In her monthly LeftLion column, Nadia Whittome, MP for Nottingham East, discusses issues affecting both Nottingham and Westminster. This month, she talks about the importance of the arts...
Growing up, art was always my favourite school subject, but I believed for too long that it wasn’t really for me - a young woman of colour from a working class background who faced pressure to conform from inside my community as well as outside it. Sadly, it seems like not that much has changed: the Arts Council’s latest data suggests that only 11% of arts audiences were Black or from a minority ethnic background. It’s clear that diverse communities still experience real barriers to participation.
Attending Nottingham’s Mela, Europe’s oldest South Asian art festival, every year as a child was a formative experience. The Mela showed me that there are artists from all different backgrounds creating amazing work, and that people like me can find a home in the arts.
As a teenager, difficult life circumstances meant that I started to struggle. It was then that I became involved in Nottingham Contemporary’s youth group. This youth-led space allowed me to find my voice and see that my creativity and interests were also valid, but I’d also credit it with pushing me to finish my GCSEs.
Nottingham has long been a home for creative industries. In the nineteenth century, our city became the centre of the global lace industry. Today, we have the Creative Quarter, filled with creative and digital independents and start-ups. We have collectives like Surface, supporting early and mid-career artists, and FlyGirl, offering creative support to women of colour; ground-breaking arts spaces like the New Art Exchange and Backlit; one of the world's leading art and design schools at Nottingham Trent University; theatres such as Nottingham Playhouse and the Theatre Royal; and the BAFTA-winning Television Workshop which delivers drama training to hundreds of children across the Midlands, and whose alumni includes the likes of Vicky McClure, Molly Windsor, Jack O’Connell and Joe Dempsie. Our creative scene is one of the many reasons that I feel extremely proud to represent our beautiful city.
To re-imagine a well-funded culture sector then is to envision art as a public good
The access to art I had growing up here enriched my life in many ways. Art enables us to express ourselves. It can help us navigate complex issues and lead us to explore who we truly are. But sadly, due to the Government’s funding cuts, many young people from working class backgrounds don’t have the same opportunities to experience this joy as I had.
Last summer the then-Education Secretary Gavin Williamson announced a 50% funding cut for arts and design courses across Higher Education institutions in England, with the money saved put towards STEM subjects instead. Of course, technology and science are also important, but they should not be pitted against the arts. The arts are not a luxurious indulgence, but an essential building block for a critically-minded civil society. The fact that the sector has contributed £115.9 billion to the UK economy, employing 2.1 million people, makes this choice even harder to comprehend. Cuts to arts education will mean that employment in the cultural industry becomes even more inaccessible for many.
The pandemic has also had a devastating impact on the arts. Many arts venues have suffered financial difficulties, including the theatre industry, which estimates a £630 million loss in revenue. The House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee has argued that the pandemic presents the biggest threat to our cultural infrastructure in generations. But to safeguard our arts institutions in the long-term, we must look beyond quick fixes to mitigate the worst impacts of COVID. The whole funding model needs a re-think.
Some money for the arts comes from councils, but because of cuts from central government, many have reduced their funding. On a national level, the proportion of public money given to the arts is tiny – the National Campaign For the Arts suggests it is as little as £14 per person per year. This makes artists and venues dependent on corporate sponsors and secondary revenue streams, such as ticket sales, on-site hospitality, and venue hire. This market-driven approach to funding risks further narrowing the scope of the art that is being produced and who produces it.
To re-imagine a well-funded culture sector, then, is to envision art as a public good. The arts could give opportunities to people from all walks of life to explore their creativity, to forge new relationships and to find joy in discovering new perspectives. At its best, art can simultaneously be comforting and challenging, pushing us beyond what we already know. This is what makes our cultural institutions so precious - and is why I am determined to fight for their protection.
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