Alison CroggonDec 20, 2022
Somebody tweeted this article, which I wrote earlier this year, and reminded me of it. It’s still relevant. It’s about the long struggle between the #arts and authority, and the long campaign by the Liberal Party to destroy #culture in Australia. https://t.co/ZUj0Pp3I3T
The campaign to destroy the arts

Art has always drawn its share of opprobrium from authorities, but never more than when the poor are seen to enjoy it. The moralisers of 18th-century England – the same England that invaded the great southern continent to establish a penal colony – produced some nostrums that endure to this day.

The Saturday Paper
harryfiddlerDec 20, 2022
Show threadVicki Kyriakakis

@alisoncroggon Excellent and on point piece Alison. I remember reading it at the time and it resonates still. I did a piece in The Guardian Australia on a related topic and came to the same conclusion - the impact on the arts and working class artists in particular - was purposeful.

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2022/may/16/want-to-make-art-you-better-be-rich-how-australian-culture-locked-out-the-working-class?CMP=soc_567

Have been thinking of what a good follow up piece would be to hold the ALPs feet to the fire. Would love to chat with you about it if you’re interested in maybe collaborating?

Want to make art? You better be rich: how Australian culture locked out the working class

Wages are low, work insecure and funding has been gutted. Amid a cost-of-living crisis and a pandemic, are we about to lose a swathe of artists to obscurity?

The Guardian
Dec 20, 2022 at 6:28amWeb
Show threadAlison CroggonDec 20, 2022
@VickiKyriakakis I remember your piece too! I had a lot of very poor years and still feel that stress, don’t own a house etc. I didn’t put a submission into the last arts policy call out. First time ever. I would have just said the same thing I said every time before, back to the early 2000s, and it has never made any difference.
Show threadVicki KyriakakisDec 20, 2022
@alisoncroggon Yes I hear you! There’s a feeling that we keep speaking and very little changes. But as working class background originally, I feel so passionately about this. I’m so tired of our art and culture being the preserve of the well to do and financially well off. Im better off now but still don’t own my own house. I can’t imagine being able to write full time. I’d like to see real change under an ALP Gvt.
Show threadAlison CroggonDec 20, 2022
@VickiKyriakakis I only managed it (I’m married to a writer as well) by being born a little earlier, a bit of luck and being broke a lot. two of us doing it made it a little easier. I felt a lot of guilt for being a financial basket case and I’d never advise anyone else to do what I did. But i guess it did teach me about poverty.
Show threadAlison CroggonDec 20, 2022
@VickiKyriakakis I don’t feel very optimistic about the ALP being more imaginative about the culture but they won’t be as actively aggressive towards it.
Show threadTiny Owl WorkshopDec 20, 2022
@VickiKyriakakis @alisoncroggon Yes please! Same in traditional publishing - the money/resources you have to have for production and distribution alone is a massive hurdle. Judging literary Awards is fraught. The false divide between arts and craft is also particularly loathsome, and the genre-literature split equally so. All facets of a one-sovereign, colonial system which uses privilege and precarity to divide, conquer and amass wealth and power.