its host community desires it to do, is another question. The assumption that this is a desirable course, as incontrovertible as it may seem in the context of this thesis, is itself an instance of centralised agenda setting or hegemony.
This thesis itself, along with its list of eight observations, represents an attempt to establish a meta-discourse which will extend a coherent set of understandings across a diverse and complex field. It thus at least implies some legitimacy for command and control governance modes, yet it also asserts cultural plurality, and devolved governance and regional autonomy. The thesis thus reflects tensions that both structure and transgress the field of regional arts.
The arts council network provides effective mechanisms for the management and amelioration of these tensions, and negotiation of agendas between QAC and LACs. How effectively it does this depends on how effectively its channels operate to carry network traffic in the service of different network functions at various levels. The
278 most explicit network function has for many years been the distribution of arts products and facilitation services.
For more than forty years QAC has struggled to manage the correlation between supply and demand – that is to reconcile what it desires to and is able to provide with (a) what it expects regional constituents to patronise or consume, and (b) what they subsequently do patronise or consume. When regional constituents had little to choose from, QAC found a ready audience/market for what it chose to tour. But as regional constituents have been provided with a broader range of cultural options they have become more discriminating, requiring QAC to increasingly tailor products and services to market segments.
Products and services are exported from the centre for distribution through peripheral nodes, while box office returns and other forms of feedback are returned from peripheral nodes to the centre. Box office is the principal form of regular institutionalised feedback. It is unequivocal and context specific, but because it is inevitably post-event, it has little short term application on programming which generally operates on an extended cycle, often of twelve months or more. Other mechanisms providing feedback, such as regional forums, seminars, membership surveys, and so on – this thesis might be considered another – are essential, but none of them have the concrete impact of box office in terms of their immediate capacity to impact on the organisation’s daily operations, and even its long term financial viability.
Supply and demand do not represent mutually exclusive or oppositional vectors, but are correlated and reconciled through the network. It is useful to think of QAC’s recent structure and program reforms in terms of a shift from the delivery of products and services driven primarily by supply, to the delivery of products and services driven by demand. This shift makes the Ontour byrequest ‘order-from-the-menu’ mode of programming particularly apposite.
By providing a menu of performances, exhibitions, classes, workshops and other developmental activities from which LACs can order, the Ontour byrequest business model provides the most effective way for QAC to operate as a provider of
279 customised arts related products and services tailored to the demands of niche markets across a range of communities. That is the model’s strength. Its weakness is that – as the ultimate form of niche marketing – it is expensive, in terms of both human and financial resources.
Information is the lifeblood of the network, and if the network is to operate effectively as more than a hub and spokes for distribution – if is to operate effectively as a CSO – information needs to flow freely both to and from the centre, and between the nodes. Feedback and negotiation need to be recognised as equal in importance to the outward flow, and they need to be incorporated into diagnosis and planning. However there is an apparently inevitable tendency for the centre to prioritise outgoing traffic.
Thus QAC’s members’ newsletter Ontour functions almost exclusively as an organ of corporate proselytising, and expresses little of members’ attitudes or voices. Regional content is presented from a metropolitan corporate point of view, filtered through QAC’s metro-corporate frame. A common regional response to Ontour is that there is too much QAC metro-corporate content, “telling us what nice people they all are.” The newsletter is professional and slick, and some regional members are affronted by the apparent expense. It gives them the impression, rightly or wrongly, that QAC has its priorities wrong.
Communication channels and networking options are evolving rapidly. Some 68% of members in case study sites currently use the Internet. Enhanced access and the decreasing cost of advanced technologies present new opportunities, including electronic newsletters, chat rooms, bulletin boards, video links and so on. QAC was initially slow to take up some of these options, but has recently begun to take a more progressive stance. There are, and will be other opportunities embracing community radio stations, community and cable television, live video links, virtual reality and so on. The network has barely begun to explore the options.1
1 It is worth noting that the QAC branch network and television spread across the state around the same time. There was then no apparent thought of constructive engagement between the two – Arts Council was committed to live performance – and commercial imperatives that drive the television industry ensured there was no opportunity for a small producer like QAC to subsequently become involved, but the constantly evolving communications environment will present new opportunities.
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Most QAC branches successfully negotiated the transition to LAC, but few have so far made the important psychological shift that will allow them to become effective CCD agencies, or Cultural Industry Support groups. While some LACs are very active, and many contribute to the quality of life and lifestyle of their communities in significant ways, the efficacy of many individual LACs is hampered by: (1) a lack of vision and strategic planning; (2) insularity and detachment from the broader community; and/or (3) limited human and financial resources.
QAC can provide guidance. For LACs founded since the restructure, it has introduced new and comprehensive affiliation procedures which effectively address the three issues listed above by mandating strategic planning, community engagement and local institutional support as prerequisites for affiliation. It is envisaged that the implementation, and possibly the retrospective application, of these new affiliation requirements will gradually produce a new, although possibly smaller, generation of vastly more effective LACs.
LACs currently receive limited mentoring or advice in governance. They could benefit from the provision of detailed procedural manuals and operational guidelines, detailing for example how they might most effectively promote, support and manage activities, manage finances, liaise with other organisations and form partnerships. A resource package along the lines of The Promoter’s Don’t Panic Pack produced by the National Regional Touring Forum in the United Kingdom, could include sample letters, press releases, funding applications, project descriptions, proposals and so on.
The independence of LACs has been achieved with few jurisdictional disputes. Those that have emerged, around issues such as letterheads, corporate branding, administration of membership, and ticket sales, have been resolved amicably.
Other issues are sure to arise over time. Key to their resolution is recognition that their contention emerges within and is symptomatic of the persistent cultural chasm that divides city and bush. Even apparently trivial issues can carry considerable symbolic import, and their implications may be more concrete and more significant than they appear.
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Underlying dissonances and tensions manifest in a range of attitudes and dispositions. They lead on one side to disgruntlement and cynicism about the motives, directions and management of centrally determined policies and programs, and on the other side to the perception that regional agitators are unrealistically demanding, have a ‘chip on the shoulder’, and are impossible to satisfy.
There is a perception amongst many regional members that QAC is not as friendly as it used to be. Many members lament the reduced personal contact they have with QAC professional staff since budget stringencies have forced a reduction in staff touring, and in particular since abolition of the position of Branch Development Officer. Regional members particularly value face-to-face conversation, and they appreciate the effort taken by metropolitan staff who visit their communities, but they also tend to regard ‘flying visits’ as token, and they view such tokenism with contempt. Metropolitan staff need to make repeated visits, or extended visits, if their interest is to be regarded as genuine.
QAC’s quest for corporate sponsorship, and its attempt to meet sponsors on equal terms, have a downside. Adoption of a corporate face, coherent corporate identity and corporate culture, implies a centralising movement counter to the decentralisation upon which the organisation now founds its credentials in the regional arts field. As the organisation adopts corporate values, strategies and language it risks alienation from the values, priorities and language of the regional members who are its primary stakeholders.
QAC seeks to remain responsive to the interests of individual LACs, evaluating them against the interests of the statewide constituency, and against corporate considerations related to its own effectiveness and sustainability. Tensions inevitably arise here, because democratisation of the LAC network, and the decentralisation of cultural production inevitably conflict with the need for centralised control sufficient to retain organisational coherence. These tensions are likely to increase as autonomous LACs evolve in concert with their constantly evolving individual local environments, and the network as a whole thus becomes increasingly diverse.
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9.4.2 Observation #2: Activities promoted and managed by QAC and LACs can contribute to the culture of communities so as to deliver substantial and enduring benefits which foster and nurture Creative Community Culture, and contribute to community sustainability.
From inception, this thesis, and the project underlying it have been informed and shaped by the conviction that the arts have an important contribution to make in regional communities, many of which struggle, even wilt, under the manifold impacts of multidimensional social, economic and political change.
Because of the way they grow out of and contribute to culture, the arts are both symptom and driver of community culture. They contribute to quality of life, widely recognised as a major factor in attracting people to a community, and in encouraging them to stay. This particularly applies to the young adults who give a community its vitality, and the highly skilled workers and knowledge workers on whom much economic wealth depends. As culture becomes increasingly technological and knowledge-oriented the contribution of these groups will become more critical.
Because the arts employ creativity and innovation as a response to the world around us and the lives we live in it, as they entertain us and refresh our life spirit, they also have a special potency to help us understand and address important issues. They can guide people and communities towards self-awareness, deliver critical insights, expose and explore problem issues, and propose solutions. They facilitate expression of identity, asserting particular local values, characteristics and variations in the face of stultifying global uniformity. They provide quality of life and lifestyle options that are rooted in local experience, and not dependent on participation in the vast homogenising and depersonalising world system of generic and pre-packaged options determined in accord with value systems constructed elsewhere.
Communities offering a rich lifestyle with diverse leisure and entertainment options are better able to attract the people they need in order to prosper. People in these communities generally indicate greater satisfaction with the quality of their lives, enjoy greater mental and physical health, and benefit from lower rates of crime than
283 people in communities offering more limited options. Arts-rich communities are also more attractive places to visit, attracting travellers and tourists. These visitors bring economic benefits, stimulating enterprise and growth, as well as contributing to the further diversity and richness of local culture.
Arts-related facilities and activities become gravitational poles, drawing together creative and active community minded people, and contributing to a self-sustaining cycle of energetic and creative engagement that can benefit entire communities. Outcomes can include strengthened personal and social networks, innovative community events and social, educational or health programs, creative solutions for everyday problems, and enduring artistic and entrepreneurial ventures.
