Funding for writing and publishing is not just low: it’s also declining. Ben Eltham looks at a grim federal budget for literature, in the context of ongoing neglect for written culture in Australia.
With the tapering down of COVID stimulus measures, many of Australia’s cultural institutions are facing cuts – but Australia Council funding remains steady.
Paul Fletcher, Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts.
AAP Image/Mick Tsikas
Arts Minister Paul Fletcher has taken aim at what he calls a ‘cosy club’ of arts elites. But his claim of ‘unprecedented’ arts funding and a push for greater fairness don’t add up.
Then national theatre critic of The Australian, Katharine Brisbane and her husband, drama academic, the late Dr Philip Parsons, two years after they founded Currency Press in 1971, with their children Nick, now chair of Currency Press, and Harriet, this year replacing Katharine as Director of Currency House.
Currency House
Ex theatre critic for The Australian and founder of Currency Press and Currency House, Katharine Brisbane, now 89, has issued a call to arms for the arts to be taken seriously.
Why is the gender pay gap wider in the arts than other fields of employment? We mined the data looking for possible reasons.
Kate Winslet in the 2015 film The Dressmaker. The film was based on the novel by Australian writer Rosalie Ham.
Screen Australia, Film Art Media, White Hot Productions
Literature funding has been cut brutally in recent years and writers’ incomes are disastrously low. Yet books shape our national identity, forming an often invisible bedrock for the wider economy.
Teresa Margolles’ Nirin installation at the recent reopening of Carriageworks in Sydney.
AAP Image/Mick Tsikas
Arts service organisations advocate for artists and help develop artforms. Cuts in NSW signal a more targeted approach to reduced government support for the arts and culture.
The Australian Ballet rehearsed Sylvia in November last year.
AAP/Bianca De Marchi
The arts and cultural sector was plunged into crisis three months ago and pleaded for help. Now a federal rescue package has been announced – but who is it for and is it enough?
The Bell Shakespeare Company – established with support from the Trust – had to end its touring season of Hamlet early due to coronavirus.
Brett Boardman
Arguments for Australian culture focus on what it should say to demonstrate its worth - rather than the government’s capacity to listen. Our history of conservative cultural leadership show they can.
A new quarterly essay looks at changes in how we market Australian performing arts – but is this necessary in a globalised digital marketplace?
The Australian Ballet, here performing Monument, is one of the 29 Major Performing Arts companies whose funding is guaranteed. Artists are calling for these 29 organisations to lose their special status.
Lukas Coch/AAP
Among growing feelings of despair in the Australian arts sector, more than 700 leading artists and arts-workers have signed a petition calling for the Major Performing Arts framework to be abolished.
Kate Sherman and Nicci Wilks in Theatreworks’ 2016 production of the play Animal. The acclaimed Melbourne theatre company has lost its long-term Australia Council funding.
Theatreworks
Both the Australia Council’s and South Australia’s new five-year arts plans talk the talk, but fail to provide vital arts funding and structural support for a diverse arts culture.
Bill Shorten walks past the painting The Pioneer by Frederick McCubbin at the NGV Australia in Melbourne on May 11.
Lukas Coch/AAP
Labor’s arts election policy includes more funding for the Australia Council and the ABC. But while this is welcome, arts and culture deserve far greater attention.
Dancers rehearse at a 2016 media call for The Australian Ballet’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Of our 28 major performing arts organisations, only three have female artistic leaders.
Dean Lewins/AAP
Honorary (Senior Fellow) School of Culture and Communication University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne