State of the arts

A House of Lords debate in January this year on “the contribution of the arts to the economy and society” exhibited a cross-party consensus found in few policy areas. Opening the session, Labour peer Lord Bragg argued that the arts “are not the cherry on the cake – they are the cake.” Lord Vaisey (Conservative) agreed that “the arts have a huge impact on health, education, criminal justice and soft power” and Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (Liberal Democrat) stated simply that “[the] arts improve our mental health.” Such agreement was encouraging in view of the perfect storm of budget cuts, rent increases and other inflationary pressures that have beset the sector over the past 14 years. Now the challenge is on for the new Labour government to lead the renewal of the UK’s depleted arts landscape.

Noticeable in the January debate, and foregrounded in several recent publications, was an emphasis on the relationship between the arts and wellbeing. This relationship is a focal point of the Arts Council’s ‘Let’s Create’ strategy and its ‘Everyday Creativity’ programme and is central to the core findings of the Local Government Association’s 2023 report Cornerstones of Culture. The relationship also informs much of the work of The National Centre for Creative Health, The Campaign for the Arts, and The National Academy for Social Prescribing, as well as numerous smaller scale arts organisations such as Fun Palaces and 64 Million Artists. There have always been voices extolling the ways in which the arts enrich our life, but there is now a much stronger stress on the ways in which they are essential for the everyday wellbeing of individuals and society.

Such an analysis still omits parts of the story. What about the arts as a mechanism for protest and dissent? What is the value we should attach to culture that is difficult or alarming? As Sam Holcroft explored in her brilliant new play A Mirror (which played at the Trafalgar Theatre earlier this year) the relationship between the state and the arts has often been a fraught one, and there will always be those who instinctively reject any instrumentalist view of culture.

A focus on social value rather than purely economic gain does, however, offer the new government an opportunity to reimagine arts policy along more egalitarian lines. The embedding of arts and cultural experiences into everyday life represents a form of democratisation. An active embracing of this allows Labour to align its cultural policy with long-held values. Writing in the Guardian last November, Charlotte Higgins argued that the NHS and the Arts Council should be taken together as belonging to ‘Labour’s postwar conviction that good things ought to be available to everyone, regardless of their income.’ Jennie Lee, Labour Minister for the Arts from 1964-1970, championed the value of arts and culture in everyday life, a philosophy also reflected in the establishment of the Open University in 1969. This conviction was again echoed in New Labour‘s introduction of free admission to all national galleries and museums in 2001.

How, then, can a Labour administration channel such thinking in order to bring new hope to our cultural sector? Possible solutions can be found through policymaking, legal intervention and creative thinking. At the heart of any revitalised support for the arts, however, must be a much closer analysis of the ‘where’ and ‘when’ of cultural provision. If arts and culture are to play a greater role in everyday life (‘Art for Everyone, Everywhere’ as Labour’s new Plan for the Arts, Culture and Creative Industries puts it) they must be available across a much wider variety of locations and times.

When it comes to location (the ‘where’), place and cost are closely correlated. Consider the challenges faced by small independent venues. The Music Venue Trust’s most recent annual report revealed that 125 were forced to close in 2023, making it the sector’s worst year for a decade. Such a collapse risks a situation in which live performance becomes increasingly concentrated in large commercial spaces, often centrally located, with ticket (and travel) prices well above what the majority can afford. How can the necessary rebalancing be achieved? Mark Davyd, founder of the Music Venue Trust, argues that part of the solution lies in supporting the grassroots via a mandatory levy to be paid by the most successful parts of the industry.

Time (the ‘when’) is also an issue. For example, how many people are currently excluded by the tradition of the evening performance, which arguably fails to embrace new working patterns or the competing pressures faced by those with parenting or caring responsibilities? The National Theatre has piloted a 6.30pm start time for plays, a welcome move for those who must travel further to get home. Day Fever – a new daytime club ‘night’ – is another interesting initiative. The Soho Poly, a small central London venue now run by this article’s authors, has a history of lunchtime theatre, something that widened access for artists and audience members alike. The venue’s new artistic policy has re-imagined the lunchtime model with a commitment to ‘disrupting the everyday’ with arts and culture. More generally, the importance of small, grassroots and community-focused venues, with activities running at the times most suited to different audiences, underlines the need for local authorities to resist further devastating budget cuts.

Another temporal point of focus might be the night-time economy, a phrase that licensing barrister Philip Kolvin QC has suggested should be replaced with the night-time ‘ecology’, since the value of nocturnal cultural activity is not merely financial. Persuasive arguments have been made in favour of a more holistic approach to planning and licensing decisions which foregrounds social utility rather than simply policing what may be seen as ‘transgressive’.  Returning to the question of location, lifestyle sports like skateboarding offer an interesting point of comparison and illustrate how legal devices have been used to try and protect the places where cultural activities occur. The Undercroft on London’s Southbank was listed as an Asset of Cultural Value in 2013, using provisions in the Localism Act 2011. Other mechanisms, such as registering a place as a Village Green under the Commons Act 2006, have been explored.

Relatedly, new legal interventions might be considered in the area of ticket touting. Labour MP Sharon Hodgson has been indefatigable in her efforts to police this area, and in a piece for The Quietus one of this article’s authors suggested in 2023 that the Labour party make regulating the secondary ticket market a manifesto pledge, something that was realised with the recent commitment to cap tickets, echoing Hodgson’s private members’ bill of 2010. Whilst not specifically mentioned in the King’s Speech it is highly likely that this will move forward during the administration. Key to the argument here is that tickets are not merely commodities to be bought and sold, but levers of social inclusion whose value goes beyond the economic. Overall, there is a strong case to be made for greater use of the law to protect and support cultural activities.

In a renewed cultural landscape, universities will also have a crucial role to play. Aside from the urgent need to reform higher education funding, Labour must seek to reverse negative narratives of ‘woke’ arts and humanities courses. A January 2024 report commissioned by the British Academy and the Academy of Social Sciences explicitly identified the impact that SHAPE disciplines (social sciences, humanities and the arts for people and the economy) have had in tackling societal challenges and empowering communities. Free of at least some of the overheads faced by struggling small venues, arts and humanities departments can be key drivers of knowledge exchange and resource sharing. They can host exhibitions, performances and workshops and be sites of public engagement for their local communities.

The idea of cultural provision that is accessible to all is central to Labour’s long held egalitarian principles. The challenge for the government will be to find policies, in straightened financial circumstances, that enable such principles to be put into action. Labour’s Cultural Industries plan goes some way towards this, but its aspirational language will need to be converted quickly into action on the ground. Foregrounding questions of when and where cultural provision should be available provides a tangible framework for devising practical solutions.

Image credit: Mark McNestry via Flickr, CC BY 2.0