The arts have a particular contribution to make in smaller communities where lifestyle options are more restricted. This is clearly evident in the level of arts council participation in Lifestyle and Labour case study sites. The key difference between these sites lies in the range of lifestyle options they provide. Arts council participation is proportionally far higher in Labour sites, which have small isolated populations and offer limited lifestyle options. Participation is lower in Lifestyle sites, which have larger populations, are more connected to other communities, and provide a broader range of lifestyle options. Arts council is also more highly valued by members in Labour sites, who are more satisfied with what it offers than members in Lifestyle sites.
Even with subsidy and other forms of support, only Queensland’s largest cities have the population base to support substantial production companies and specialised artistic forms. A few larger regional centres such as Townsville or Cairns, have shown they can sustain highly professional and widely respected performance companies operating on a more modest scale. Arts activities are more restricted, both in diversity and scale, in small and isolated communities because they cannot regularly provide the participation or audience base needed to sustain many specialised artistic forms and practices. But even the smallest of these communities can sustain a range of small scale arts activities – from individual pursuits such as painting and pottery to ambitious group endeavours such as occasional cabarets and theatre restaurants – and these activities in turn enrich and sustain community life.
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Creative Industries theory recognises the arts as an engine propelling industry and commerce, and the Cultural Industries paradigm which I have adopted here, recognises that the arts generate and shape vigorous and fulsome human cultures. In Queensland these discoveries were rolled together as the foundation underpinning the Queensland State Government’s Creative Queensland cultural policy, released in 2002.
The concept is not entirely new. I have noted that prior to the Industrial Revolution in Europe and North America, the arts were generally more integrated into everyday life than they are today. The social reform movement that emerged around the time of the Industrial Revolution promoted two key ideas that are highly relevant to the argument today: (1) the reforming and elevating power and public benefits of art (2) the desire to integrate art and work. I have previously discussed the former. The latter, which foreshadowed Creative Industries arguments, was most clearly advocated by William Morris whose then radical views entrenched creativity at the core of productive work.
He was interested in a society in which popular control over both the means and the purposes of production would lead to different kinds of work and different kinds of production - and all work and production as creative and expressive. ‘Art’ would then be equally part of all work; it would be in the way of working; in the relations of work; and evident in the results of work. (Pearson, 1984)
Morris’s ideas have considerable relevance today as changing employment patterns – in particular the trend towards contract, part-time and casual work, the propagation of the portfolio career, and the recognition that many people will change careers several times during their working life – emphasise the need for all people to take a more creative and flexible approach towards sustaining themselves and their families. Creativity was seen to have little pertinence or application for the great majority of workers during the heyday of Fordist and Taylorist industrial models, but it has re-emerged as a desirable attribute for all in Creative Industries discourse, which explicitly harnesses creativity to entrepreneurial and commercial application.
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The re-integration of creativity into work and daily life along lines advocated by Morris, underlies the concept of Creative Community Culture. There is potential for Queensland’s arts councils to contribute more effectively in this direction than they have done in the past. Different forms of arts activity and arts facilitation produce different categories and scales of benefit. I turn to these in following sections.
9.4.3 Observation #3: Different LACs, through their practice, apply various functional definitions of the arts, whether or not they have consciously formulated or delineated them, and so attract different cultural cohorts.
Consideration of the way concepts of culture and the arts have evolved (Chapter 2), of the ideologies underpinning various models of arts facilitation (Chapters 3 & 4), and of the various activities promoted by arts councils in case study sites (Chapter 6) and elsewhere across the network, makes it clear that LACs today employ many different practical definitions of the arts, and there is thus great variation in the types of activity they consider legitimate. We are concerned here, not with abstract definitions of the arts but with activities which LACs across the state consider appropriate and worthwhile in their individual cultural contexts.
On the one hand Cooloola LAC emphasises popular family entertainment events such as free lunchtime concerts and Bands in the Park, on the other, barely an hour away by road, Maryborough LAC focuses much more narrowly on ‘art house’ foreign language films. In Tambo the LAC operates very much like a community service organisation, while Hervey Bay has a more social orientation. In Biloela the LAC is encouraged by its own community to restrict its ambitions to the importing of theatrical entertainment, while Moranbah LAC has attempted, with moderate success, to operate as an umbrella organisation for diverse artistic interests within a generally unsympathetic cultural environment.
Historical review also reveals major changes over time. During the golden years of touring, arts council was for everyone. Much in the spirit of the great era of vaudeville touring it offered popular entertainment on a large and sometimes
286 spectacular scale. Well promoted tours could be expected to draw a broad cross section of the community, in an era when there were relatively few alternatives, particularly in more isolated towns where QAC could take a blanket view of the market, yet harvest good houses.
Average audiences have been dropping steadily since the 1960s. A progressively more fragmented market has required that QAC’s programming recognise and target particular market segments. The blanket market has gradually given way to the niche, and it is not possible to simultaneously appeal to all niches. Servicing this market is more difficult and more expensive, and resources do not go as far.
While QAC is moving to attract new audiences for tours, sponsoring innovative youth activities for example, each LAC is free to choose whether it follows up on these initiatives to build its local membership. We can generally expect the existing LAC membership, and the LAC’s management group – the local leadership elite – to seek to perpetuate and extend the modes and styles of activity which first attracted them to the LAC, and to which they have become habituated. While they may wish to broaden membership, they may not necessarily feel comfortable with the changes required to attract a different or broader demographic.
Invocations of excellence must be unpacked and examined. We must ask: what are the precise criteria by which superior quality is measured; what is the relevance of these criteria to desired objectives; and what are the values that support and justify these objectives? However we must not dismiss excellence. As an indicator of degree it simply represents the attempt to reach standards of performance in targeted domains of artistic activity. It is in selecting those domains, and in determining the standards and the criteria by which we judge them, and resource their pursuit, that we legitimise excellence and give it concrete meaning within a specific context.
Arts practices and forms will continue to evolve in line with social and technological evolution. Definitions of the arts and associated policies mobilised in the regional arts sector must be flexible enough to evolve with them, and embrace innovative and relevant forms. For LACs the need is to engage comprehensively with their communities so as to ensure they remain informed, and in tune with and relevant to
287 community interests and tastes. For QAC the need is to embrace a policy broad and flexible enough to respond to and accommodate a diverse and ever changing catalogue of individual LAC and community needs.
9.4.4 Observation #4: Artistic activities and institutions engage a range of stakeholder groups who have different reasons for becoming engaged, and who pursue their interests in different ways.
It is clear from previous discussion that we can identify a range of individuals and groups who hold varied general and specific interests in the regional arts, and in whatever structures and processes are established to facilitate them.
This study has recognised a diverse range of persons, groups and institutions, who benefit from a strong regional arts sector, and from the work done by arts councils to promote and support regional arts activity. Most pertinent are the benefits that devolve to regional residents through impacts on quality of life and life style, most obviously through enhanced leisure and entertainment options enjoyed by direct participant/ consumers. Indirect benefits flow on to others, and to the community as a whole. By enhancing the built environment, contributing to a creative milieu, generating economic activity, and offering activities that engage, entertain, stimulate and excite, the arts broadly enrich cultural life, making a town or district a better place to live.
Others to whom benefits can be seen to flow include artists and arts-workers (frequently city based), arts administrators, managers and bureaucrats and others who provide ancillary services (also often city based), and politicians at all levels of government who are seen to be fulfilling their responsibilities to constituencies through their support for subsidies, services, touring programs, facilitation and educational programs, infrastructure development and so on.
Extended and public good benefits flow through cultural systems - social, economic, and political - via serpentine and clandestine channels, and filter through the membranes and structures of society so pervasively that they cannot be readily charted or measured. In the broadest purview beneficiaries can be seen to encompass
288 all Queenslanders, and even all Australians to the extent that the nation as a whole benefits from a rich and vigorous cultural life, and a healthy regional sector.
How the organisation apprehends, prioritises and reconciles the interests of these various stakeholders is a matter for internal resolution, and a key concern of management. There is no simple formula. The essential requirement is that policy makers and managers recognise the legitimate interests of a broad range of stakeholders, including various demographic cohorts which may have been excluded or neglected within regional communities.
In Australia, women participate in and patronise the arts far more than men, and it would be surprising if women didn’t dominate arts council membership. Women often lament the lack of male involvement in the arts, but at the same time they are generally happy to make the most of, and even revel in, their dominance of the artistic life of their communities. In Labour sites, the LAC and other arts associated groups typically provide a supportive and nurturing oasis of feminine culture amidst the overwhelming masculine environment that surrounds them. This may set the arts even further aside as ‘women’s business’ and reduce the LAC’s effectiveness as a community development organisation with broad relevance and appeal. Males of all ages are under-represented both amongst arts participants in general, and arts council members in particular, as are people of both genders younger than middle age (except for students who see performances at schools), Indigenous people and other mi nority groups. None of these stakeholder groups is homogenous.
Any organisation or agency becomes enmeshed within a network of interrelated interests within which it negotiates its course, and the organisation can itself be regarded as a stakeholder with its own interests. Firstly, we can see it as an agglomeration of individuals (directors, managers, staff and so on) who have a range of interests vested in it (current employment, future prospects, friendships etc) and its activities, direction and destiny. Secondly, the organisation has a more institutionalised interest which ensues from its more enduring structures, policies and processes, including its statutory identity, institutional history and culture, and formal strategies, missions, and so on.
