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<v 0>To set the scene.</v>

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I want to share with you a quote from Alice Croghan's piece in the current

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edition of the monthly magasine, a Melbourne based writer,

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librettist and critic. She has this to say

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in 2016, it became clear that Australian art,

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that Australian arts are facing the worst crisis since before the Australia

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council was founded in 1967.

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But that is only part of the story.

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The past three years have seen an unremitting ideological war on knowledge

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inquiry and significantly cultural memory.

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Since the 2013 election,

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many of our major institutions have reached a point where they are forced to

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curtail their basic activities.

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We've seen public funding cut for science authorities, universities,

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research programs, museums, archives, and galleries.

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According to one media announced according to one media analyst,

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the national broadcaster,

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the ABC has lost a hundred million a year in direct and indirect funding

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since the election of the coalition government.

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So these are very sobering words and it underscores the very real

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crisis confronting arts and culture in Australia today

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to explore this theme, it now gives me pleasure to introduce our panelists.

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Each of whom is eminently qualified to speak on this topic,

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Justin O'Connor who teaches it,

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who teaches at Monash University and his visiting ship chair at Shanghai Jiao

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Tong university, Rebecca Evans in the middle,

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who is the art gallery of south Australia is curator of decorative arts.

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And my colleague Julian Meyrick,

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who is a Theatre Director and professor of Creative Arts at Flinders.

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So I'm going to join you down on the couch and we'll start the conversation.

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<v Justin O'Connor>Just start with you.</v>

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Good afternoon, everybody.

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I it's it's a bit of a conversation,

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so it's not this isn't a formal presentation,

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but we thought we'd just kind of put our

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pies in the windows. We say somewhere. I,

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I was speaking yesterday morning and I referred to the article in the,

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in the monthly, which is a kind of a very serious article.

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And I'm really concerned just listening to

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people at this festival any time culture is mentioned.

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And I use that in the broadest sense, museums this afternoon,

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it's clear that something is happening right.

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There is some not just financial costs,

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but some devaluation of art and culture going on.

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I don't want to stand and tell you why it is valuable.

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I think an my colleagues will say lots about this up

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after me. But I'm not going to do that because I think,

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I don't think there's anybody in this room who doesn't think they are valuable.

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So I'm not trying to convince you what I'm interested in is why we got to this

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position and something I've been working on for some time. And,

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you know, yesterday I spoke about how for, for us,

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the, you know, certainly in the seventies and eighties,

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the idea of culture was the next step on, in,

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in the democratic rights. You know,

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we'd go from civic to political rights,

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to social citizenship and onto kind of cultural citizenship.

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And I think that's still with us. Now there's a big belief in that.

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And yet somehow it's been moved. It's been turned aside from, from that.

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And part of that turning us on that has been a kind of dismantling of some of

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the major areas of public policy.

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I think health and education with culture formed some of the,

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the most important new additions to the idea of the liberal democratic state

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in the 19th and early 20th centuries,

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and then our suffering somewhat.

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And I think so culture for different reasons is suffering more than most.

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It's almost been evacuated as a site of coherent public policy.

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Why that's what interests me. And I, you know, it's easy to say neo-liberalism,

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and it's easy to say neo-liberalism because that's the answer

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basically, but what, you know, let's poke around a bit on that. I mean,

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the early, near the origin of neo-liberalism in the 1920s,

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it was a big argument about the state versus the market at a time when the

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Soviet union was just gearing up for its five-year plans. You know,

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it was a serious proposition, the state run market, and th th the,

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the debate there was basically that actually the state will deliver

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car, deliver planning, and it would deliver some bad things as well,

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such as serfdom and tyranny, et cetera, et cetera.

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And their claims were basically that the market is,

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is is the most,

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the most viable information mechanism that we have.

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It's the only really way we can plan it.

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It aggregates signals in an efficient way. I mean, that's the basic claim of,

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of that kind of neo-liberalism. And it had nothing to say about culture.

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Culture was just there. And in fact, the people who, the,

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the liberals in Germany, the auto liberals,

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as they were called that they very much were there, right?

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The way through the forties and fifties, arguing for, you know,

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a regulated free markets and they saw culture and other kind of

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social democratic things is essential to kind of keep,

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they call it social warming to keep the,

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the warmth of the social around sometimes quite harsh market system.

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I think the real shift actually happened with in America with the kind of second

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wave of neo-liberalism that came out of the Chicago school. And I think there's,

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there's two key things that, that they, that came out of there.

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I think the first thing that they did was to extend

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the idea of market efficiency beyond the market,

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beyond economics that actually other areas of social

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life could be determined by market or

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quasar market mechanisms.

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And this gives rise to something called new public management, but it, it,

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you know, we often talk about being counters don't we, oh,

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they are so taken over by being counters. And then in a way that's not true.

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I have great respect for accountants.

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Somebody wants pulled me up by this and so CA accountants great that

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everybody needs one, you know, they're great. The problem is not counted,

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but he really,

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it was the economist who went in to say, not everything must be accounted for,

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but we can best achieve our goals by reducing all the internal

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operations of an organization into KPIs and

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proxy, basically proxy, proxy results,

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and and quasar markets, that kind of things.

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And it's this intervention that gradually seeps right the way

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through, not just public administration,

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but it's a health into education and of course, into, into culture.

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So that's kind of culture as a collateral damage of the rise of this kind of

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thinking. So that's why we have to convince treasury and all this kind of stuff.

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That's one thing, the second thing that came out of the, the,

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the Chicago school and I think it's something not quite registered.

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It has been only recently, which is they uncoupled the market from democracy.

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These were always seen as if not the same,

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more or less happy bedfellows. There,

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it's probably a democracy is probably the best system for a

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kind of advanced capitalist economy.

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I think what the what the neo-liberals did was to rupture that equation.

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And in fact, for many of them, democracy was a threat to the free market.

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And I think that's in a way that's a second explanation.

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Cause if the first kind of extension was kind of the, you know,

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this culture gets caught in the flack,

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as we reduce everything to KPIs and output driven metrics.

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And the second one actually culture is much more in the sites,

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because if you remember when Neil lives near a lib,

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neo-liberalism really hit the political mainstream with Reagan and facture,

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and they were quite conservative. Culturally, you know,

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Reagan was making America happy again,

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and Thatcher was waving the flag and let's have a bit of a war. And, you know,

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it's tea shops in Grantham and women with flower hearts, really England,

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not all these people in the cities, rioting, that kind of thing.

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It's very culturally conservative.

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And I think it's what w what we've seen over the last two decades is there is a

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shift of that where actually, what, what neo-liberalism has done.

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It's not just hollowed at reduced culture, too.

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It's whatever metrics fits into its schemata.

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I think culture has become much more central into its sides. So, I mean, I'll,

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I'll leave it on this, but my kind of my kind of

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worry is that when we are out there trying to convince them the

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government that we are valuable,

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or as many people have said at this festival and elsewhere,

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we've got to learn how to use, speak, you know,

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speak the language that they will understand.

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And I would say they will never understand that language. They will never,

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because they actually don't want to hear what it is that's valued.

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And I think it's not two languages.

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It's not the language of treasury and metrics and any economy versus some

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wishy-washy language of culture that the two don't quite get it.

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I think it's something more disturbing than that.

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I think what the culture has become, but as a,

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as a S as a sense of you know,

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a responsibility for a social hole for values beyond the

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pure economic and for a sense of social connection,

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that's not reduceable to the express preference of a consumer in all

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these different ways.

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Culture is seen as a threat to the claims around the free market.

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And I think that's I think that's something that we're not going to

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be able to escape from. So we're in a position now,

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I think where many people have talked about it here at this festival,

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this technology science,

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there's a whole world opening up for us in all sorts of way,

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digital communications around government and things.

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There's a whole series of possibilities.

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And yet here we are locked in some kind of sclerotic kind of

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public discourse where only,

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only economic value in its translation to metrics counts as a valid argument.

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And I think culture is being squeezed flat in that context.

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And I think our job really is not just to describe value in their terms,

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but to refuse to do that and start to shift the ground somewhat.

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And that's easier said than done, but I'll handle this for that. Okay. Thanks.

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<v 2>[Inaudible] Thanks for kicking that off.</v>

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<v Rebecca Evans>It's setting the scene very nice. And Rebecca, over to you,</v>

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I thought I would stop my kind of spiel is

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about five years ago. My netball grand final, very exciting.

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We didn't win, but afterwards went out to the pub to celebrate just a good,

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a good season of netball.

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And I remember one of my friends who was on the team with me,

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we were talking about work and we're talking about, you know,

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what we're doing during the week. And they said something like,

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but you don't have a real job. And I thought, what, how,

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how don't I have a real job as far as I can see,

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I get up in the morning and I go to work and I get paid for it.

