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Arts in Wales Deserve an Advocate - Not the Axe
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The Arts Council of Wales lacks any strategic vision and does not speak for the arts.
This was the stark message at a public meeting at Gwent Theatre’s Drama Centre, Abergavenny.
Chris Ryde, organiser for Equity in Wales, the trade union for performers and artists, was speaking on the topic of Funding for the Arts in Times of Austerity.
The talk was part of a series of public lectures on Issues of Our Times and highly topical as funding to Gwent Theatre is being axed by the Arts Council of Wales.
Mr Ryde, who is also Chair of the Welsh Association for the Performing Arts, attacked the Arts Council of Wales - who distribute the funding - for making decisions which are myopic and misplaced:
“They lack any strategic vision. The arts in Wales deserves better than this. They deserve an advocate. We have to make politicians aware that the Arts Council does not speak for the arts and that we have an unaccountable public body.”
However, Mr Ryde said it was good to know that the creative industries are one of the Assembly’s six priority areas and Assembly members are largely supportive of the arts. He said they recognised it was necessary to feed the mind and spirit as well as the body.
He said Gwent Theatre provided great value for money and should not be faced with closure: “Time and time again over 30 years, it has reached out and touched the hearts and minds of its many thousand audience members.
“It has stimulated the imagination of countless children in a way no text book or teaching aid could do. It has done it consistently and inconspicuously. It has done it with style and quality and yes – it is great value for money.”
Mr Ryde said the cost of the arts in Wales to taxpayers is extremely small - just one-fifth of a penny. Yet for every pound spent, the arts generate at least double for the exchequer - and probably twice that.
During the lecture, organised by the Workers Educational Association, he spoke of the origins of public funding for the arts and said that, even in wartime, Winston Churchill recognised that they were essential in the fight for civilisation.
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Workers Educational Association
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Sunday, December 12, 2010 |
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