289 Each organisation or agency can be likened to an organism – Mulgan (1998: 231) likens organisations to insects with their organisational structure on the outside – whose life force is an unwieldy agglomeration of the interests and ambitions of its internal stakeholders. This internal life force is moderated by internal relationships and processes. The net outcome is a virtual organism with its own determination to survive, to grow, extend its influence and power, and even to procreate. This is so whether the institution is an incorporated organisation such as an LAC, a private company such as QAC, or a government department, public company or some other form of institution or organisation or agency.
The organisation must remain viable as an organisation if it is to carry out its mission. If it focuses on its mission – its service agenda in the case of a CSO – to the neglect of its own corporate health, it will not be able to apply the resources needed to fulfil that mission, and may ultimately founder. On the other hand, intensive focus on corporate agendas risks distracting management, staff and resources to the extent that the organisation fails to satisfy its service agenda.
The tension between service and corporate agendas can be articulated in terms of competition for the organisation’s resources between stakeholder groups. McCambridge (2003) expresses the dilemma succinctly: “… should nonprofit governance be about the best interests of the community or the institutional interests of the organisation?” This is a difficult balancing act for management, and it is inevitable that an organisation such as QAC will sometimes struggle to get it right.
Sponsors, whether government or private, become influential stakeholders. They inevitably expect some return for their investment, and their authority is such that management cannot afford to discount their interests. Indeed, they are more appropriately seen, not as sponsors, but as partners, and the more of these sponsor- partner-stakeholders there are, the more complicated the dynamics of benevolence and vested interest become, the more balls the CSO has to juggle, and the more difficult it becomes to keep them all in the air. This can distract the organisation from its mission, that is from the interests of core stakeholder group. This has become a significant issue for QAC in recent years, as reduced government funding has increasingly forced the organisation to turn towards corporate partners.
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As they grapple with the dilemma of reconciling stakeholder interests, organisations make difficult decisions about allocating limited resources towards objectives that may be convergent and divergent or synchronous and asynchronous, to various degrees. A key task of management is to mediate and manage these complex interacting and competing interests, and to create an awareness of overriding mutualities of interest, for these ultimately provide the organisation with its only reason for existing.
9.4.5 Observation #5: Different forms of investments and activities generate different categories of benefit, and consideration of these categories of benefit can guide investment and programming in the arts.
If we are to advocate the arts, we need to be able to explicate the benefits they generate. If we are to argue for or justify investment in facilitation of the arts, we must be able to show that these benefits are significant, and that they are commensurate with the investment or effort we advocate.
Our arguments will be more cogent if we explicate benefits in specific, concrete and verifiable terms. While the nature of the benefits we are dealing with, and the diverse ways they manifest and permeate society makes them difficult to measure or validate precisely in empirical terms, there is a growing body of evidence from many sources that allows us to specifically attribute specific benefits to various activities. (Chapter 3)
It is important that we do this wherever we can. Much advocacy of the arts, the cultural rights argument is a prime example, relies on a broad and indiscriminate justification of the arts as a self-evident good. While broad arguments of this type may be philosophically, morally and ethically sound, they carry little weight in countering philistine arguments, and help little in clarifying partisan arguments. (Chapter 3.2)
Both philistine and partisan arguments may be more effectively countered by a rationale which embraces diverse arts activities, and justifies them in terms of
291 specific benefits to stakeholder groups. For example, the touring of arts product, which has always constituted the largest part of QAC’s program, has in recent years been the facet most under attack from those who argue that tours indulge the entertainment tastes of an elite and already privileged minority, and who would like to see resources directed elsewhere. Attempts to defend touring in terms of cultural rights merely fuel the arguments of these critics who maintain that the cultural rights of less privileged citizens are being ignored while the already privileged are further indulged.
However evaluation of touring in terms of specific impacts recognises a more complex regime of benefits extending to different community cohorts. Most obviously tours do satisfy the entertainment interests of direct participant-consumers. Whether or not these people constitute an already privileged elite will vary according to the audience appeal of individual tours, and according to which people within any particular community are defined as elite. According to the concept of specific functional elites which I have applied here, a diversity of elite individuals is essential to the effective functioning of any community, and QAC tours which enrich the lifestyle of a community, may help retain these elites, and so contribute to community sustainability.
QAC tours also provide a base level of activity in communities where LACs exist. They lift the profile of LACs, lend them credibility and kudos within their communities, support their membership efforts, and provide a ‘pay-off’ for volunteers. They can thus be seen as essential to the sustainability of the entire arts council cultural network, and they provide inspirational and educational exemplars for local artists and other cultural producers.
Evaluation in terms of specific benefits reinforces the need to prioritise new modes that generate local participation, or are associated with workshops or other developmental activities – such as collaborative creative ventures, mentoring, artists’ residencies and various other forms of interaction – which produce greater residual benefits in terms of community cultural development outcomes. These types of program have the capacity to generate widespread community interest, and can generate residual impacts that contribute to Creative Community Culture. They are
292 however expensive to develop and deliver because they are more specific in applicability and not so readily amenable to ‘one size fits all’ broad scale touring.
Evaluation of benefits suggests a similar shift for school programs. Schools and teachers expect more than ever before from co-curricular programs, and QAC offerings compete with many private sector operators, as well as schemes such as the Priority County Areas Program (PCAP), which provides remote schools with substantial funds and flexibility to design and implement co-curricular programs to meet their own specific needs.
But QAC has always been more than a manager of tours. It is a complex organisation, and its spread of functions across product development, entrepreneurial touring and the encouragement and facilitation of locally initiated activities has always posed a conundrum as it strives to manage the diverse roles of: (1) a peak body providing advocacy, promotional and governance services to the regional arts constituency and specifically to LACs; (2) a subsidised entrepreneurial touring company providing arts products and services to communities; (3) a specialist provider of arts in education services to Queensland schools, in partnership with Education Queensland; (4) a facilitator of locally initiated or managed activities; and (5) a manager and deliverer of federal and state government funding, and cultural development programs.
While there are significant convergences between these functions, there are also important disjunctions, and programs compete for internal resource allocation. The competition is intensified by internal political agendas, ambitions and turf wars endemic to every organisation.
QAC’s mission of Arts Access Statewide does little to resolve the dilemma. The strength of the access mission, that it is a ‘catch-all’ sufficiently broad to encompass all the organisations activities, is also its weakness. It is highly ambiguous and value neutral. It does not suggest the particular benefits that flow from various activities. Like the cultural rights rationale, it is too broad. Drucker (1999: 36) identifies adhering to such a broad or “lofty” objective as the first of six “Deadly Sins in Public Administration.”
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Programming decisions inevitably have resource implications, and the evaluation of activities in terms of specific benefits to particular stakeholders, will provide cost- benefit equations to guide difficult decisions. This can contribute towards greater integrity and coherence across programming strands. A cross-programming initiative between Ontour inschools and Ontour onstage, which reduced OTIS touring costs while offering in-theatre experiences to secondary schools students through OTOS is an example. There is also further potential for touring programs to interact, share, combine and extend resources, feed into each other and collaborate on development.
Thus specific benefit analysis can both justify a range of activities and inform internal planning, in particular program design and resource allocation, for organisations with complex agendas. It allows facilitation to be tailored to the needs of diverse communities, whether taking into account generally the difference between Lifestyle and Labour communities, or more specifically the particular needs of individual communities.
In weighting these benefits, we might be guided by some general principles explicit or implicit here or elsewhere amongst these observations, such as that: active participation is more beneficial than passive consumption; that mentoring and project oriented development which provides training in context is more productive than dissociated skills development and training; and that emphasis should be on local production, local values, and local interests and agendas.
9.4.6 Observation #6: LACs that are well integrated into their communities, generating greater community engagement and support for their activities, are able to undertake more ambitious activities, and generate greater impacts within their communities.
The Cultural Industries framework advocated by Roodhouse (2001) embeds the arts in the everyday, as a key component of the overall cultural framework that surrounds, supports and shapes our lives. It encourages us to think of arts councils as cultural industry support organisations, key development organisations thoroughly integrated into their communities, and contributing to the wealth, vigour and
294 creativity of daily life. Any intervention or stimulus applied to the arts will have consequences that extend beyond the arts, and interventions or actions that impact more generally on the community, will also have consequences for the arts.
For QAC, this means that engagement with government policy makers and functionaries across the range of policy portfolios, arts industry and other corporate and private interests, at both state and national levels, is essential to its function as a lobbying and advocacy body. QAC supports LACs, and fosters and facilitates strategic relationships across the state through agreements and understandings with peak organisations, such as the Protocol Agreement with the Local Government Association of Queensland (LGAQ) renewed in 2003. QAC has also engaged with Arts Queensland (especially in relation to RADF committees), the Regional Museums and Galleries Association, and other regional organisations. There is room to amplify and intensify this engagement, and to extend it to other regional service providers such as government departments concerned with community, family, health and lifestyle, corporations and businesses with regional interests, the state- wide network of local government employed cultural development officers, and so on.
For LACs, as local agencies relying on community support, the need is to engage with other community agencies such as local governments, local business and corporate interests, service clubs, charities and so on, and to generally engage a broad cross-section of people, to forge alliances, partnerships and links , and to support a range of arts and cultural activities that interest people across their communities.
They can increase constructive community engagement, gain access to an increased range of resources, and amplify their potential effectiveness by forming strategic relationships with other cultural institutions, community organisations and businesses. Relationships with local government are critical because they can bestow significant legitimacy and kudos on an LAC as well as unlocking access to public resources and infrastructure.