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And I pay my taxes,

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all these good things that define work and their justification

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was that because I enjoyed my job because I worked in

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the arts,

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that my industry was a luxury and not a necessary

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part of the fabric of our society. Therefore, not a real job,

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mind you, this was also a music teacher.

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But what I thought, I thought just I'd like to start with that story,

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because I think we've all been in situations whether we're artists or writers

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or, you know,

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right throughout the creative industries where we've been told that we don't

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have real jobs.

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And I think that great devaluation of what we do is a

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serious issue.

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And also this whole idea that art is a luxury. And I thought,

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I'd say that art is not a luxury. That's where I wanted to start.

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But I have been in the industry.

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I've worked as a curator for about eight years and I've recently come to

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Adelaide. I started at the art gallery of South Australia.

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The day after Valentine's day, this year,

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I'm moving from Sydney where I was previously a assistant curator of decorative

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arts at the powerhouse museum.

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And during my time there, which was about just over seven years,

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I saw three restructures.

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I saw curatorial departments reduced by about a third.

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The whole team went from about 300 to about one 90,

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the general trend right across the world curators are

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disappearing, they're retiring, they're not being replaced.

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And yet the output and the creative programs that we work for

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growing and continue to grow, and our visitation continues to grow.

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And last, I think financial year art gallery of south Australia had over

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800,000 people through its stores,

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which is absolutely phenomenal if you benchmark that against the other state

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galleries in terms of our budget,

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in terms of the population of south Australia.

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And the wonderful thing about the art gallery of south Australia is our

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collection and our collection.

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Every year we revalue what we have our most valuable works

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valued revalued yearly. And then we do a cross selection, random selection,

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right across our collecting areas and value those.

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And we worked out that the collection is worth over a billion dollars,

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which makes it the single most valuable asset to the people of south Australia.

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And so working at the art gallery,

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one of the things we really thinking about the moment,

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how do we utilize that asset?

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How do we make it work for the people of south Australia,

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both in terms of the economy, but other values,

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which I'm sure we'll go into later.

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But I was really struck by James Patterson,

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who is a Senator from Victoria who has recently

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suggested that we sold blue poles, Jackson, painting the national gallery.

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And I thought that, that I'm sure we'll bring that up later,

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but I thought that was really interesting reflecting on, I guess,

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federal politicians view on culture and the justification for the

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sale of that work is that we should be spending our

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arts money on Australian artists and that American art has little to no

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value in this country and that its value at

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$350 million is better spent to dealing with our budget

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deficit which is much more than 350.

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But we should spend it on buying Australian art rather than this American

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artist. And I think that it's really interesting reflecting on that, you know,

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that is in the public domain.

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What else did I want to say? I guess the other thing I was reflecting on is

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what will the arts look like for me in 10 years time,

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I'm at the beginning of my career in many ways,

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will I be a curator in 10, 20 years time?

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What will the role of the curator look like? Will I have a job?

255
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Will I be doing something else entirely?

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And I look at sort of the career progression of my peers who are my

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age and in, in, in many ways, sadly,

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isn't always going to be a future.

259
00:16:47.330 --> 00:16:50.270
So in terms of generational gaps,

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00:16:50.300 --> 00:16:54.770
there is this great generation between those who got to see what I always call

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the golden days of the bicentennial and I in the non,

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the golden days of arts budgets. Thank you. Thanks.

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<v Julian Meyrick>And Julian,</v>

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00:17:15.370 --> 00:17:17.860
I have to read my knacks. I was write everything down.

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I'm a investigator with laboratory Adelaide, which is presenting this panel.

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Laboratory Adelaide is not a

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chemistry laboratory for producing illicit drugs.

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It's a a project which looks into

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cultures value from a methodological point of view.

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And the more we look into it, more I look into it. The more I feel that the,

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that we have is not really with culture it's with value.

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So what I've tried to do is make some broad remarks perhaps

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following Justin's lead as always into how we can understand how we've got

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ourselves into this pickle.

275
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So recently I got told this joke two economists were having lunch

276
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together. One of them had to make a decision about changing jobs,

277
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moving cities, disrupting his family and so on. What should he do?

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He asked the other, well, his friend replied, you're an economist,

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00:18:26.340 --> 00:18:31.080
a scribe input prices for the different factors apply a discounted

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utility algorithm and compute the resulting costs and benefits. Oh,

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00:18:36.030 --> 00:18:39.710
come on set. The first economist. This is serious. Yes.

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I was in Spain in June earlier this year,

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attending the 19th international cultural economics conference.

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When the result of the UK Brexit vote was announced, our Jo claimer,

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the world renowned economic philosopher was giving the presidential address on

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the same day. His opening words were well.

287
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Now we know that economics is not enough.

288
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There's nothing wrong with putting a price on culture. The problem start,

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00:19:09.950 --> 00:19:14.750
if that's all we're doing one way of understanding Brexit or Donald Trump for

290
00:19:14.751 --> 00:19:19.280
that matter is to acknowledge the important things have got away from us that

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00:19:19.281 --> 00:19:22.910
our cultural reality has outstripped our economic thinking.

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I'm using culture in the widest definition to mean roughly our sense of

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identity, who we think we are.

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There's a complex network of connections between this and culture in the sense

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of arts, crafts and creative practices. When we talk about culture,

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we are usually referencing one definition or the other,

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but it's the network of connections between them.

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That matters because it's this that carries the deeper meaning culture

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is separable, but not divisible. And so not.

300
00:19:52.701 --> 00:19:56.600
Unitizable two paintings. Don't add up to a symphony,

301
00:19:57.110 --> 00:20:00.680
five films. Aren't the equivalent of one digital media experience,

302
00:20:01.220 --> 00:20:05.240
the weights and measures we use to break up other areas of existence and create

303
00:20:05.241 --> 00:20:08.630
choices and cost these choices. According to formulas,

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like value for money or Pareto,

305
00:20:10.581 --> 00:20:14.390
optimality have limited scope in culture for this reason,

306
00:20:15.500 --> 00:20:19.700
very quickly price in culture becomes a measure of something that has little to

307
00:20:19.701 --> 00:20:23.870
do with the cultural experience I'm offer. Try this thought experiment.

308
00:20:24.050 --> 00:20:28.400
Imagine a sum of money, say a hundred dollars at a general good or service,

309
00:20:28.430 --> 00:20:29.840
say a meal.

310
00:20:31.070 --> 00:20:34.910
We can infer things about their relationship. What a meal costing.

311
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$100 should involve. Our inferences might be different,

312
00:20:38.691 --> 00:20:40.670
but they would be rationally defensible.

313
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Nothing can be inferred from the statement that a cultural activity is priced at

314
00:20:45.111 --> 00:20:45.944
a hundred dollars.

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00:20:46.190 --> 00:20:49.360
Other than the fact a hundred dollars is what we are willing to pay for it.

316
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Price is not a mark of deeper meaning,

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00:20:51.970 --> 00:20:55.840
but a reflection of a range of external factors that change according to

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00:20:55.841 --> 00:21:00.610
external pressures, somewhere in the muddle is culture itself. But to value it,

319
00:21:00.640 --> 00:21:02.200
you need to do more than price. It,

320
00:21:02.590 --> 00:21:04.870
you need to culturally critically engage with it.

321
00:21:06.370 --> 00:21:10.390
Numbers in culture are often misleading for this reason because they try to

322
00:21:10.391 --> 00:21:14.440
substitute for direct experience. What is supposed to be a tool,

323
00:21:14.510 --> 00:21:19.360
a means to greater understanding becomes a robotic takeover of our intelligence

324
00:21:19.420 --> 00:21:21.550
and the ruin of our categories of sense.

325
00:21:22.300 --> 00:21:25.660
What is ridiculous in culture can be sinister in other areas.

326
00:21:26.140 --> 00:21:30.010
I've just finished reading Paul Hamm's history of the battle of Passchendaele in

327
00:21:30.011 --> 00:21:34.120
which the lives of some 200,000 British Australian and Canadian troops were

328
00:21:34.121 --> 00:21:34.954
lost.

329
00:21:35.200 --> 00:21:39.460
It was a military engagement conducted through a lens of quantification.

330
00:21:40.660 --> 00:21:42.550
Three sets of numbers were crucial.

331
00:21:42.850 --> 00:21:47.470
First shipping tonnage that determined which country Britain or Germany would

332
00:21:47.471 --> 00:21:48.580
start soonest.

333
00:21:49.000 --> 00:21:53.170
Second munitions production that determined which country could amass the most

334
00:21:53.171 --> 00:21:57.970
artillery pieces and shells at the flounders front third casualty lists

335
00:21:58.000 --> 00:22:01.060
that determined which country was losing men at a faster rate.

336
00:22:01.930 --> 00:22:05.610
These numbers were revised frequently as a matter of what might be called in

337
00:22:05.620 --> 00:22:10.510
military pricing strategy to compute the likely outcome of what was called by

338
00:22:10.511 --> 00:22:13.060
generals and politicians though, not crucially,

339
00:22:13.061 --> 00:22:16.480
not by the soldiers in the line as a strategy of attrition.

