It's not more money that Scotland's culture sector needs - it's respect for artistic freedom
Cultural leaders need to find their backbones when artists are targeted for expressing their beliefs
Given the various problems in Scotland’s arts and culture sectors, including those highlighted in last year’s Creative Scotland review, you might expect a political hustings focused on culture to get a little heated.
Instead, a Culture Counts panel event in Edinburgh last Thursday ended with the SNP government’s culture secretary Angus Robertson MSP saying he’d found the event “very agreeable.”
More’s the pity. While I hadn’t hoped for mudslinging or a shouting match, the fact is Scotland’s artists, as well as the institutions set up to supposedly nurture their talents, are struggling – and not just financially.
For some individual artists, obviously there’s ever-present precarity in being a freelancer in any art-form. Nothing is guaranteed; you’re only ever as good as your last album, performance, book, recital, exhibition. It’s not a life undertaken sensibly if the aim is either security, fame or fortune.
The love of the thing is both impetus for keeping going, and a curse that sometimes barely justifies many a period of poverty-level income and gratitude for scraps. It remains, for all the talk of “diversity” and “inclusion”, a fact that those who make their entire (or even most) of their living directly from their art form, are a group dominated by the independently wealthy.
Alternatively, those who – in the words of a top poet I asked for advice many years ago – “marry well.” (Reader: I did not.)
This foundational insecurity is just one reason independent artists need cultural institutions, including venues, publishers, festivals, funders (and all projects they fund) to hold the line on prioritising a healthy cultural atmosphere and the nurturing of genuine talent.
Fairness; good gatekeepers, capable of judging individual artists on their merits; affordable, accessible venues or platforms, and true diversity of opinion – all of these are vital for a vibrant, sustainable, artistic ecology.
The bedrock of all of this is freedom. Freedom to think, to speak freely, to explore both the contentious and the everyday, and make good artistic work from that process. Any cultural institution, whether book festival or theatre, that doesn’t understand or respect these principles should urgently rethink their existence.
None of this came up at the hustings. This, despite a near-decade of stooshie after stooshie, and a dreadful cultural atmosphere, with many artists scared to speak freely, culture leaders fearful of their own staff in the institutions they lead, and where everything but artistic freedom (or artistic merit) seems to be the priority.
A new report from Freedom In The Arts (FITA) landed this week, focused on ‘The New Boycott Crisis’ strangling the sector. It shows programmers pre-emptively discriminate against ‘controversial’ artists - even if their political views are irrelevant to whatever artistic endeavour is being cancelled.
A rising antisemitism has come to mirror the ‘playbook’ of cancellation and hounding tactics experienced by ‘gender critical’ writers. Several Jewish artists report being targeted not for anything they’ve said about Israel/ Palestine, but on the basis of their Jewish identity.
Perhaps predictably, the focus from the all-male Culture Counts panel continually came back to questions of funding, and how the arts benefit society more broadly. While some decent points were made, being intimately aware of the severe freedom of speech/ censorship crisis in the arts meant the entire event felt to me like a far-too-calm procession through outdated, less urgent talking points.
Misunderstanding of impartiality
Instead of being a powerful antidote to raging divisions over certain issues, whether critical race theory, gender identity, or Israel/ Palestine – our culture sector has largely fomented them by misunderstanding what ‘impartiality’ means.
It means not taking a side on whatever political or cultural issue is riling up the artists and writers they exist to champion. That does NOT mean being ‘neutral’ on artistic freedom. Creative Scotland should make clear: projects they fund risk acting unlawfully if they discriminate on the basis of belief or identity.
Alas, I don’t think arts organisations, including CS, actually understand equalities law. In but one recent example, a CS-managed literary fellowship advertised they “particularly welcome” applications from people “with protected characteristics.”
The whole point of the Equality Act 2010 is we all have PCs; including the straight (sexual orientation), white (race), old (age) men (sex) who are never “particularly welcomed” in such adverts. It’s perfectly fine to encourage certain groups who might be disinclined to apply to do so. But, in open-to-all opportunities, favouring one PC over another risks being unlawful.
Proving discrimination has taken place can be tricky in something so subjective, of course.
Sometimes, however, discrimination is admitted openly. On Saturday, Abigail Ottley, a poet from Cornwall, announced her intention to take Arts Council England (ACE) to judicial review. She alleges they failed to investigate her complaint to them properly, when an ACE-funded literature magazine, The Aftershock Review, pulled publication of her poetry, citing her ‘social media presence’. Ms Ottley occasionally shares 'gender-critical' beliefs on her platforms.
Ms Ottley’s talent is not in question. Her poetry – which I’ve read – is of excellent quality. On the day the Arts Council informed her they’d found no issue with the magazine’s decision, they awarded it a further £60k of funding.
There’s a growing backlash against such ill-treatment, from artists and public alike. When an artist is targeted, it affects them directly. But it also offends and insults their audiences. Might similar legal action happen in Scotland? There are plenty of suitable targets.
Culture Counts co-organised the hustings as part of their campaign for a ‘Culture Bill’. So far, the Scottish Conservatives and SNP have signalled support. I’m unconvinced it’s a priority. Creative Scotland needs overhauled, to show leadership. Our national institutions’ ‘cultural leaders’ also urgently need to find their vertebrae. It shouldn’t take legal action to secure artistic freedom in a democracy. That’s not “very agreeable” at all.
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