295 Cooloola LAC in Gympie shows how strong relationships with local authorities can deliver significant events such as lunchtime concerts the huge Bands in the Park family days, which have been strongly supported by Cooloola Shire Council, other local organisations and businesses. Tambo LAC has established itself as a community service organisation and makes a strong contribution to community, at least in part because of strong links with the Tambo Shire Council. Maryborough LAC has so far, and against the odds, survived the advent of the $10 million Brolga Theatre complex, because it is strongly networked into the community through the influence of past president and current vice-president Rollo Nicholson. The decline of Atherton which has struggled to form a committee, shows the difficulties faced by an LAC that slips out of community networks.
There remains a great untapped potential for LACs to work with local RADF committees. Unfortunately in many communities these two groups have come to represent rival power bases and relationships between them are guarded, but there is no need for them to regard each other this way. Their interests need not compete, and they will generate greater benefits for their communities if they recognise common interests and collaborate.
If LACs are to operate effectively they need to become models of, and effective agents for social integration, for the bridging of difference, spreading of tolerance, cultivation of understanding, promotion of goodwill, and recognition and mobilisation of mutual interests. One community cultural worker defined her role simply as, “to spread tolerance in the community.” An effective LAC will be first of all an effective social institution, and it will encourage diversity of cultural and artistic practice within an overriding ideology supporting tolerance.
To do this, it needs to identify and affirm mutualities of interest, and a sense of shared lives and destinies, leading to enduring alliances and partnerships, and to do this, it needs to know its community. The most progressive LACs take a deliberate approach, conducting surveys of their members, and more importantly, of their broader communities, to determine their cultural interests and priorities.
296 QAC has always attempted to respond to constituency interests but because its constituency has been seen in terms of the membership, and because research has been limited to this constituency, research has generally served to perpetuate a cycle wherein programmi ng and membership mutually define and affirm themselves in terms of each other. QAC management is aware of this, and of the need to tap into the broader community, both through LACs, and possibly independently of them, bypassing restrictive LAC gatekeepers to engage directly with a broad cross section of the community. The recent series of Regional Leadership Forums, which reached beyond the membership into the community, was an important step in this regard.
9.4.7 Observation #7: Critical to integration, and in particular to the success of major initiatives, is the enlisting of local ‘movers and shakers’ – that is social, economic and political elites – in support of the arts.
This observation is largely implicit in #6, because effective engagement with other agencies, organisations and networks means dealing with them at the management or functional elite level, however the issue of elites is so contentious in the regional arts field, that it justifies particular treatment.
The key people in all human cultural contexts – social, economic and political – who occupy crucial positions, are by my definition elite. These are the people who exercise power and influence at the local level in the day to day affairs of the community. They also include all those who hold key positions in bureaucracies, local government, public agencies, companies and business etc. These are the people who get things done, and the social, economic and political structure of communities is configured around them. If LACs are nodes in the broader arts council network, then these elite individuals constitute the nodes of human social networks, and they need to be enlisted and mobilised in the interests of the broader community.
Failure to recognise that leadership is an elite function, allied with a denigration of elites – often politically driven – has undermined and inhibited much well meaning CCD investment. The history of QAC branches including those chosen for case study, shows that they have been strongest and most effective when local political
297 and business elites have been closely involved. It is critical that the most effective community minded people are enlisted into LAC management roles.
LAC management elites function as gatekeepers to their communities. As gatekeepers they almost invariably assume they speak for their communities, but unless they are engaged and representative, this is unlikely to be so. Poor gatekeepers often favour personal preferences and either extrapolate these to the broader community, or dismiss dissident opinions and tastes. On occasion, LAC gatekeepers who have not personally favoured a particular program have neglected to promote it, or even worked against its success.
It is important that an LAC management group consider itself broadly responsible to its community, and not only to a narrow clique or self-serving elite within that community. LAC managers are most effective when they view their role in terms of community service. Thus I have extended the notion of specific functional elites to that of ‘enlightened custodian elites’, by which I seek to draw attention to the ethical and moral responsibility that accrues to every elite.
Local cultural elites such as LAC managers might be considered as local cultural custodians. This is not so much an idealistic notion of the ethical regime that might apply in a perfect world, but a practical reality. It exactly describes the ethos expressed by enlightened LAC office holders, through their actions, in case study sites. In Maryborough, Rollo Nicholson who drove the campaign for the Brolga Theatre manifests genuine concern for the community, and for the practical consequences of the influence he wields within it. Others such as Neil Brown in Gympie, Lynley Paine in Moranbah and Marcia McCullough in Tambo similarly work on behalf of their communities.
It may be naïve to view their efforts as purely altruistic. As Atkinson (1989: 25) observes, altruism is best understood as a self regarding preference, but it nevertheless delivers real benefits. Behaviour patterns are most sustainable when they deliver both individual and community benefits, and one is not achieved at the expense of the other.
298 Managing the affairs of an LAC to contribute effectively to Creative Community Culture can become a full-time job. It takes extraordinary people to dedicate themselves to this extent, but without extraordinary people LACs merely subsist. Underpinning the dedication of these people is the recognition that when they volunteer for LAC, they are working primarily, not for the benefit of QAC, but in support of the cultural development of their own communities.
While individual persons are crucial, there is ultimately a limit to the energy and resources of every individual, and leadership founded on individuals will be brittle and unstable. Effective and sustainable cultural leadership is collaborative. Leading LAC personnel need to spread the workload and plan for effective succession.
The leadership of dedicated community minded people is the single most critical factor determining the extent of an LACs activities and its impact on community. Most LACs are driven by one or two dominant people. The personalities of these key drivers become the personality of the LAC. Commitment to community is their single most critical attribute. It is more important than a specific interest in the arts.
9.4.8 Observation #8: Effective artistic facilitation requires a strategic long term approach founded on integrated planning, investment and development, sustained over many months or years.
Sustained progress in any field requires a strategic approach. While the timeframe will vary according to the field of endeavour, and aims and contexts – I have broadly suggested many months or years – it is clear that pertinent timeframes are much longer than usually applied.
The lack of such a sustained strategic approach may be due to a combination of inertia and lethargy, a lack of vision or strategic awareness coupled with a preoccupation with short term aims, or simply a lack of resources, particularly finance, which make short term objectives an overwhelming priority and exclusive focus.
299 Many LACs do not live up to their potential because they drifted into life as incorporated bodies without a clear vision of what they could contribute to their communities. In the lack of such strategic vision, decisions are often made by default, policies are determined by the personal tastes and interests of incumbent leaders, and activities are unlikely to contribute towards widespread or sustained benefits to community.
A key concern for QAC, on which it has more intensely focused since its turn of the century restructure, is to encourage and support LACs towards a more visionary and strategic outlook, through professional development programs, mentoring and other guidance. QAC has, at the same time, itself adopted a generally more strategic outlook, witness the extended period of strategic review and planning that extended from 2001 well into 2003, and to which the research project underlying this thesis has also contributed.
The biggest constraint is funding, with governments at all levels increasingly reluctant to commit substantial funds on a recurrent or ongoing basis. There is an increasing tendency for government to fund capital works or provide seed funding for major projects, and then consider their obligations fulfilled, walking away and leaving institutions or managers to fend for themselves in the expectation that they should become financially self-supporting. In many instances this is unrealistic.
Regional advocates and representatives frequently complain about inconsistent, short term programming determined by political expediency. They condemn service organisations which deliver short term development projects that are not renewed or extended, and consider them not merely ineffective, but destructive in their impact on communities.
Since 1961, QAC has relied on substantial government and corporate funding. The first funding of 500 pounds was provided by the Queensland government in 1961 as a subsidy against losses incurred by the touring program. In the same year QAC also received 100 pounds from the Social Welfare Committee headed by Brisbane’s Lady Mayoress, and its first substantial commercial sponsorship, 200 pounds from The Telegraph newspaper.
300
QAC has, ever since, relied on a mix of government – both state and federal – and commercial contributions to subsidise its operations. In 2003, earned income made up 47% of a total ‘flow through’ budget of almost $6,000,000, while 2% came from corporate sponsors, and 51% through some form of government funding program.
Funds have been provided under a range of different programs, some as general subsidies absorbed into QAC’s budget to be directed where they were most needed, but increasingly tied to particular programs of specified duration, while some are managed or distributed by QAC in trust, and directed to external programs. Funding has at times been guaranteed for periods of several years; at other times it has been a year by year proposition. Government funding policies and programs are liable to vary at short notice, often dictated by electoral cycles and party politics. Corporate funding has been equally variable, affected by company policies and the commercial environment, and by government regulation such as the banning of tobacco advertising which ended major sponsorship from the Rothmans Foundation in 1995.
This has amounted to a highly complex, variable and unpredictable funding situation, which imposes insecurity and instability on QAC’s programs, and makes effective long term planning very difficult. It obliges the organisation to adopt a short-term approach, in which programs are determined primarily not by regional need, but by availability of government and other funding. This is detrimental to all programs, and in particular to developmental programs which demand extended commitment if they are to deliver sustainable benefits.
At the same time it has encouraged QAC to seek corporate funding. Whereas major sponsors such as Queensland Teachers’ Credit Union, or Thiess, were once content to have their names generally associated with worthy causes, there’s an increasing tendency for corporate sponsors to expect more directly attributable and concrete benefits. This requires QAC to associate its programs more closely with sponsors, seek relevance to their goals, adopt more explicitly corporate strategies, and present a corporate face.
301 Whether funding comes from corporations or government, it is often project specific, and bureaucratic demands in relation to application, planning, administration, justification and acquittal are formidable. They divert an organisation from its core business and can, at worst, be generally destructive of staff focus, performance and morale. Long term security and predictability of funding, directed towards appropriate programming and development, is for most arts organisations, the single most critical need.