340
00:22:17.710 --> 00:22:20.650
Paul ham writes, I think this is a beautiful quote,

341
00:22:21.340 --> 00:22:26.320
quantitative judgments end at the point where individual grief begins,

342
00:22:27.400 --> 00:22:32.080
what these numbers did we can see in retrospect was create a scheme of cognitive

343
00:22:32.081 --> 00:22:37.060
deadness that stopped certain questions from being asked certain stories from

344
00:22:37.061 --> 00:22:41.740
being told at a different understanding from being achieved in early

345
00:22:41.741 --> 00:22:44.500
1917, Germany sent out a piece note,

346
00:22:44.920 --> 00:22:49.210
looking for a negotiated end to the war. In other words, after the Psalm,

347
00:22:49.211 --> 00:22:51.730
but before Passchendaele, when it became clear,

348
00:22:51.790 --> 00:22:54.430
it wasn't a traditional struggle, struggle involved.

349
00:22:54.460 --> 00:22:56.980
There was a chance of bringing world war one to an end.

350
00:22:58.420 --> 00:23:01.630
The fact that the note was rejected, relied on the calculations.

351
00:23:01.631 --> 00:23:05.410
I've just mentioned to make the numbers publicly acceptable.

352
00:23:05.411 --> 00:23:09.610
They were embedded in language in such a way that their distancing nature was

353
00:23:09.611 --> 00:23:13.900
not immediately noticeable noticeable world war one was nothing.

354
00:23:13.901 --> 00:23:15.640
If not a war of euphemisms,

355
00:23:16.090 --> 00:23:20.560
the term that sent a chill through my heart was the one used for describing the

356
00:23:20.561 --> 00:23:23.650
dead and the wounded normal wastage.

357
00:23:24.970 --> 00:23:27.550
Perhaps my economist joke doesn't seem so funny now,

358
00:23:28.720 --> 00:23:32.860
pricing practices distort reality when sticking numbers on things that require a

359
00:23:32.861 --> 00:23:37.240
different kind of mental management Brexit and Trump have happened because we

360
00:23:37.241 --> 00:23:41.470
live in a world where the kinds of valuation strategies we typically use do not

361
00:23:41.471 --> 00:23:43.300
fit the problems we actually face.

362
00:23:44.110 --> 00:23:46.700
These problems are cultural in the broadest sense.

363
00:23:47.390 --> 00:23:51.530
But they're also reflected in song lyrics, drama, plots, novels, fashion styles,

364
00:23:51.531 --> 00:23:53.750
YouTube memes in this way.

365
00:23:53.751 --> 00:23:58.370
Culture takes its revenge on numbers by imposing its own standards of conduct

366
00:23:58.371 --> 00:24:03.230
and expectations from thrives in the U S by applying the dramaturgy of the

367
00:24:03.231 --> 00:24:08.060
apprentice to his campaign for the white house and rendering obsolete politics

368
00:24:08.120 --> 00:24:10.280
as the computation of rational outcomes,

369
00:24:10.580 --> 00:24:15.500
and even rationality itself by underestimating how powerful cultural

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00:24:15.501 --> 00:24:19.250
forces are. We render our attempt to optimize their effects,

371
00:24:19.280 --> 00:24:20.630
useless and absurd.

372
00:24:21.020 --> 00:24:25.400
We are reverse hamlets insisting on a madness in our methods.

373
00:24:26.480 --> 00:24:30.920
Culture is not a function. And yet this is exactly in disastrously,

374
00:24:30.921 --> 00:24:34.820
how it is described and understood by modern democratic Australia.

375
00:24:35.480 --> 00:24:36.313
I'll leave it there.

376
00:24:43.630 --> 00:24:45.640
<v 0>So plenty of food for thought there.</v>

377
00:24:46.090 --> 00:24:50.830
I'm going to launch in with a question actually just to set the ball rolling.

378
00:24:51.521 --> 00:24:55.540
I'm just wondering, is this a case now of completely

379
00:24:57.010 --> 00:25:01.480
redefining the language that we use to talk about culture?

380
00:25:01.780 --> 00:25:03.430
Do we need to have a shift in

381
00:25:05.470 --> 00:25:08.590
in what we understand by that word value? I mean,

382
00:25:08.591 --> 00:25:13.300
given what you've just said Julian do we, do we need to,

383
00:25:13.630 --> 00:25:14.200
you know,

384
00:25:14.200 --> 00:25:18.720
completely unpack this notion and redefine it for us?

385
00:25:21.310 --> 00:25:23.860
<v Julian Meyrick>Is it okay if I, I think Justin's right.</v>

386
00:25:23.890 --> 00:25:26.830
We have to be very careful about the vocabulary that we use.

387
00:25:27.730 --> 00:25:31.810
I mean this phrase speaking the language of government has been around for a

388
00:25:32.140 --> 00:25:36.070
while now. And I mean, there are a few problems with it. I mean,

389
00:25:36.071 --> 00:25:39.430
one problem is that governments seldom speak one language.

390
00:25:40.540 --> 00:25:45.010
And the other thing is that that's a personification that there are no

391
00:25:45.040 --> 00:25:46.930
governments, there are people in government.

392
00:25:48.430 --> 00:25:52.930
And if you're using a language that vacates the substance of what you're

393
00:25:52.931 --> 00:25:54.190
actually trying to communicate,

394
00:25:54.670 --> 00:25:58.300
then you're just digging your own grave and we have dug it deep. And we

395
00:26:01.030 --> 00:26:05.050
think it is, it is about language and it's,

396
00:26:05.150 --> 00:26:06.310
it's really,

397
00:26:06.820 --> 00:26:11.290
it's kind of it kind of dead end as a conversation I was speaking to,

398
00:26:11.500 --> 00:26:13.060
it was a live in Melbourne.

399
00:26:13.061 --> 00:26:17.290
I was speaking to some people from upstate government and some of the local

400
00:26:17.291 --> 00:26:18.850
governments then at some,

401
00:26:18.970 --> 00:26:23.680
one woman completely committed to the democratic

402
00:26:23.681 --> 00:26:26.650
process, you know, she's she said, oh, well,

403
00:26:26.680 --> 00:26:29.710
ultimately we were responsible to the taxpayers.

404
00:26:30.700 --> 00:26:33.250
And she was talking about cultural policy, you know, we've got to justify it.

405
00:26:33.670 --> 00:26:38.650
And I said, well, actually we were responsible to citizens. I mean,

406
00:26:38.680 --> 00:26:41.050
look at the constitution. And it was, it was catchy.

407
00:26:41.290 --> 00:26:45.150
It was kind of a shock that somebody would challenge that language,

408
00:26:45.450 --> 00:26:49.920
that this is, this is a middle ranking local government officer.

409
00:26:50.310 --> 00:26:55.020
Their job was to be responsible to the taxpayers. And I said, well,

410
00:26:55.050 --> 00:26:58.770
you know, you, if, if you coach and if in those terms,

411
00:26:59.010 --> 00:27:02.190
what about the language of citizenship? And this was, as I say, it was,

412
00:27:02.191 --> 00:27:03.024
it was a shotgun.

413
00:27:03.090 --> 00:27:07.380
We've even just a raise that becomes a kind of political challenge,

414
00:27:07.381 --> 00:27:12.300
which is pretty scary in a liberal democracy. Yeah.

415
00:27:13.340 --> 00:27:14.090
<v 0>I mean, absolutely.</v>

416
00:27:14.090 --> 00:27:18.710
We always couch the success of our artistic programs and our

417
00:27:18.711 --> 00:27:23.360
collection on numbers and on the value of our collection.

418
00:27:23.750 --> 00:27:27.230
And it's a very easy way to portray to the media to say, oh,

419
00:27:27.231 --> 00:27:31.790
we've had 800,000 people through our doors in 12 months.

420
00:27:31.940 --> 00:27:33.560
That's an 80% increase.

421
00:27:33.800 --> 00:27:38.720
We've had 300,000 people go through tiny, which has phenomenal.

422
00:27:39.110 --> 00:27:42.220
Our collection is worth this. We've had this number of, of,

423
00:27:42.250 --> 00:27:44.900
of bequests and this amount of money come through our doors.

424
00:27:45.290 --> 00:27:48.470
It's a very easy story to portray to the media and to,

425
00:27:48.920 --> 00:27:53.210
to celebrate victory and to celebrate success.

426
00:27:53.540 --> 00:27:57.320
It's much harder to tell the other stories are stories where

427
00:27:58.370 --> 00:28:02.060
children who have never been to an art gallery before walk through the doors and

428
00:28:02.061 --> 00:28:06.380
experience art from the first time. It's yeah. It's very difficult, you know,

429
00:28:06.381 --> 00:28:09.530
in day-to-day to tell those stories to how to do that,

430
00:28:09.800 --> 00:28:14.270
how to change that language is not an easy process. And I, I, I,

431
00:28:14.360 --> 00:28:18.140
yeah, I struggled with that. My day-to-day, yeah.

