Mandy Martin, Puritjarra 2, 2005. For further information on MANDY MARTIN, refer here: http://www.mandy-martin.com/
If there are diverse kinds of knowledge and ways of knowing place, then we need to learn to value the different ways each of us sees a single place that is significant, but differently so, for each perspective.
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looking for something firm in a world of chaotic flux
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Barry Kosky
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August 13, 2008
Kerry O'Brien interviewed Barry Kosky on the 7.30 Report last night. Kosky made some good points about Australian culture. One of them is this insight into how elitism is represented:
I also think that Australians are happy to accept the highest level of funding and standards in sport, but are quite happy if the arts somehow have to sort of fight for themselves. Elitism is okay in a sport, it's okay to send a handful of the most trained, skilled, perfect Olympic specimens to Canberra and to national sports institutes, but God help us if we did the same in ballet, or theatre or spent the same amount of money on a small group of people in the arts. There'd be outcry. So there's a sort of contradiction, the sport, arts. And you know, I have no problem with sport but I'm just saying that Australia has a, sometimes in its, what is "Australia"? But the Australia glance over everything sometimes is just full of just outrageous contradictions.
So true. The arts are there to be bashed up in the name of the common sense of the Australian people. I wonder what the art bashers----eg.,those who were so quick to attack Bill Henson--- think of Australian architects designing the Bird's Nest stadium in Beijing?
Another point Kosky made was this:
I'm suspicious of all Australian politicians in the arts, I think with very few exceptions, that Australian politicians, both Labor, Liberal, National, Democrats are on the whole ignorant when it comes to the arts. There's been exceptions, I won't name them, but there have been exceptions, great exceptions, but on the whole, I think it's still seen as an indulgence by most Australian politicians, it's still seen as something that is not as important as education and health and as important to the soul of the country....I am incredibly aware that Australian politicians tend use the arts when they need to as little footballs, to sort of kick around. They are very happy when we win an Oscar in Hollywood and they're very happy when whatever has a large media presence, but that's not the issue. The issue is do they really believe that without these things the soul of the country is diminished. That's what I want to know. And we need to look into these politicians'' eyes and say "If you let these theatre companies or dance companies, or if you don't make this cultural landscape rich, the soul of the country will be diminished and do you have a problem with this?"
Most Australian politicians are pre-modernist in their taste and they view the arts as decoration and not as part of the creative industries.
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Sport has lots of appeal because it's both competitive and easily understood in terms of winner/loser, points, seconds, rankings etc.
Art can be baffling especially when it's not pretty. Lots of people still can't relate to art that is not decorative or for entertainment only, such as chart music. It's not just the politicians. People are used to passively taking in and don't know how to use their own imagination to get to the bottom of something.
We are a society that likes its entertainment easy and clear cut I guess. We don't know how to actively investigate something and want it all clearly spelled out or we don't get it.