9.5 A Framework for the Future
Keeping in mind the intention to produce concrete outcomes of practical relevance to the regional arts field, I have reformulated the eight preceding observations into a set of Eight Principles of Effective Regional Arts Facilitation. I do not claim these eight principles to be absolutely comprehensive, but together they provide a framework, against which we might measure phenomena in the real world of arts policy and practice. Individual principles may not be entirely new, but where they address previously well canvassed or argued topics they bring a new perspective grounded in disciplined research, and specify desirable process so as to bring clarity to complex issues.
The first principle, for example, emphasises local ownership of cultural policies and programs, which is a fundamental tenet of community cultural development and the general principle underlying the Queensland’s Government’s RADF scheme, but it also explicitly recognises a legitimate role for external governance: Effective regional arts facilitation asserts the primacy of a community’s internal configurations, agendas and processes, but apprehends these in the context of a broader cultural ecology, and acknowledges a legitimate role for external agents in terms of catalysis, support, counsel and governance.
Compare this with the second principle of Community Cultural Development proposed by Adams and Goldbard (2001: 14): All cultures are essentially equal, and society should not promote any one as superior to the others. The intent of these two principles is essentially the same. Both seek to enshrine the belief that culture belongs to those who live it, and that people ought to be able to determine and
302 manage their own cultural destinies. However, while my first principle is primarily about process, and makes no explicit value judgement, the Adams and Goldbard principle does make a value judgement, and it is so excessively broad and unqualified in its reach that is dangerously susceptible to enlistment in causes such as the legitimation of, for example, female genital mutilation, the stoning to death of unfaithful wives, or the waging of holy wars. My first principle is a more balanced and qualified statement which leaves room for negotiation between various regimes of cultural value.
The assumption which underlies my eight principles, and which should be constantly fore-grounded during any consideration or application of them, is that the ultimate purpose towards which efforts in the field of regional arts may be most constructively directed, is the facilitation of Creative Community Cultures. Such facilitation provides, I suggest, the most appropriate ‘mission’ for any cultural service organisation. This does not proscribe traditional arts council activities such as touring, or any other particular form of activity, but it does insist that all activities be justified on the basis of the benefit they deliver. Providing access is, on its own, not enough. The benefits of any form of support of facilitation cannot be assumed, but must be evaluated according to specific and verifiable residual impacts, and the contribution these make towards the fostering of Creative Community Cultures.
The Eight Principles of Effective Regional Arts Facilitation which emerge from this study are:
RAF Principle # 1: Effective regional arts facilitation asserts the primacy of a community’s internal configurations, agendas and processes, but it apprehends these in the context of a broader cultural ecology, and acknowledges a legitimate role for external agents in terms of catalysis, support, counsel and governance.
RAF Principle # 2: Regional arts facilitation can generate enduring benefits, and contribute to community sustainability, through fostering and nurturing creative community cultures founded on recognition of mutualities of interest, and interconnected destinies.
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RAF Principle # 3: Effective regional arts facilitation acknowledges contesting definitions and configurations of the arts, and it accommodates the evolution of these definitions and configurations, and the associated evolution of consequent cohorts of practitioners and audiences, and others engaged with them.
RAF Principle # 4: Effective regional arts facilitation recognises diverse stakeholders, whose interests variously converge and diverge, and it apprehends and accommodates these stakeholders and their interests in relation to each other, and within broader cultural contexts and the overarching mutualities of interest that these afford.
RAF Principle # 5: Effective regional arts facilitation is conceived, implemented and evaluated in terms of the specific benefits that particular forms of investments and activities generate for stakeholder groups, and it apprehends and evaluates these benefits both in relation to particular stakeholder groups, and within broader cultural contexts.
RAF Principle # 6: Effective regional arts facilitation is comprehensively integrated into broader cultural contexts – social, economic and political – across manifold cultural dimensions, at various scales, and through diverse mechanisms, processes and relationships.
RAF Principle # 7: Effective regional arts facilitation recognises the essential functions served by ethical and responsible elites in democratic society, and it enlists diverse social, economic and political elites into leadership and commissary roles, and mobilises them in the broad community interest.
RAF Principle # 8: Effective regional arts facilitation is founded on long term planning, recognises the importance of consistency and continuity in policy and praxis, with commitment sustained over time, yet remains responsive to multi- layered and evolving cultural contexts within which facilitation takes place.
304 These Eight Principles of Effective Regional Arts Facilitation are grounded in research specific to QAC, but they have also been informed by broader observation, encompassing other organisations and the relationships between them, across the cultural sphere. They are thus pertinent not only to Queensland’s arts council network, but more generally to other organisations and other interventions, and they may be seen to have some application in other spheres of regional service provision and governance.
It is my hope in concluding this study that the findings, observations and principles I have presented here will prove useful to the Queensland Arts Council, other agencies individuals and government policy makers; and that future researchers will be stimulated to test and refine them, through further scholarly studies in the field of regional arts facilitation.
305 APPENDIX A BRANCH / LAC FORMATION & RECESSION 1961-2004
The shaded panels indicate an operating branch. Some branches (eg. Alpha or Biloela) opened, went into recession, and reopened - sometimes more than once. A slash within the branch name indicates that the branch changed its name, or reformed with a new name. Several branches were operating before 1961, but as there are no formal records of those early years, and branch status was often uncertain – it’s unclear for example whether a branch was attached to the Sydney office or to Brisbane, and whether it was classified as a branch or a co-operating centre – I have not attempted to chart branches prior to 1961. Dates are approximate.
BRANCH or LAC 1961-1970 1971-1980 1981-1990 1991-2000 2001-04 Alpha Aramac Atherton / Tablelands Augathella Barcaldine Beaudesert Beenleigh Biloela Blackall Blackwater Bloomfield Boonah Boulia Bowen Brisbane Brisbane Valley Esk Bundaberg Burdekin Ayr Home Hill Burke Shire Cairns Caloundra
306 APPENDIX A
BRANCH or LAC 1961-1970 1971-1980 1981-1990 1991-2000 2001-04 Capella / Tri Towns Charleville Charters Towers Childers Chillagoe Chinchilla Clermont Cloncurry Collinsville Cooktown Crows Nest Croydon Cunnamulla Dalby Dirranbandi Douglas Dysart Emerald Gatton Gayndah Gladstone Glenden Gold Coast Goondiwindi Gympie / Cooloola Hervey Bay Herberton
307 APPENDIX A
BRANCH or LAC 1961-1970 1971-1980 1981-1990 1991-2000 2001-04 Hughenden Ingham Inglewood Innisfail Ipswich Julia Creek Kenilworth Kilcoy Kuranda Livingstone / Yeppoon / Keppel Coast Longreach Mackay Maleny Mareeba Maryborough McKinlay Meandarra Middlemount Miles Millmerran Mirian Vale Shire Mitchell Monto Moranbah Moura Mt. Isa Mundubbera
308 APPENDIX A
BRANCH or LAC 1961-1970 1971-1980 1981-1990 1991-2000 2001-04 Mungundi Murgon Muttaburra Nambour / Sunshine Coast Nebine Normanton Oakey Pittsworth Proserpine / Whitsunday Quilpie Ravenshoe Redcliffe Redlands Richmond Rockhampton Roma St. George Springsure Stanthorpe Surat Talwood Tambo Tambourine Mtn Tara Tarong / Kingaroy / South Burnett Texas Thargomindah
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APPENDIX A
BRANCH or LAC 1961-1970 1971-1980 1981-1990 1991-2000 2001-04 Theodore Tieri Toowoomba Townsville Wandoan Warwick Weipa Winton Wynnum Manly
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APPENDIX B
Seminal Statement by Sir Robert Garran, outlining the ideals of CEMA
This explanation of the origins and purpose of the Council for Encouragement of Music and the Arts – which was founded in 1943, and became the Arts Council of Australia in 1948 – by Federal President Sir Robert Garran, was published in the first edition of “The C.E.M.A. Review” in October 1945.
C.E.M.A. (COUNCIL FOR ENCOURAGEMENT OF MUSIC AND THE ARTS)
by Sir Robert Garran (Federal President)
The central purpose of C.E.M.A. in Australia, as of its namesake in Britain, is to bring art, in all its forms, to the people; to encourage them, not only to cultivate an appreciation of all that is beautiful in music, painting, sculpture, drama, ballet, and so forth, but also to express themselves in some one or other of the arts or crafts.
C.E.M.A. is based on the belief that art, in the widest sense of the word, is not a luxury for the few, but a necessity for all, in a community which aims to develop to the full all the faculties of its citizens and so enable them to make the best of life. In all this, the things on which public attention is chiefly focused (apart from security from war) are the fundamental economic freedoms: freedom from fear and want. The emphasis, in public discussion, is upon the hoped for material benefits: full employment, economic security, good housing, and so forth. These are very important and very necessary, but they are not everything. Material comfort and security afford opportunities for happiness and welfare; but they do not by themselves ensure happiness and welfare.
The idea behind C.E.M.A. is that to have a better world we must have better citizens: men and women who not only have full employment, but are happy in their employment: men and women who not only have abundant leisure, but know how to make use of it to develop their bodies and their minds. Post-war reconstruction must take account, not only of the material, but also of the cultural and the spiritual. And this is something for which we cannot afford to wait till all the material wants are fully satisfied: it should have equal priority with them.
In short, material comfort gives opportunities for a better life; but opportunities are not enough unless we know to grasp them. What C.E.M.A. in Australia is already doing so far as the means at its disposal allow, and will be able to do on a much larger scale with adequate financial support, is to help the people to use their opportunities to foster an appreciation of the cultural side of life.