432
00:28:18.710 --> 00:28:20.420
<v Julian Meyrick>I, I think, I mean,</v>

433
00:28:20.570 --> 00:28:25.340
obviously I'm not suggesting that there is a direct analogy between the use

434
00:28:25.341 --> 00:28:30.050
of figures in world war one and the use of figures now in the cultural

435
00:28:30.051 --> 00:28:31.700
sector, that would be absurd.

436
00:28:32.630 --> 00:28:37.070
And yet it would be true to say that what you see in that history

437
00:28:37.370 --> 00:28:41.570
is a kind of an abuse of numbers to hide other

438
00:28:41.571 --> 00:28:45.650
stories. And, and numbers are very good, good,

439
00:28:45.680 --> 00:28:50.090
good at hiding stories, you know, because they don't tell a story in themselves.

440
00:28:51.230 --> 00:28:52.041
So you know,

441
00:28:52.041 --> 00:28:55.430
the question you always have to ask if any set of numbers is what is it not

442
00:28:55.431 --> 00:28:58.040
telling you? And the answer is usually quite a lot.

443
00:29:02.300 --> 00:29:06.140
<v 0>Okay. Did we have any questions from the floor at this point?</v>

444
00:29:06.380 --> 00:29:10.310
Can I just ask you to maybe find a microphone? That would be great.

445
00:29:13.760 --> 00:29:15.860
I think just to get back to your point,

446
00:29:15.861 --> 00:29:20.720
Rebecca working in an art museum myself this is

447
00:29:20.721 --> 00:29:22.280
something that we we, you know,

448
00:29:22.281 --> 00:29:26.690
we have to continually justify our worth also within the context of a

449
00:29:27.290 --> 00:29:30.320
of the university. And you know,

450
00:29:30.321 --> 00:29:33.680
we have that same struggle in terms of you know,

451
00:29:33.710 --> 00:29:36.740
finding the numbers that speak the loudest for us.

452
00:29:37.130 --> 00:29:41.270
Have you had any success then in the gallery in finding other ways to describe

453
00:29:41.890 --> 00:29:46.090
your value in, in those sort of more qualitative measures? Yeah,

454
00:29:46.120 --> 00:29:50.590
I guess more internally sharing of different, you know, profound stories of,

455
00:29:50.591 --> 00:29:53.470
you know, like these students, five-year-old kids,

456
00:29:53.471 --> 00:29:58.270
who've never been to a gallery who come from a lower socioeconomic background,

457
00:29:58.600 --> 00:30:01.360
but yeah, it's, it's, it's not an easy thing to do.

458
00:30:01.361 --> 00:30:05.560
It doesn't look so good in a pie chart. Doesn't look good in a pie chart.

459
00:30:05.590 --> 00:30:07.750
It's not a pithy soundbite, is it?

460
00:30:10.080 --> 00:30:13.500
<v Julian Meyrick>If it's like that? I mean, culture's not alone. I mean,</v>

461
00:30:13.860 --> 00:30:17.010
something like education, which is clearly, you know,

462
00:30:17.011 --> 00:30:21.870
there's a lot of instrumental ways of just fine education in terms of, you know,

463
00:30:21.871 --> 00:30:24.780
the educated workforce science, et cetera.

464
00:30:25.530 --> 00:30:29.430
But education itself is beginning to struggle to say,

465
00:30:29.880 --> 00:30:34.710
to express a value beyond, you know, it's, it's important for the economy.

466
00:30:35.440 --> 00:30:39.660
Universities themselves are beginning to have kind of gradually been

467
00:30:39.661 --> 00:30:43.650
evacuated of any of the value than, oh, well, we good for industry.

468
00:30:44.640 --> 00:30:46.500
So it's not just a culture,

469
00:30:46.530 --> 00:30:51.420
other other kind of parts of the public policy are beginning to lose that kind

470
00:30:51.421 --> 00:30:53.880
of rationale. Okay.

471
00:30:54.060 --> 00:30:55.050
<v 0>Do I question on the floor.</v>

472
00:30:56.170 --> 00:31:00.060
<v Julian Meyrick>Question that's opened up that you, I can't expand for me.</v>

473
00:31:00.061 --> 00:31:01.560
So if I go digressing,

474
00:31:01.561 --> 00:31:05.370
just polo me to politely calm me down and tell me shut up.

475
00:31:05.760 --> 00:31:07.650
But I think first of all,

476
00:31:07.651 --> 00:31:12.000
I'd like to thank the individual speaking because they are

477
00:31:12.001 --> 00:31:14.520
holding this word value there.

478
00:31:15.570 --> 00:31:17.870
Now I come from south Wales to the coal mines.

479
00:31:17.871 --> 00:31:21.000
So the other Canary falling off the perch and the coal mine,

480
00:31:21.030 --> 00:31:24.780
because you were the first ones to see humanity has a problem.

481
00:31:25.380 --> 00:31:29.490
It's not because you're dealing with in a way emotion,

482
00:31:30.030 --> 00:31:32.010
in a response to an image,

483
00:31:32.070 --> 00:31:36.510
as opposed to rationalize in that image has through the thinking mind and

484
00:31:36.511 --> 00:31:39.120
against fact scientific facts and money.

485
00:31:40.290 --> 00:31:44.820
So when you relate to that as a psychological

486
00:31:44.821 --> 00:31:47.220
approach to the external world,

487
00:31:47.250 --> 00:31:50.190
I think Western society now,

488
00:31:50.370 --> 00:31:55.230
and you're seeing it as dominated totally now almost a

489
00:31:55.231 --> 00:31:58.890
hundred percent by the rational thinking mind.

490
00:31:59.460 --> 00:32:01.770
And it leaves nothing for the human,

491
00:32:01.800 --> 00:32:06.750
the emotional human to respond to in terms of the images that

492
00:32:06.780 --> 00:32:10.350
you're involved with in terms of making a living.

493
00:32:11.370 --> 00:32:16.320
And when you relate that to the decision making on

494
00:32:16.321 --> 00:32:19.440
bury nuclear waste in south Australia,

495
00:32:19.740 --> 00:32:22.920
I've spent on I'm involved in the jury,

496
00:32:22.950 --> 00:32:26.730
I've tried to explain your approach to life,

497
00:32:27.150 --> 00:32:29.400
and it's just falls flat.

498
00:32:30.180 --> 00:32:33.480
I can write seven pages trying to explain.

499
00:32:33.510 --> 00:32:36.300
There is another side to life, which is decide.

500
00:32:36.301 --> 00:32:40.820
I think you're talking about scientific and economic facts.

501
00:32:41.150 --> 00:32:42.200
We just bounced back at me.

502
00:32:42.830 --> 00:32:47.660
And I think it's important that you guys are holding it and actually seeing

503
00:32:47.661 --> 00:32:52.490
it because there's only a very few people doing it. It's not just the art,

504
00:32:52.491 --> 00:32:56.600
it's actually a human problem as well. You're just the first guys to pick it up.

505
00:32:56.660 --> 00:32:58.520
I think that's absolutely right.

506
00:32:58.610 --> 00:33:02.630
I think that I don't know how you two feel,

507
00:33:02.631 --> 00:33:04.860
but I certainly feel that the,

508
00:33:04.861 --> 00:33:08.060
the issue of how value intersects with culture,

509
00:33:08.090 --> 00:33:12.860
the current moment is so obviously a bad fit that we pick it up

510
00:33:12.890 --> 00:33:17.480
first, but, but that, I can't believe it's a good fit anywhere, really.

511
00:33:18.410 --> 00:33:21.470
And what you refer, I mean, I'm no philosopher, but,

512
00:33:21.490 --> 00:33:26.120
but the process of stripping out the emotional response from your

513
00:33:26.121 --> 00:33:30.860
intellectual processing of something like value shifts it out of the

514
00:33:30.861 --> 00:33:35.570
category of the rational and into, I think a rationalization.

515
00:33:35.930 --> 00:33:38.660
So you get basically a thin logic,

516
00:33:38.690 --> 00:33:42.710
which is not informed by a proper category of experience.

517
00:33:43.070 --> 00:33:46.070
And under those circumstances, things like culture,

518
00:33:46.071 --> 00:33:50.360
but not only culture that predominantly are categories of experience.

519
00:33:50.361 --> 00:33:53.660
That's what it feels like when you look at a painting or when you hear a piece

520
00:33:53.661 --> 00:33:56.030
of music, it's a feeling in the body.

521
00:33:56.300 --> 00:34:00.740
Those things will struggle to articulate themselves to,

522
00:34:00.741 --> 00:34:04.880
to get through this tightened sprint, to revalue. That's a bit graphic

523
00:34:06.980 --> 00:34:11.630
graphic sorry for that. I take that back. I'll leave.

