Angela Dorgan: An ugly reality for the arts community
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I recently listened in to a round table discussion, hosted on the website.
Irish actor Andrew Scott was speaking with fellow actors about how important storytelling through the arts was during the pandemic, how the work created and presented by artists during the global crisis helped people across the world to connect, and how it uplifted us at a time when we were at our lowest ebb.
He then went on to say that we must always remember how important it is to invest in the arts and how it serves an incredible function in the world. This was exactly the message, the sentiment, the clarion call that came from the arts sector in Ireland during the pandemic.
I was then Chair of the National Campaign for the Arts (NCFA), and along with an amazing group of volunteer campaigners, a united, motivated arts community, and many allies, we ran a national campaign called Save The Arts.
Its purpose was threefold:
- to demystify ‘the arts’ for a wide public, developing understanding that the arts are consumed by all of us whether we see them as ‘arts’ or not;
- to give a voice to both the arts community and their audiences, enabling a focused, cohesive, nationwide call to action to express love, support, and need for arts experiences;
- to draw attention to the decades-long sectoral crisis, now further compounded by restrictions and lockdowns, and what would be lost to all citizens if sufficient investment wasn’t forthcoming for the arts without delay.
It was beautiful in its simplicity — no arts? — no music, no books, no TV, no film, no theatre, no dance, no poetry, no painting, no spectacle, no joy, no excitement, no beauty, no point.
While the pandemic is a useful starting point to assess the current state of the arts sector in Ireland, it is crucial to remember that it was the third sectoral crisis point in just a decade for artists, arts workers, and arts organisations.
Arts funding had never recovered from the scathing cuts made during the banking crisis, and that small pot was then further eroded as austerity measures were instigated. The next thing you know a global pandemic hits, bringing us all to our knees, the arts one of the most severely impacted sectors.
It was fortuitous for our entire community that a new Minister for Arts took office in the early months of the pandemic. Minister Catherine Martin presided over an enormous sea change in the attitude of our government to the arts. She facilitated and supported the sector to devise and guide its own recovery.
A working group was assembled, with representatives from across the arts coming together to produce an achievable and realistic framework to enable sectoral recovery and growth post covid. The taskforce, of which the NCFA was a member, presented a detailed and considered action plan that led with the call for the introduction of a basic income for artists.
The Basic Income for Artists (BIA) pilot scheme was launched and is currently running. The initial data reporting is already returning incredibly promising results. It has the potential to be life-changing for our artists and arts workers, and for all our citizens, as it secures supply and access to the myriad benefits that the arts provide.
Emerging qualitative evidence on BIA suggests that the stability of a small but guaranteed income during the working process of making and creating art and music is having a significantly positive impact on health and wellbeing.
It is also enabling artists to make modest personal investments in health insurance, pensions, and savings. These basics have been getting further and further out of reach for those working in arts and music.
However, the current investment in our sector, though hard fought for and a notable improvement, remains insufficient to sustain our industry. Along with most of our fellow citizens, the arts community is being devastated by the challenges of both housing and the cost-of-living crisis.
The glaring difference is that the arts sector is now 33% worse off post-pandemic. The baseline results from the first six months of assessment of the Basic Income for Artists pilot makes for stark reading in terms of housing precarity in the sector.
Coupled with this are the truly alarming statistics from a recent pay scale review of the sector. These key findings show that artists’ earnings are a hefty 33% lower than the basic average wage when compared with other industries.
Artists’ pay has declined more than any other sector, the pay gap is widening, and employment conditions are worsening. This is the stark, ugly reality of the damage done to the arts in Ireland over the last decade.
It is incredibly worrying that artists and workers in our sector are seeing decreased earnings while most other industries are experiencing positive uplift. Low pay is forcing more than half of musicians and artists to take on multiple roles in the arts and entertainment sector, leading to mental health issues and burnout.
One-third of artists and musicians reported that they are concerned that financial pressures will force them to leave the sector in the next six months.
Inevitably, this will exacerbate a toxic culture of overwork, self-subsidy, and underpay, as well as the chronic skills shortage, especially in production and technical roles, that we are now experiencing. How do we secure our creative workforce when this is the reality of life in the arts?
Spaces for artists to imagine and create art are dwindling, many performance spaces and venues didn’t survive the pandemic, and many are seeing a slowdown in audiences returning. Couple this with the bare margin independent promoters were carving out when VAT on tickets was 9%, now being eroded with VAT back at 13%.
We need drastic commitment to address these issues. Minister Martin needs to be better supported by all of government, the arts budget needs to be larger, and more of it needs to go to the structures that are in place to support it. We need to increase funding to the Arts Council to support artists and organisations to make more work and provide infrastructure for that work to sustain.
We need to increase the funding to Local Authority Arts Offices and to Culture Ireland to nurture artists along their career paths from local to international opportunities. We need to support the work of Creative Ireland in schools and communities across the country.
We need more spaces for artists, arts workers, and arts organisations to work in and from. We need to encourage new models of support for philanthropy in the arts.
We need VAT back at 9% on tickets. We need to ensure that all artists and arts workers have equality of access to all opportunities. We most crucially need to call on the present and all future governments in our State to roll out the Basic Income for Artists to all artists and art workers on completion of the pilot scheme.
We each have a relative or friend who works in the arts, every one of us walks a little taller when “one of ours” excels on the international stage and I believe everyone deserves the opportunity to work in the arts if that is the path they choose, and that every citizen should have open access to the arts.
Let’s individually and collectively demand a firm commitment to the arts from every local councillor, European candidate, and prospective TD who calls to our doors.
We have seen what we can achieve when we come together with a collective, cohesive voice. We have a unique opportunity now to stand up and #supportthearts.
- Angela Dorgan is CEO, First Music Contact, Deans Arts Studio and former Chair of the National Campaign for the Arts (NCFA)