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War conditions, both in the fighting services and on the home front, have led to remarkable manifestations of eager response to cultural stimuli. As an illustration, Dr. Malcolm Sargent has said, with regard to music, that the war has proved it to be, not a luxury entertainment for the cultured few, but a refreshing food for the ordinary man and woman in the street; and he testifies to the tremendous help given to thousands by contact with something immortal, at a time when it might seem that everything that mattered was perishing. And Dr. Sargent’s experience is matched by the experience of all who are labouring to-day in the cultural field.
C.E.M.A. was started in England, during the war, with the aid of a donation of £25,000 from the “Pilgrims” foundation. The immediate response was so striking, and the effect on morale, both in the services and among war-workers generally, that in the next year the British Government subsidised it to the extent of £50,000, and has since increased its support more than threefold. More significant still, the British Government has recently decided that C.E.M.A. must be continued after the war, and must continue to receive Government support, as an essential part of post-war reconstruction.
C.E.M.A. in Australia has no official connection with the British C.E.M.A. from which however it received its inspiration. Largely on the initiative of Miss Dorothy Helmrich, the well-known Australian singer, interest in the movement has for some time been growing. Divisions of C.E.M.A. have been formed in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, and the Australian Capital Territory, and steps are being taken to extend it to other States. Meanwhile, the existing Divisions have joined together to establish a Federal Council.
The start has been most encouraging. The New South Wales Division has been very active; some 20 branches have been formed in country towns and in industrial and other groups; and numerous festivals of the arts have been held, and more are being planned, in different centres. In fact, C.E.M.A. is being welcomed with an enthusiasm that indicates how much it is needed. In Melbourne recently, C.E.M.A. has sponsored the greatest festival of music, art and drama ever seen in Australia; for a whole week, morning, afternoon and evening, there was a continuous series of orchestral, choral and chamber music, plays, lectures and art exhibitions of various kinds. The zeal of the Victorian Division is being maintained, with, amongst other things, regular lunch-our talks and entertainments.
In Australia, C.E.M.A has hitherto been organised on somewhat different lines from the British. In Britian, as has been stated above, C.E.M.A. began with a substantial subsidy, and has been closely associated with the Treasury and Education departments. In Australia, with no such munificent backing, it has sprung spontaneously and democratically from the people, and has had to make shift with such voluntary contributions as it could collect, and cut its coat according to the cloth. In Britain, the set-up consist solely of one Council, which administers its funds.
312
APPENDIX B
In Australia, there is public membership of the organisation in the several Divisions and a Federal Council to which the Divisions send delegates. The Divisions have local autonomy, and the organisation will probably, to some extent, develop on different lines in the different Divisions, according to local needs, circumstances and ideas. But the aims are the same throughout: to bring opportunities for culture to the people everywhere, in town and country, in Army, Navy and Air stations, in camps, in industrial areas and groups, in fact wherever people, few or many, are gathered together for work or pastime or residence. The ways in which this can be done are capable of infinite variation and extension: for instance, by festivals of the arts, by encouraging local orchestras, choral groups, solo and chamber musical performances, dramatic groups, touring concert and dramatic parties, ballet, folk dancing, lectures, talks and discussions, art journals, lunch-hour talks and entertainments, exhibitions and so forth. And lastly, by encouraging the establishment of community centres for cultural purposes, with buildings suitable for music, drama, art exhibitions, and general rendezvous of the interested public.
It should be added that C.E.M.A does not compete with existing cultural organisations: it aims, not to supplant them, but to work with them and through them and help them in every way. What it has done in Australia with slender means is remarkable; what it could do if endowed to the extent of enabling it to establish a small full-time organising and administrative staff, is incalculable.
C.E.M.A. is not-political and non sectarian and has no affiliation of any kind.
313
APPENDIX C
QUEENSLAND ARTS COUNCIL STRATEGIC PLAN 2004 -2006
Mission:
ARTS ACCESS STATEWIDE
Vision:
We believe that the arts are an integral part of life.
The arts fabric is woven through the lives of individuals and of communities. Our vision is to strengthen that fabric and to tangibly enrich the lives of Queenslanders, no matter how geographically isolated, no matter how culturally diverse, with arts experiences which make relevant their sense of place in Australian society in the 21st century.
Corporate Philosophy:
Our corporate philosophy is to contribute to local community cultural development by creating, developing and presenting quality arts products and services statewide and by nurturing and supporting the growth of Queensland’s Arts industry. Inherent in the pursuit of this philosophy is the recognition of the significant role and influence the arts exert, economically, socially and educationally, in fostering the enjoyment and creative talent necessary for the development of our future arts practitioners and arts consumers.
GOAL 1: PROGRAMMING
SELECTING, DEVELOPING AND PRESENTING QUALITY ARTS PRODUCT AND SERVICES IN QUEENSLAND
OBJECTIVES:
1. Program a broad range of arts product and services, which appeal to diverse audiences and participants. 2. Attract individual artists and companies of the highest calibre to develop quality arts product and services. 3. Present a dynamic program of quality performing arts as valued learning experiences for primary and secondary school students and teachers.
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APPENDIX C
GOAL 2: TOURING
ENSURING STATEWIDE COMMUNITIES AND SCHOOLS HAVE READY ACCESS TO, AND THE OPPORTUNITY TO PARTICIPATE IN, A WIDE RANGE OF ARTS PRODUCT AND SERVICES
OBJECTIVES:
1. Develop the best statewide touring network to present quality arts product and services. 2. Develop the skills and resources of Local Arts Councils to initiate and present arts product and services. 3. Increase participation in, and attendance at, Queensland Arts Council events and activities through community cultural development and integrated marketing. 4. Raise awareness of curriculum relevance and accessibility of the schools touring program through stakeholder networks.
GOAL 3: PARTNERSHIPS
DEVELOP STATEWIDE ALLIANCES WHICH FACILITATE ARTS EXPERIENCES STATEWIDE
OBJECTIVES:
1. Strengthen and expand current and potential strategic alliances, which contribute to community cultural development and industry growth through the provision of efficient and appropriate resources. 2. Undertake partnerships with all levels of government to manage funds and grantmaking for the purposes of strengthening regional arts activity.
GOAL 4: CORPORATE EXCELLENCE
ACHIEVING CORPORATE OUTCOMES THROUGH BEST PRACTICE
1. Attract, train and retain the best team of people to achieve corporate outcomes. 2. Support staff and enhance communication and productivity through the provision of the most appropriate technology, administrative and financial systems. 3. Ensure the highest standard of reporting to the Board and stakeholders. 4. Position and promote Queensland Arts Council as a dynamic, progressive and contemporary leader in the provision of arts product and services statewide. 5. Obtain the financial resources necessary to achieve the organisation’s goals.
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APPENDIX C
GOAL 5: CAPACITY BUILDING
DEVELOPING THE CAPACITY OF REGIONAL COMMUNITIES TO ACHIEVE SOCIAL, CREATIVE AND ENTREPRENEURIAL CAPITAL THROUGH ARTS ENTERPRISE.
OBJECTIVES:
1. Mentor Local Arts Councils and individuals in communities to build leadership in the arts at a regional level. 2. Recognise the impact of locally driven issues in building social capital through the arts. 3. Encourage advocacy for the arts at all levels of the community. 4. Facilitate community participation in local arts events. 5. Demonstrate how arts and cultural activity can revitalise communities. 6. Develop the entrepreneurial skills of artsworkers in regional communities.
CORPORATE OUTPUTS:
1. Development and touring of a broad range of arts product and services to diverse audiences in Queensland. 2. Development and touring of a dynamic, curriculum relevant, program of quality arts product and services for Queensland primary and secondary school students and teachers. 3. Creation of employment opportunities for Queensland artists and artsworkers. 4. Development of a strong and effective statewide network of Local Arts Councils. 5. Initiation and participation in community cultural development projects intrastate and nationally.
KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS:
1. Increased attendance and participation in the Ontour onstage, Ontour inschools and Ontour byrequest programs 2. Increased revenue generation 3. Sound financial management 4. Increased media coverage 5. Client satisfaction survey 6. Local Arts Council effectiveness
316
APPENDIX D
SEVEN PRINCIPLES OF COMMUNITY CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT compiled by Don Adams and Arlene Goldbard.
As I have noted in Chapter 9.5, I consider these seven ‘principles’ not to be principles at all, so much as they are descriptive statements representing an ideal. I have briefly discussed issues arising from Adams and Goldbard’s second ‘principle’, and any consideration of their fourth ‘principle’ viewed in the light of insights gained in the wake of Bourdieu’s work, will confirm that cultural differences can, in their own right, be intensely polarising and divisive.
1. Active participation in cultural life is an essential goal of community cultural development.
2. All cultures are essentially equal, and society should not promote any one as superior to the others.
3. Diversity is a social asset, part of the cultural commonwealth, requiring protection and nourishment.
4. Culture is an effective crucible for social transformation, one that can be less polarizing and create deeper connections than other social-change arenas.
5. Cultural expression is a means of emancipation, not the primary end in itself; the process is as important as the product.
6. Culture is a dynamic, protean whole, and there is no value in creating artificial boundaries within it.
7. Artists have roles as agents of transformation that are more socially valuable than mainstream art-world roles – and certainly equal in legitimacy.
From Adams, D. and Goldbard, A. (2001) Creative Community: The Art of Community Cultural Development, New York: The Rockefeller Foundation, p. 14.
317
APPENDIX E
SAMPLE EXTRACTS FROM RESEARCH JOURNAL
I have selected the following extracts to provide a flavour of comments and reflections recorded in my research journal. Entries reflect the undirected flow of spontaneous thought and are consequently disjoined. I have resisted the temptation to tidy them up, or to make them more coherent. These comments reflect transitional mental processes as I thought my way through some of the issues, and they are not resolutions or conclusions, private or otherwise.