524
00:34:11.810 --> 00:34:12.501
Can I just, thank you.

525
00:34:12.501 --> 00:34:17.360
You actually put in words where I've been struggling in certain pages to put in

526
00:34:17.420 --> 00:34:21.620
words your, your clarification of thought and what the actual problem is,

527
00:34:21.621 --> 00:34:23.930
was much better than mine. I appreciate that.

528
00:34:25.510 --> 00:34:29.650
<v 0>I just wanted to touch on, I heard the words or I think,</v>

529
00:34:29.651 --> 00:34:31.750
or wonder or something in that, in that question.

530
00:34:32.110 --> 00:34:36.910
And those two words are something we try and bring in all of our

531
00:34:36.911 --> 00:34:41.200
exhibitions and our artistic programs at the art gallery of south Australia and,

532
00:34:41.440 --> 00:34:46.180
or in wonder are incredible incredibly important emotions in the

533
00:34:46.181 --> 00:34:47.014
arts.

534
00:34:47.110 --> 00:34:51.940
And when Nick mitzvah came on board to the art gallery,

535
00:34:52.480 --> 00:34:54.010
so almost six years ago,

536
00:34:54.370 --> 00:34:58.810
one of the things he did was to redo the whole of the

537
00:34:58.811 --> 00:35:01.870
Melrose wing of of European art.

538
00:35:02.290 --> 00:35:07.030
And that gallery was previously curated in a chronological

539
00:35:07.031 --> 00:35:07.840
way.

540
00:35:07.840 --> 00:35:12.340
And it's been redone in thematic displays.

541
00:35:12.341 --> 00:35:16.690
So there's a whole gallery devoted to the human condition where we have

542
00:35:17.050 --> 00:35:21.670
portraits of, of the very wealthy and elite. On one side of the gallery,

543
00:35:21.910 --> 00:35:26.860
I bought eyeballing all these portraits of people who were in positions of,

544
00:35:26.861 --> 00:35:31.720
of either death or poverty. We have a gallery dedicated to,

545
00:35:31.970 --> 00:35:35.740
to changing ideals of beauty momentum,

546
00:35:36.220 --> 00:35:37.150
mores around death.

547
00:35:37.470 --> 00:35:42.120
And the Melrose wing is designed to first and foremost

548
00:35:42.750 --> 00:35:47.250
derive an emotional reaction from our visitors and to

549
00:35:47.251 --> 00:35:48.840
second secondly,

550
00:35:49.350 --> 00:35:53.100
consider more intellectual approaches to the art.

551
00:35:53.490 --> 00:35:58.110
And we believe that that is an ideal approach in an art museum

552
00:35:58.380 --> 00:36:02.910
that spectical in or in one jar are the first thing we want our

553
00:36:02.911 --> 00:36:05.910
visitors to encounter. And then we want,

554
00:36:05.911 --> 00:36:08.520
she grabbed them in a more intellectual sense.

555
00:36:12.650 --> 00:36:14.490
<v 2>Another question from the floor.</v>

556
00:36:16.380 --> 00:36:20.130
<v 0>Hello. My name is Tanya and my husband.</v>

557
00:36:20.131 --> 00:36:24.810
I have a gallery in the city and I came from the business world,

558
00:36:24.811 --> 00:36:29.760
spent many years in technology and education and started a gallery is

559
00:36:29.761 --> 00:36:32.940
my husband. And I understand what you're saying.

560
00:36:32.941 --> 00:36:37.590
A lot of people have said that we've retired because I'm not in the business

561
00:36:37.591 --> 00:36:40.320
world anymore as such under that definition.

562
00:36:40.710 --> 00:36:45.690
But my question is to you is that I do a lot of coaching with

563
00:36:45.691 --> 00:36:50.580
other galleries and artists on how to make a living out of their particular

564
00:36:51.270 --> 00:36:56.100
artwork. And I agree that the measurement of success is

565
00:36:56.101 --> 00:37:00.720
always quite often monetary of whether you're successful in the arts or

566
00:37:00.721 --> 00:37:01.620
wherever you are.

567
00:37:02.160 --> 00:37:06.840
Do you think that it would help for us to grow culturally and

568
00:37:06.841 --> 00:37:10.350
accept arts in the mainstream? If we looked at,

569
00:37:10.351 --> 00:37:14.910
or governments looked at more of the Battan measurement where they measure

570
00:37:14.911 --> 00:37:16.740
GDP and happiness?

571
00:37:19.200 --> 00:37:23.220
I think I had, I had a friend at one point, just thinking about happiness,

572
00:37:23.221 --> 00:37:28.110
who was obsessed with creating an app where you would say how happy

573
00:37:28.111 --> 00:37:32.550
you were in a certain place, and that you would then be able to find, you know,

574
00:37:32.551 --> 00:37:36.300
a cafe or a restaurant where then you could work out how happy people are

575
00:37:36.510 --> 00:37:41.400
generally there. And I love that whole idea of, of, of accounting for value in,

576
00:37:41.401 --> 00:37:42.600
in, in happiness.

577
00:37:46.370 --> 00:37:48.470
<v Julian Meyrick>Yeah, we all want to be happy,</v>

578
00:37:48.471 --> 00:37:52.820
but actually I lost about not about happiness

579
00:37:53.210 --> 00:37:56.720
and love art doesn't make me particularly happy, or if it does,

580
00:37:56.721 --> 00:38:01.250
it does it often through a very long Securitas route. I mean,

581
00:38:01.850 --> 00:38:06.830
you know, ethical ethics and happiness, don't always go together.

582
00:38:07.190 --> 00:38:10.790
I mean, that goes back to Aristotle and, you know, part of what,

583
00:38:11.210 --> 00:38:15.920
part of what arts and cultures are part of what art has always

584
00:38:16.130 --> 00:38:20.660
attempted to do is find a way of articulating usually through experience through

585
00:38:21.320 --> 00:38:25.190
emotion, through very odd parts of what we are unaware of

586
00:38:26.420 --> 00:38:29.300
articulate in a deeper ethical concern.

587
00:38:29.570 --> 00:38:31.550
And that's often not brought happiness.

588
00:38:31.551 --> 00:38:35.950
So I wouldn't I wouldn't link art and happiness

589
00:38:36.070 --> 00:38:38.230
outcomes too much together.

590
00:38:39.070 --> 00:38:43.780
I think especially when the happiness is reduced to a series of

591
00:38:43.781 --> 00:38:46.930
metrics, is it increasingly is because again,

592
00:38:46.931 --> 00:38:50.470
it's trying to say actually it's useful, not economically,

593
00:38:50.471 --> 00:38:53.530
but it produces wellness and happiness outcomes,

594
00:38:53.531 --> 00:38:57.670
and we hope it does in some ways. And I think it will do,

595
00:38:57.671 --> 00:39:00.610
but it's not a direct route. And sometimes as I say,

596
00:39:01.240 --> 00:39:04.980
produces own happiness outcomes, and that's why it's really good, challenging.

597
00:39:04.980 --> 00:39:07.140
<v 0>And unsettling. That's what we want in our arts.</v>

598
00:39:09.780 --> 00:39:14.160
<v Julian Meyrick>The philosopher, John Sewell coined this term,</v>

599
00:39:14.190 --> 00:39:19.110
the background to describe the ideas and concepts that fundamentally

600
00:39:19.111 --> 00:39:23.390
inform us as human beings on a daily basis. And I,

601
00:39:23.391 --> 00:39:28.080
I think probably culture speaks to the background. So it's the most basic thing.

602
00:39:28.500 --> 00:39:33.000
So it's very difficult to get an index to go behind that because in a

603
00:39:33.001 --> 00:39:33.834
way

604
00:39:35.340 --> 00:39:39.690
our very notion of happiness is is kind of culturally informed at the deepest

605
00:39:39.691 --> 00:39:43.770
level. You, you, you on a certain basic level,

606
00:39:43.771 --> 00:39:48.120
you just have to accept culture around you is the thing that allows you to

607
00:39:48.121 --> 00:39:49.740
create other kinds of categories.

608
00:39:50.510 --> 00:39:52.800
And that's part of the problem with measuring it. You can,

609
00:39:52.830 --> 00:39:55.710
you can measure certain things and it makes sense to do that,

610
00:39:56.190 --> 00:39:59.460
but that's not what we're doing. We're not measuring certain things.

611
00:39:59.461 --> 00:40:03.090
We're measuring everything and it's nuts.

612
00:40:05.010 --> 00:40:05.843
<v 0>Indeed.</v>

613
00:40:06.270 --> 00:40:10.560
And I just want to any more questions and one more up here. Yep.

