The art of politics

Pauline Hadaway

The walls will come down. The task is daunting. It will require belief and confidence in our need to live in a connected city. We will work with the people living near the walls to create safe, secure and sustainable
communities. Then the walls will no longer have a purpose and the walls will come down.

You might be forgiven for attributing these words to a politician, while wondering who, among Belfast's current political leadership, would ever express such resolve, such hopefulness for the future of the city. You would be right to wonder. This inspiring vision of a city without walls comes from an arts funding application not a political manifesto and far from signalling a reinvigoration of Belfast's political life, it evidences the growing politicisation of arts and culture.

Imagine Belfast, the city's bid to become European capital of culture, loudly proclaimed the value of public engagement in cultural activities as an essential element in the process of building peace and prosperity. The bid was unsuccessful, although its failure probably had more to do with local
weaknesses within the arts community than any objection to an excess of intentions from the UK Department of Culture. On the contrary, the same government department defines one of the key values of art and culture as 'their ability to provide ways for the people to come together to express their belief in participation in society'. In other words as far as New
Labour is concerned, politicisation of the arts no longer means artists using art as a polemic against political orthodoxy, but art as a means of imposing political conformity.

The UK cultural sector now measure the value of art according to ' social and economic impacts', while dismissing critical appreciation of artists' work as elitism. Arts administrators have tended to respond by adopting the behaviour patterns of corporate managers with a social conscience, in the hope of
maintaining political support and funding.

Belfast City Council, for example, explicitly states this view of culture in its latest consultative document, which talks about 'culture as an economic driver' and 'an expression of identity'. In a deeply divided society likeours, where existing political arrangements encourage an understanding of identity as something culturally, rather than consciously or socially determined, artists need to safeguard their independence.

Let's face it, most artists and educators in the north of Ireland don't need to be lectured on the value of plays, paintings and poetry, nor, by and large, do they live in ivory towers. Over the past 30 years or so, while our politicians were otherwise engaged, artists have simply been getting on with their work individually or with communities. Some of this work has addressed matters of political and social significance, some has not. That is their business as artists and ours as audiences.

Perhaps if politicians spent a little less time contemplating the arts, they could concentrate on the business of building a society fit for people to live in, where individual standards of living rise, public services function effectively and laws are applied fairly. We might even see the walls coming down.

Pauline Hadaway, 3 February 2003