28.4.01
Writing is, as Alasuutari has observed, a way of thinking, and in this respect the discipline of a research journal demands that I reflect on my research processes in a more regular and disciplined, manner than I have so far. At the same time it gives me the freedom to reflect and speculate more broadly and loosely than I am able to do in formal documentation and reports.
I need to distinguish between what is (as far as it is possible to be) objective data, and what is the output of my own internal processes. Until now these categories have been dangerously muddled. Where there are no transparent mechanisms for data handling and processing, or no rigorous adherence to them, it is easy for subjective and idiosyncratic mental processes to distort and contaminate data. And where there are no clear guidelines for the categorizing and evaluation of data, it is easy for the researcher to unjustifiably prioritize experience, and succumb to what Silverman calls the “romantic impulse” to identify “experience” with “authenticity”. This journal will allow me to separate out my idiosyncratic responses and reflections, and it will clearly label them as subjective.
It will also provide an embracing paradigm for my methodology. Since everything I observe and record is to some extent moderated by my own intellectual and emotional processes, these processes need to be on record. In a very real sense I am the research project. Every aspect of data gathering, processing and analysis is moderated by me, filtered through who I am. Data is sorted and shaped by how I am – by what I know, how I think and how I feel – and I am much more than the research project. I will use, although it is some ways both inappropriate and repugnant, the metaphor of a machine. If I were a machine constructed for the purpose of conducting this research project, then we would have to conclude that I have been badly designed. I have many unnecessary parts and functions that are not, in any direct way, connected to this project: my attachments to family and home, my sexual interests, political skepticism and environmental concerns, and escapist tendencies that manifest in a love of cinema and books, my stumbling attempts to speak Chinese, my enthusiasm for good food and wine, and a tendency to lose spectacles and keys, and so on, and on, and on.
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APPENDIX E
Of course I am not a machine, but all these unnecessary “parts” are intrinsic to the entity of me. They interact in unimaginably oblique and subtle ways. Nor can I be disassembled or switched off like a machine. A more or less integrated whole, continually running, with no absolute differentiation between my parts and functions, I inevitably shape the research day by day, as I accommodate it into the whole amorphous mass of me/my life.
This journal is then an attempt to document and chart this amorphous and progressive mass. It will become, in a sense, both an embracing paradigm that defines the research project, and its reification.
28.4.02 On interviews
X was adamant on the need for complete transcription of interviews, and that these transcripts should subsequently be validated by interviewees. Full transcripts should be provided to interviewees who have the opportunity not only to correct errors of interpretation or transcription, but to revise and rewrite their recorded comments, in effect to change what they said, to re-write history. Now, I am aware, as a professional writer who has often interviewed people, that interviewees occasionally request to approve any final output prior to publication. I have sometimes allowed this. Certainly when working to a client’s educational brief, or dealing with technical issues, it has often been appropriate. But in other fields, news, current affairs or documentary, to the best of my knowledge, the request is almost always refused. Celebrities sensitive to their public image may sometimes refuse access unless they are allowed to review a text before publication, but even this is unusual, and surely it is a perversion when it occurs.
I can understand too that in academic studies, where the absolute clarity of arguments is an imperative, it is in the interests of both interviewee and interviewer, that an advocate be permitted to ensure that their positions and arguments are precisely and fairly put – and in order to assure this, it may be appropriate for them to go so far as rewording or rephrasing their comments, in short to “re-write” the interview. In this case the text is not a record of an interview, but the interview is simply a convenient way of producing the first draft of the text.
But this is surely a special case, and it seems to me quite perverse that as a normal course of events, an interviewee should be able to revise a record of interview. The record of interview is a historical artifact, and if we amend it (other than simply correcting any inaccuracies of transcription), then we are re-writing history.
319
APPENDIX E
I am loathe to relinquish the documentary impulse. My dramatist’s instinct also values what was said at any given time, whether in the heat of the moment, rashly in a rush of blood, ill formed, badly composed and barely articulate – it was true to the moment of utterance. The actor’s adage: be true to the moment.
If people speak badly, or clumsily, or obtusely, or show themselves to be idiots, then the record of interview should reflect that. I think for example of the trouble GG (Governor General) Peter Hollingsworth got into with his ill-judged comments about child abuse. Surely it was very important that what he said at the time was broadcast and published, not what he later wished he had said. His comments showed how out of touch he was with current thinking, and the public needed to know.
At the same time I recognize that my responsibility here, is above all to present an analogue of reality which is sufficiently valid to guide future action, and that if one of my respondents answers ABC when they really meant to say BCD, then, to the extent which ABC differs from BCD, my analogue of reality will be flawed, assuming that BCD itself represents a valid analogue of reality.
1.5.02
After my recent trip accompanying (a tour group) to (towns A, B and C) I presented a brief report with some key findings – an interim report with no particular status. I provided copies to several QAC staff.
Some time later, Y came to my office at QAC. He was I think quite angry – tense and very controlled and deliberate in his manner – but whether he was specifically angry with me or not I could not say. He took issue, by way of inquisition, into a comment at the end of the report which indicated that people in these towns felt they were being ignored. He seemed to take this as a personal criticism. He sought several times to find out whether all of the three LACs had expressed this view, and exactly who the individuals concerned might have been. He said – if not in these exact words – then clearly to effect of: I know who would have said that – and – Of course they would say that. You know they’re personal friends of ..... They all stood around and rubbed each other on the back.
The simple answer to Y’s question is no, they didn’t all say that – but individual members of each of the three LACs expressed, in different ways, using different words, and various different degrees, empathy with the point of view expressed. My mistake was in the way I conflated the data so as to confuse the issue of its origin. The finding remains valid, in so far as the attitude expressed is characteristic of many individual members of many different LACs, but is not necessarily held by all office holders or members of any particular LAC, and there may be some LACs where this view is not held by any office holders.
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30.5.02 On interviews ….. question of how research interviews are to be treated: as giving direct access to experience or as actively constructed narratives that reflect their social context (Silverman, 2000: p. 32)
This is a false dichotomy – of course an interview can be both – it does give access to experience, but that access may be more of less direct as it is moderated through the dynamics, not just of the interview, but of the respondent’s life. It is false and simplistic to imagine that the interview itself is the only context, or even the dominant context, that moderates the access to experience – experience passes through many filters, processed by the respondent in the context of his/her life before we even get to the interview. A sensitively conducted interview may be the least distorting of these influences.
(Silverman acknowledges this 1993, 24 – subject’s interpretation of social reality – why assume the subject/respondent can be objective or authoritative or that respondent’s interpretation should be privileged? Is this the blinkered politics of empowerment carried to an ideological end) Ibid: 83 we want to control the way others see us – even those whose opinion couldn’t matter less – also p. 159 “overt respondent validation is only possible if the results on (sic?) the analysis are compatible with the self-image of the respondents” (from Abrams)
5.6.02
WIT has recently returned from a tour - very enthusiastically received although numbers were disappointing. Some audience comments from Elizabeth’s book: From Alpha: – Terrific Show, the best part … no country or western – Loved it!! – Fantastic Show – could have listened all night. – GGGGREAT!!! ORIGINAL FRESH ENTERTAINING & FUN !! – We just don’t want to go home. From Mitchell: – Absolutely and totally enjoyable! Brilliant! – Well worth the 150 K drive. – Great show; we laughed non-stop. Please come back again. – Lots of laughs – very worth the 200K. From Mungindi: – You are the two most fantastic, inspirational women I have seen for ages and ages. I hope you really enjoy what you do, and you seem to. I really envy you. You will stay in my memory for ever. Keep smiling and bye for now. Love Bronte the pharmacist.
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From Dirranbandi: – You guys are better than sliced bread and sex! – What a gas. – Wonderful show. Please return. From Texas: – From the beginning to the end it was a roller coaster ride of fun, great songs and pure pleasure! Thanks. – What a fabulous show! You girls are sensational! Keep it up and come back. Thank you.
March 2004
Difficult getting away from the dramatic writing paradigm. Planting seeds and letting them flower only in the final resolution - ie. hiding and holding back their significance - here I need to develop logically and progressively - no secrets and no surprises to be sprung in the final chapter. It all has to prepared for and clearly built up to, and not make sense not only in retrospect, but at every step along the way.
Also tending still to seek out and present dichotomies, even though I have debunked them, because I intuitively seek to create dramatic conflicts. Hence I exaggerate, and I make intuitive leaps that are emotionally powerful or true, but not necessarily things I can justify intellectually, calmly and rationally. In dramatic writing it has to ring true emotionally - as Aristotle said (was it Aristotle, yes I’m sure it was) perhaps poetry is more true, more valid, than history, but here I am not writing poetry, not writing drama, all the intuitive leaps have to be justified, not by emotion, but by reasoned analysis of data. And I can’t exaggerate or invent for dramatic effect. I need to be responsible, fair, balanced, reasonable.
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SAMPLE DISCUSSION – E-MAIL EXCHANGE
The following is a partial record of an e-mail exchange I had with a regional respondent. The first letter is a response to my original approach.
E-mail received July 8, 2002.
OH DEAR, HERE WE GO AGAIN
Dear Michael,
I don't know why I subject myself to this but please let me know what your questions are and I might find time to have a go at answering them.
If you don't get many responses and you wonder why, it will probably be because we are sick and tired of trying to tell people in the city about what they don't understand, and watching while less than nothing happens. Looking at your address in Brisbane will not inspire confidence.