614
00:40:13.050 --> 00:40:17.820
<v Julian Meyrick>Excuse me. We appreciate some feedback on this proposition.</v>

615
00:40:19.140 --> 00:40:19.591
Firstly,

616
00:40:19.591 --> 00:40:24.360
I don't think the general public RAs empathetic towards what's happening to the

617
00:40:24.361 --> 00:40:29.010
arts or our cultural scene in Australia and overseas.

618
00:40:29.011 --> 00:40:29.850
For that matter.

619
00:40:30.510 --> 00:40:35.400
I think Australians do value their art galleries, the museums,

620
00:40:35.430 --> 00:40:39.930
the live gigs, the live music, a whole range of things.

621
00:40:40.080 --> 00:40:42.840
They value it. The trouble is

622
00:40:44.580 --> 00:40:49.290
it's how to galvanize them and get them to

623
00:40:49.291 --> 00:40:51.720
focus on the arts community,

624
00:40:52.650 --> 00:40:55.080
to grab the attention of politicians.

625
00:40:56.820 --> 00:41:01.680
And you've got to use the basis of fear that is every politician wants

626
00:41:01.681 --> 00:41:03.000
to keep their job

627
00:41:06.120 --> 00:41:10.590
governments successively. In this state, I've said to the police,

628
00:41:10.650 --> 00:41:13.110
you can't have this. You can't have that.

629
00:41:13.170 --> 00:41:17.280
If there's a March of 2000 coppers and their uniforms down the king William

630
00:41:17.290 --> 00:41:19.980
street, the government's boots shake,

631
00:41:21.270 --> 00:41:24.330
they tell the nurses, you can only have this, or you can't have that.

632
00:41:24.360 --> 00:41:28.650
They marched down king William street and they nurses uniforms and it changes

633
00:41:29.370 --> 00:41:33.950
overnight. The arts community is a disparate group.

634
00:41:33.980 --> 00:41:37.100
I appreciate that. And it's very hard to coordinate.

635
00:41:38.990 --> 00:41:43.820
You don't have champions like Dunstan and Whitlam in

636
00:41:43.821 --> 00:41:45.800
government or in political parties.

637
00:41:46.730 --> 00:41:51.620
You are dealing basically with the draws of the political class on all sides of

638
00:41:51.621 --> 00:41:56.510
politics, of the major parties. That is a fundamental understanding.

639
00:41:56.540 --> 00:42:00.980
You are dealing with the draws where the accountants have seized

640
00:42:00.981 --> 00:42:03.050
control of the policy.

641
00:42:04.310 --> 00:42:08.780
So what you need to do, and I'd be interested,

642
00:42:08.781 --> 00:42:13.070
I'll close on this point, despite your disparate,

643
00:42:13.610 --> 00:42:18.230
disparate nature, all over Australia. And in this state,

644
00:42:19.250 --> 00:42:24.170
there are tens of thousands of people who work or volunteer or

645
00:42:24.171 --> 00:42:28.130
have some association with the arts. You've got deep roots,

646
00:42:28.430 --> 00:42:32.630
you've got to be able to mobilize them and put the fear of Christ into the

647
00:42:33.200 --> 00:42:34.033
dross.

648
00:42:34.690 --> 00:42:37.810
<v 2>Okay. Thank you.</v>

649
00:42:38.470 --> 00:42:43.390
<v 0>I quite like the idea of an arts army arts army marching</v>

650
00:42:43.391 --> 00:42:47.860
in yeah, my goodness. I think one of the, I guess,

651
00:42:49.480 --> 00:42:50.530
reduced funding for another,

652
00:42:50.590 --> 00:42:54.250
a lot of cultural institutions and a lot of arts communities has meant that

653
00:42:54.550 --> 00:42:57.160
there has been more crossover and necessity to,

654
00:42:57.340 --> 00:43:01.450
to collaborate whether it's sharing resources or, you know,

655
00:43:01.451 --> 00:43:04.930
something like very basic, like an it manager that,

656
00:43:04.931 --> 00:43:09.400
that has meant that has by necessity and be more collaboration across the arts.

657
00:43:09.401 --> 00:43:12.190
And most of you, I guess the last few years,

658
00:43:12.490 --> 00:43:16.960
I know the art gallery of new south Wales share their storage with,

659
00:43:16.990 --> 00:43:20.620
I think it's one of the dance organizations in new south Wales,

660
00:43:21.310 --> 00:43:22.390
which is really interesting.

661
00:43:22.391 --> 00:43:27.220
And I wonder by necessity because of the reduced funding that they

662
00:43:27.230 --> 00:43:31.240
will be I guess, a stronger voice from the community because of that.

663
00:43:32.890 --> 00:43:35.590
<v Julian Meyrick>I think it's certain,</v>

664
00:43:35.591 --> 00:43:40.090
I think there's a space in which the, the cultural sector and I, you know,

665
00:43:40.120 --> 00:43:44.290
you include media workers right across the board

666
00:43:44.710 --> 00:43:45.910
musicians, et cetera.

667
00:43:46.090 --> 00:43:49.510
There is a space where they should get more organized and they do incense

668
00:43:49.930 --> 00:43:50.763
census, you know, the,

669
00:43:50.980 --> 00:43:55.330
some of the things in Sydney and Melbourne about live gigs and some of the

670
00:43:55.331 --> 00:43:57.850
constraints on that were successful, you know,

671
00:43:58.270 --> 00:44:01.360
you know the keep music live kind of thing.

672
00:44:02.290 --> 00:44:05.380
There are certain very, I mean, in north America,

673
00:44:05.590 --> 00:44:10.420
very strong film and TV unions that

674
00:44:10.421 --> 00:44:13.420
really, you know, they, they pulled the plug on Hollywood for a long time.

675
00:44:13.421 --> 00:44:18.280
So higher levels of unionization would, would, would help.

676
00:44:18.640 --> 00:44:20.500
So there are certain things that,

677
00:44:20.690 --> 00:44:25.630
that the cultural sector can do to organize and put pressure on things I

678
00:44:25.631 --> 00:44:27.970
think they need to act upon.

679
00:44:29.020 --> 00:44:33.570
But it's also, it's, it's more difficult because it's kind of,

680
00:44:33.960 --> 00:44:36.840
it's not one of the nurses walk out to the hospital.

681
00:44:37.350 --> 00:44:40.170
Things happen within hours, you know,

682
00:44:40.200 --> 00:44:42.960
the cultural workers leave culturally.

683
00:44:43.190 --> 00:44:46.890
It takes a long time for the thing, you know,

684
00:44:46.920 --> 00:44:50.340
for the bad bits to start happening. And so it's not a,

685
00:44:50.350 --> 00:44:54.480
it's not an immediate kind of you know, walking down the middle of the street.

686
00:44:54.481 --> 00:44:58.680
So it's, I actually, I actually think it's about,

687
00:44:58.770 --> 00:45:03.420
it should be about more organizations, self organization,

688
00:45:03.630 --> 00:45:07.230
whether that's unions or professional organizations, we need more of them.

689
00:45:07.410 --> 00:45:10.770
I think they need to be more assertive. I think there needs to be,

690
00:45:10.800 --> 00:45:12.690
get off the back force and start saying,

691
00:45:12.870 --> 00:45:16.740
we need to do this and all those kind of things. But it's not going to be,

692
00:45:16.770 --> 00:45:20.690
it's not an easy, it's not an easy take. But I think there,

693
00:45:20.710 --> 00:45:24.280
there are just other ways in which that, that kind of, you know, the, the,

694
00:45:24.310 --> 00:45:25.650
the field can be changed.

695
00:45:25.650 --> 00:45:29.910
I think a more concerted effort to break with the language of,

696
00:45:30.030 --> 00:45:34.860
you know just pure economic value at a more direct claim for

697
00:45:34.861 --> 00:45:36.510
more from increased funding,

698
00:45:36.870 --> 00:45:41.820
a more robust kind of narrative about what the value what kind of

699
00:45:41.821 --> 00:45:46.740
value we are. I think, you know, it's, it's kind of, I mean, you know,

700
00:45:46.741 --> 00:45:48.300
there's not that those resources there,

701
00:45:48.301 --> 00:45:53.190
but the kind of bamboozlement that the mining industry has put over Australia

702
00:45:53.191 --> 00:45:56.730
over the last, well, I was going to say 20 years, probably over a hundred years,

703
00:45:56.940 --> 00:46:01.610
you know, there's a great statistic where most people asked.

704
00:46:01.700 --> 00:46:03.780
I think they were talking about the closing down at the,

705
00:46:04.110 --> 00:46:06.720
some of the mines in the new south Wales,

706
00:46:06.780 --> 00:46:11.700
the hunter region most people thought the mining sector employed about 35%

707
00:46:11.760 --> 00:46:15.360
of the workforce. And it's something like three or four, you know,

708
00:46:15.361 --> 00:46:16.590
there's this huge,

709
00:46:16.680 --> 00:46:20.910
a huge gap between what people think it is and the perception and kind of the

710
00:46:20.911 --> 00:46:22.320
arts is the other way around.

711
00:46:22.320 --> 00:46:26.340
And we have tried for many years saying it's employs this many people and it's

712
00:46:26.341 --> 00:46:28.500
got this, it generates this much wealth.

713
00:46:28.740 --> 00:46:33.330
And actually that has in other countries that has worked, you know, in, in,

714
00:46:33.420 --> 00:46:38.400
I mean, Australia is way way behind Europe U S north

715
00:46:38.401 --> 00:46:39.720
America, the UK,

716
00:46:39.960 --> 00:46:44.550
where there is some recognition that it's a big bloody sector,

717
00:46:44.820 --> 00:46:47.400
you know, its employees more than construction, et cetera.

718
00:46:47.700 --> 00:46:52.560
So even those basic things are still not recognized in, in, in Australia now,

719
00:46:52.830 --> 00:46:56.760
which to my mind is very bizarre, but so these basic things can be done,

720
00:46:56.790 --> 00:47:00.060
but that it won't be enough. It's gotta be over that.

721
00:47:00.061 --> 00:47:01.620
And it's things like it is about.

722
00:47:02.600 --> 00:47:05.810
<v 0>As well. At the art gallery of south Australia,</v>

723
00:47:05.840 --> 00:47:10.190
98% of our collection has been given to us either through

724
00:47:10.310 --> 00:47:13.430
donation or supported through private benefaction.

725
00:47:13.970 --> 00:47:18.920
And we think $11.8 million through private benefaction

726
00:47:18.921 --> 00:47:22.400
last financial year. And I was talking to a friend about this and he said,

727
00:47:22.401 --> 00:47:23.780
but what did they get out of it?

728
00:47:24.260 --> 00:47:26.960
<v 2>I thought, wow, passion.</v>

729
00:47:27.020 --> 00:47:31.370
<v 0>Involvement in the arts. I don't know. They,</v>

730
00:47:31.430 --> 00:47:34.030
they love art. They love to support the gallery.

731
00:47:34.031 --> 00:47:36.340
They love to be involved in the process.

732
00:47:36.850 --> 00:47:39.310
And I wonder if sort of the model,

733
00:47:39.340 --> 00:47:44.230
the private benefaction and the way we measure don't measure, you know,

734
00:47:44.470 --> 00:47:48.490
the outcomes of that could be a good model for us to implicate in,

735
00:47:48.491 --> 00:47:50.710
in the government sense, because, you know,

736
00:47:51.220 --> 00:47:54.760
in terms of those dollars and cents the value for them, perhaps,

737
00:47:54.761 --> 00:47:59.710
maybe with the exception of tax incentive yeah,

738
00:47:59.711 --> 00:48:00.700
it's really interesting.

739
00:48:00.701 --> 00:48:05.350
The language used around government funding and the language used around private

740
00:48:05.351 --> 00:48:07.780
benefaction, you know, chalk and cheese.

741
00:48:09.201 --> 00:48:14.040
<v Julian Meyrick>Well I think about I spent a lot of time in Hobart around Mona</v>

742
00:48:14.400 --> 00:48:19.230
and I'm really struck by the kind of dividing line because I mean,

743
00:48:19.290 --> 00:48:23.670
obviously David Walsh is it's not really getting any money out of it,

744
00:48:24.420 --> 00:48:26.880
the opposite. He's getting lots of things out of it. I mean, it's,

745
00:48:27.100 --> 00:48:30.510
it's an interesting thing to do rather than just on a boat and rent it,

746
00:48:30.840 --> 00:48:35.820
buy a big house in Sydney, I suppose. But the people in Hobart and in Tasmania,

747
00:48:36.330 --> 00:48:38.910
it's clearly energized them,

748
00:48:38.940 --> 00:48:43.500
change their attitude to the island in a, in a very, very powerful way.

749
00:48:43.530 --> 00:48:45.600
If you go there, it's, it's completely changed.

750
00:48:45.690 --> 00:48:50.550
I people speak about where they are. And it's very funny to me.

751
00:48:50.551 --> 00:48:54.840
I think when you speak to the high government levels that they, they know this,

752
00:48:55.290 --> 00:48:58.500
they can see it so well from every taxi driver, right.

753
00:48:58.500 --> 00:49:03.270
The way through they can see this, and yet they still insist on,

754
00:49:03.600 --> 00:49:07.170
well, yes, but how do we quantify it? Even though everybody around them?

755
00:49:07.260 --> 00:49:11.850
He said, yeah, is it overnight stays Quantas, increasing Quantas flight,

756
00:49:12.420 --> 00:49:16.680
all these beverage per head. And he said,

757
00:49:16.710 --> 00:49:18.390
just go out to LA. And so it's very,

758
00:49:18.540 --> 00:49:21.060
even when it's shouting and staring them in the face,

759
00:49:21.150 --> 00:49:24.360
they find it very difficult to acknowledge it. I think that that's the problem.

760
00:49:24.690 --> 00:49:29.430
It's the displacement of a political or a policy or a social problem into a

761
00:49:29.431 --> 00:49:34.050
methodological register and it's chronic and it's ongoing and it doesn't

762
00:49:34.051 --> 00:49:38.760
work. And so at a certain point, you go, wait, why are we doing this? Why,

763
00:49:38.820 --> 00:49:43.740
why this, this this need, or even obsession, you have to say to,

764
00:49:43.770 --> 00:49:48.390
to pretend that you can answer a broad Bates question, like,

765
00:49:48.391 --> 00:49:53.340
why are we engaging in these activities by trying to find the number

766
00:49:53.341 --> 00:49:56.580
of beds that have been slept in on the Tuesday night?

767
00:49:58.470 --> 00:49:59.730
Okay. Now the question.

768
00:50:00.120 --> 00:50:02.760
<v 3>Yep. I have a little bit of a challenge as well.</v>

769
00:50:03.750 --> 00:50:05.820
More of a challenge than exactly a question,

770
00:50:05.821 --> 00:50:07.590
but I think you might like to speak to it.

771
00:50:08.850 --> 00:50:13.650
I find often the way artists and social scientists talk about

772
00:50:13.680 --> 00:50:15.390
culture is quite different.

773
00:50:16.070 --> 00:50:18.120
And they mean a different thing when they use that word,

774
00:50:18.121 --> 00:50:21.060
like in a social science perspective,

775
00:50:21.090 --> 00:50:25.320
culture is more what people are doing from day to day,

776
00:50:25.410 --> 00:50:29.180
like what is their normal activities? And I think in our culture,

777
00:50:29.270 --> 00:50:34.160
the default for a while has been work nine to five and then

778
00:50:34.161 --> 00:50:35.540
get home and watch TV.

779
00:50:35.630 --> 00:50:40.400
And I wonder if perhaps there's a way in which that cultural

780
00:50:40.401 --> 00:50:44.930
default speaks to the problem that we have with valuing art and perhaps turning

781
00:50:44.931 --> 00:50:49.640
off the television might be one way to go and change people's perspective.

782
00:50:52.020 --> 00:50:53.780
<v Julian Meyrick>I just wonder what you want to say.</v>

783
00:50:54.550 --> 00:50:59.230
I kind of got the first half of that question a little bit more clearly than

784
00:50:59.231 --> 00:51:01.780
the, than the second half. So I'll, I'll just address that.

785
00:51:02.590 --> 00:51:06.970
I trained as a social scientist before I came a theater director and my

786
00:51:06.971 --> 00:51:10.240
perception is it depends which social science you're talking about.

787
00:51:10.780 --> 00:51:14.980
So if you're talking about anthropology and certain strains of sociology,

788
00:51:15.040 --> 00:51:17.500
and I've been very influenced by another Chicago school,

789
00:51:17.501 --> 00:51:19.300
actually Chicago school sociology,

790
00:51:19.780 --> 00:51:24.430
then they seem to me social science traditions with a great interest in

791
00:51:24.431 --> 00:51:26.380
creative practices and crafts.

792
00:51:26.920 --> 00:51:31.090
One of my problems with economics and with economists

793
00:51:31.420 --> 00:51:33.730
is they don't have that interest,

794
00:51:34.570 --> 00:51:36.790
even when they have it as individuals.

795
00:51:36.820 --> 00:51:41.320
It doesn't translate into a sufficiently

796
00:51:42.040 --> 00:51:43.150
robust,

797
00:51:43.630 --> 00:51:48.580
empirical understanding when the rubber hits the road and they roll

798
00:51:48.581 --> 00:51:51.190
out their theories. So my,

799
00:51:51.250 --> 00:51:55.570
my perception of social sciences as kind of a practicing artist is,

800
00:51:55.571 --> 00:51:57.520
is they're quite fun to play in,

801
00:51:57.700 --> 00:52:02.260
but be careful who you get on the climbing frame with. Cause my,

802
00:52:02.300 --> 00:52:06.790
my time at the cultural economics conference in Spain was awful.