We have the same needs as you. But we live here, not "in the regions" but here, in our particular places.
We will only get somewhere when the power base actually moves, when some of the people who make decisions actually move out of the capital city and live and work in some of the rural or remote areas. If we attempt to change policy, what we end up doing is wasting more of our time which would be better spent just getting on with it and developing our own infrastructure.
We are also sick and tired of giving the bureaucracies the right words to do so they can describe in glowing terms their wonderful regional polices, on the strength of which they then get lots of lovely funding to spend on their programs with a token contribution to a few good-looking projects in a few major cities (the further-out regions within the regions miss out even more, as the centralist model works out here too.)
I must stop. I have a submission or two to write, an acquittal to do, a strategic plan to develop, and also a project to conduct with real people in the bit of time I might have left over.
Best wishes, X
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I followed up the above letter from X, making observations where I deemed them appropriate, and in turn received the following response in which the respondent has typed responses into the body of my previous mail. My observations are in italics; the respondent’s responses to them are in standard type.
E-mail received July 9, 2002.
Dear Michael, Yes I think you've got most of it right.
But paradoxically it's often not an issue of Policy so much as Personality and every day administrivia. People employed to serve the arts community just treat the people from the regions with disdain and rudeness, and probably don't even realise they do it.
Also there is an underlying assumption that artists in the regions are inferior. Now it is true that lack of resources and experience etc etc means that there is a very low number of high quality professional artists of any genre in any one region. However, those that are good are just as good as the city professionals (and have often worked in the cities anyway, or published or exhibited with national companies or galleries).
But that's another paradox. Regional institutions do end up with very parochial people (eg academics) who have got to the top yet never been out of the region to test themselves in the hard world so their skills are limited and their vision narrow. Also people who have escaped from the more competitive city because they really weren't good enough. A bit of exchange would be healthy.
Dear X, thank you for your mail. It is very helpful for me to have your opinions, and in particular to have them so promptly. If I understand you correctly, and I may be reading between the lines a little, you are saying that:
1: Research such as mine is almost certainly futile and will achieve nothing. There is too much talk about the issues and not enough action. People ask questions but don't listen to, or don't want to know, or don't act on the answers.
Yes.
2: On the other hand if policy makers did listen to you and take appropriate action, there would be some benefit, and so you have made the effort to respond to my invitation just in case it does some good.
Yes, but more likely I'm a masochist. And I'd feel guilty if I passed up the opportunity. And I like writing, and believe in what I say, and this puts off the other difficult things I have to do.
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3: City people are generally incapable of understanding, or don't want to understand, the way you live and what is important to you.
No that is a bit soppy. There's nothing particularly different about how we live but sometimes this idea is stereotyped and romanticised. And there's nothing particularly wicked about city people. Let's just say that all humans suffer from lack of comprehension of the way other people live, but city people with their peculiarities happen to be in the majority.
However this does apply to people living in rural and remote communities where life is very different and a lot of taken-for-granted infrastructure doesn't even exist. So for example if, as happened today, I find one of my clients has moved and her phone cut off, there's not much I can do to find quickly her as she is 600 km away (and I need her to contact me about a deadline this week.)
4: You value the specificity of your location and reject blanket terms such as "regional".
No, it is not the distinctiveness of the region being vital (parochialism). That's not my point, but a matter of fairness. Imagine that significant (but limited) allocation of "capital" resources was made by a group of country people with one city representative, meeting in Katherine, "to capital cities" and then arbitrarily handed out to one only of Sydney/ Melbourne /Brisbane/ Adelaide/Perth, while Katherine got access to about ten different allocations because of its large area of vacant land, and then government claimed that the capitals should be satisfied.
What happens is that an event is put on in say Townsville and because it is in the North people are expected to travel by $400 airfare or drive five hours from Cairns or all day from The Tablelands to attend. Meanwhile places three hours from Brisbane and less are still called "the regions" when it comes to consultation and allocation of funds.
5: You consider centralised city based departments and agencies to be top heavy and overly-bureaucratic. Too much money and other resources go into upper management, and not enough get to the people they are intended to benefit.
Yes but this is not an issue of regions, that is just bureaucracy versus grass roots. It applies to the city too.
6: There is a vast imbalance in resource allocation and development programs in favour of cities and larger towns, with the emphasis on "showpiece" developments rather than on things that will really make a difference for you.
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Yes, and also Tourism. And also often a failure to find and expose and encourage the truly local talent. This is often a matter of not being willing to spend the time to do the more complex thing.
7: Policy making is largely about city people furthering their own careers, and not about delivering benefits to the people the policies are intended to benefit.
See 5. Some people do it by coming to the regions to get on the step-ladder to success, believing they are god's gift to the bush, and they bruise a few local fingers on the way. eg the staff of regional galleries.
8: City based policy makers and managers are more concerned with image than substance. Politically correct language and jargon might be seen as one aspect of this.
Nothing wrong with political correctness, we could do with a bit more modelling of Politeness and Consideration in language. But an example of this is "Indigenous protocols" which are a good idea but developed by urban Murries and Others who have never been to the bush and fail to learn the complexity of life in a variety of rural and remote locations and cultural contexts, so do not reach first base. (I work with Indigenous people in the wider region.)
9: Bureaucratic requirements (submissions, acquittals etc), make excessive demands on you, and reduce the time and energy you have for the real things and real people that are important to you.
Yes but again this is not peculiar to the regions. It's the additional stuff that gets you down.
For example the occasions when a researcher or an arts bureaucrat (no, not you) calls a meeting to discuss local or regional issues. In good faith along go some of the arts luminaries and grass roots battlers to express opinions, and even when they are met with applause, the ideas are not even jotted down by the scribe. The meeting lasts an hour and there is no follow-up. The researcher or bureaucrat is paid a hefty fee or salary and the artists go along in their own time. This is not a once-off, but a common experience, and we get very pissed off and don't bother any more.
10: In a nutshell, you would be much better off if policy makers gave decision making power and resources to you and let you get on with the job.
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Well no, not decision-making power (too time-consuming) so much as useful skilful support people. EG Why is the only Queensland Writer's Centre in Brisbane? We asked for one when I lived in (town Y) and we could do with one in (town Z) or at least one somewhere here with a budget to regularly visit all sub-regions including small towns. Artists don't often want to be bureaucrats as well, because it does interfere with the main job.
Also when you mention resources, decent amounts of money. Spending hours to apply for and then acquit a grant of $2500 (even if it had been $5000 as requested) for a "regional fund" project when we weren't even allowed to spend any of it on administration or coordination was an insult and a pain. The time spent just getting it would be $2500 if paid at a public servant rate of pay.
Is there anything you would like to add, remove or correct?
You'd better not quote me by name as I'm not the most popular person because I say these things (or used to) but I still want to get my projects funded. If you want to test the ideas out, do it anonymously.
Thankyou again for your response. As I get further down the track I may contact you again. In the meantime please let me know whether I've understood you correctly, and feel free to contact me again at any time.
Regards, Michael Richards.
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A General Note on Data Sources
Much data has been drawn from QAC archival sources. Important amongst these have been QAC annual reports for the years 1961–2004. Unless otherwise specified, key data pertaining to QAC has been drawn from these – and unless otherwise specified comments by QAC management and staff have been extracted from annual reports for the relevant years. Comments by branch or LAC personnel have likewise been drawn from branch or LAC annual reports unless otherwise specified.
This study has also benefited from research carried out by Heather Ross, for a planned history of QAC during 1994. That history did not eventuate but data collected by Ross has subsequently been held in QAC archives. The Fryer Library at The University of Queensland holds an extensive collection of private papers left by Dr. Gertrude Langer who was president from 1961–1974. The John Oxley Library in Brisbane, and the Queensland (State) Art Gallery library hold material pertinent to the development of Queensland’s cultural institutions and ecology from late in the 19th century to the present day.
The C.E.M.A. Review was published from 1945 to 1947. It became The Arts Council Review in 1948, and was published intermittently until 1949. The Mitchell Library in Sydney holds copies.
To develop the comprehensive and textured understanding required for a study such as this, a researcher inevitably gathers far more information than can be presented in a dissertation, and consults many sources which, while providing essential background, context and texture, will not be explicit referred to or reflected in the final document. I have drawn upon annual reports of the Australia Council, Arts Queensland and its predecessors, QCAN, Flying ARTS, Regional Arts Australia, Youth Arts Queensland, and miscellaneous publications by the arts councils, community arts networks and regional arts bodies of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia. Prominent amongst the latter have been Artreach (published by Country Arts New South Wales), Artwork Magazine (published by the Community Arts Networks of NSW, SA and Qld), and occasional publications such as Culture Matters (QCAN), Ignite theatre (Theatre Arts Network Queensland), and the monthly Nexus eBulletin distributed by ARTS NEXUS Inc. in Cairns, accessible at http://www.artsnexus.com.au
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Amongst the many Internet sites which provide access to a vast array of information and comment, including academic and industrial papers, two of the most useful have been Australian sites which offer material pertinent to local conditions and issues, as well as providing links to many other sites. http://www.communitybuilders.nsw.gov.au/ http://fuel4arts.com
Hot links provide access to a range of informative and useful sites, and such is the nature of these links that it doesn’t too much matter where you start. At various times I started with each of the following: http://americansforthearts.org http://ww3.artsusa.org/ http://www.creativecommunities.org.uk/frames.html
In the event that addresses have changed and these links are not active, a key-word search using terms such as arts council, community arts, community building, capacity building, community cultural development, community development, regional arts, will identify a host of gateways.
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