803
00:52:06.850 --> 00:52:11.170
I really hated every single moment of it because I thought it was

804
00:52:11.260 --> 00:52:12.093
arrogant.

805
00:52:13.780 --> 00:52:17.110
Short-Sighted methodologically confused,

806
00:52:17.410 --> 00:52:22.140
politically naive and and misreading everything. And the,

807
00:52:22.141 --> 00:52:25.330
and the Brexit vote was a sort of superb symbol of that.

808
00:52:25.480 --> 00:52:30.160
Cause I was sitting in a room of 200 economists who could not believe what had

809
00:52:30.161 --> 00:52:33.010
happened and, and their only answer was, well,

810
00:52:33.011 --> 00:52:34.720
people in England must be really stupid.

811
00:52:36.510 --> 00:52:40.660
And I had been in England just the year before talking to my cousin.

812
00:52:40.661 --> 00:52:44.530
So I call them the yeoman of England and they are many things,

813
00:52:44.531 --> 00:52:45.850
but stupid is not one of them.

814
00:52:49.420 --> 00:52:52.000
<v 0>Okay. We've got five minutes left,</v>

815
00:52:52.060 --> 00:52:56.740
which means probably time for one or two more questions if there's anybody else.

816
00:52:57.100 --> 00:52:58.600
Robert, thanks.

817
00:52:59.920 --> 00:53:00.611
<v 3>This harks back,</v>

818
00:53:00.611 --> 00:53:03.490
I think to something that Justin was saying a couple of minutes ago

819
00:53:05.290 --> 00:53:06.580
about the turn of the millennium,

820
00:53:06.820 --> 00:53:11.710
we were going to be saved by creative industries and the idea and

821
00:53:11.760 --> 00:53:13.900
you know, a lot more about this may I know Justin

822
00:53:15.610 --> 00:53:20.470
and that we were going to treat the arts as a serious

823
00:53:20.530 --> 00:53:25.270
aspect of the economy and then it would be properly valued and everything

824
00:53:25.290 --> 00:53:29.850
would end up being good. My perception is that has largely failed.

825
00:53:30.570 --> 00:53:34.740
And the thing I would like perhaps all of you to talk to

826
00:53:35.310 --> 00:53:37.260
is what sorts of,

827
00:53:37.980 --> 00:53:41.520
why don't we go back to what we're good at in the arts and culture,

828
00:53:42.060 --> 00:53:46.710
which is narrative telling stories, what sorts of stories of value,

829
00:53:46.711 --> 00:53:51.570
what sorts of ways of framing value might work when it is fairly obvious that

830
00:53:51.571 --> 00:53:55.050
the economy, the kind of mystic one has failed?

831
00:53:57.740 --> 00:54:00.050
<v Julian Meyrick>I'm not sure. I'm not sure if this is a direct answer,</v>

832
00:54:00.051 --> 00:54:03.260
but it's something that has always drove me nuts,

833
00:54:03.290 --> 00:54:07.190
which is Muslim's hierarchy of needs, right?

834
00:54:07.220 --> 00:54:08.320
Whenever people talk about,

835
00:54:08.510 --> 00:54:13.310
they always go on about it and it's this idea that you start with a shelter and

836
00:54:13.311 --> 00:54:15.050
then I can't remember it, no set shelter,

837
00:54:15.051 --> 00:54:18.950
then it's food and then it's love and then a kind of

838
00:54:19.520 --> 00:54:22.730
affection. And then finally, once you've got that sorted, it's,

839
00:54:22.970 --> 00:54:26.480
it's kind of a self-realization time. And this,

840
00:54:26.540 --> 00:54:31.220
the fact that this was written by a Russian markets market analyst, you know,

841
00:54:31.460 --> 00:54:33.350
a bogus kind of anthropologist,

842
00:54:33.740 --> 00:54:38.330
but I always thought how amazing that model is that it's rolled out it finally

843
00:54:38.480 --> 00:54:43.160
Western society can be involved in self-realization the creative industries,

844
00:54:43.190 --> 00:54:46.580
cultural consumption. And in fact that is,

845
00:54:46.940 --> 00:54:51.500
it singles us out as the most unique civilization in

846
00:54:51.501 --> 00:54:56.000
history because every other civilization and some of the oldest such as those in

847
00:54:56.001 --> 00:54:59.240
Australia start the other way around culture,

848
00:54:59.270 --> 00:55:04.010
is there absolutely before anything else or at the same

849
00:55:04.340 --> 00:55:06.800
times and else, you know, going go into a cave, you know,

850
00:55:06.801 --> 00:55:11.030
there's pictures of tigers and things like that. It's kind of only,

851
00:55:11.090 --> 00:55:13.130
only our Western culture.

852
00:55:13.370 --> 00:55:18.230
Do we allow self-realization culture to come at the end

853
00:55:18.231 --> 00:55:20.690
of well, let's get our economics sorted out.

854
00:55:21.050 --> 00:55:25.580
And I think somehow that story is become the story of what we are as a

855
00:55:25.581 --> 00:55:27.610
culture. And, and, you know, I mean, I,

856
00:55:27.611 --> 00:55:32.030
I get struck by as soon as you encounter indigenous indigenous people,

857
00:55:32.031 --> 00:55:36.050
which are beginning to in a very small way, it's the opposite.

858
00:55:36.800 --> 00:55:40.730
Culture's gotta be there right from the beginning before we watched telly

859
00:55:41.090 --> 00:55:43.700
before, you know, it's, it's there, it's there with, you know,

860
00:55:44.030 --> 00:55:48.680
with connections to country and things and understanding some of those things

861
00:55:48.980 --> 00:55:53.750
are it's part of the way we've got to go forward. Culture is the beginning,

862
00:55:53.780 --> 00:55:54.613
not the end.

863
00:55:55.250 --> 00:56:00.090
<v 0>Absolutely. I would say in terms of stories at the art gallery, we, we,</v>

864
00:56:00.091 --> 00:56:04.910
we do do that. That's how we curate exhibitions. That's how I talk about art.

865
00:56:04.911 --> 00:56:09.410
I don't talk about an artist is in terms of their economic contribution

866
00:56:09.770 --> 00:56:11.060
in dollars and cents.

867
00:56:11.061 --> 00:56:15.950
I talk about their artistic practice and how they work and their inspiration

868
00:56:15.951 --> 00:56:20.600
and what they're trying to say and how their work is art of the now,

869
00:56:20.630 --> 00:56:25.270
how it is an expression of now. So we, we do do that,

870
00:56:25.271 --> 00:56:29.170
but we don't quantify our work in that way, which is totally fascinating.

871
00:56:32.880 --> 00:56:36.150
<v Julian Meyrick>I don't know if I have any kind of answer to that one, Robert,</v>

872
00:56:36.330 --> 00:56:38.070
cause it's quite a difficult question.

873
00:56:40.110 --> 00:56:44.490
One thing that I do having had this discussion with a few people about what

874
00:56:44.491 --> 00:56:48.960
culture is just got to be an endless and quite tedious dinner party

875
00:56:48.961 --> 00:56:50.890
conversation is, is,

876
00:56:50.970 --> 00:56:55.590
is to look at the things I encounter on a daily basis and try and fit them in

877
00:56:55.591 --> 00:56:56.424
it.

878
00:56:56.850 --> 00:57:01.260
So my 13 year old son is fascinated by graffiti

879
00:57:02.040 --> 00:57:02.880
and to tubing.

880
00:57:04.140 --> 00:57:08.550
And I went to the Robert Hannaford exhibition and you know,

881
00:57:08.610 --> 00:57:13.080
other other things, and you, if you take the things in front of you and you,

882
00:57:13.110 --> 00:57:17.730
you try and build a puzzle of what the cultural experience is

883
00:57:17.790 --> 00:57:19.860
actually like, then you end up,

884
00:57:19.890 --> 00:57:24.540
I think with a very different view of it than if you just go through policy

885
00:57:24.900 --> 00:57:29.640
reports. And it's messy and it is messy because we're messy,

886
00:57:29.920 --> 00:57:34.920
we're living at a messy time. And I, as you know,

887
00:57:36.180 --> 00:57:40.590
I can't think of any where better to start than the

888
00:57:40.591 --> 00:57:42.570
encounter itself, whether,

889
00:57:42.600 --> 00:57:46.410
whether that's with a film or with a painting or with a piece of music,

890
00:57:46.710 --> 00:57:50.790
because whatever happens there between us and individuals in an individual

891
00:57:51.000 --> 00:57:55.980
artwork, that is where the value ultimately, thank you.

892
00:57:56.040 --> 00:57:59.340
<v 0>That's a terrific spot to end. Please join me in thanking our speakers.</v>

893
00:58:07.770 --> 00:58:07.770
[inaudible].