Australian Centre for Contemporary Arts. Credit: Looking Glass/flickr

By Simon Hukin:

The odd boy lay down by the football field; took out a slim volume of Mallarme…

I asked fifty people I happened to know what it was that most made them happy. Their answers were universally in favour of the intangible. From learning something new to spending time with their loved ones, experiencing great music to writing a novel, all of my respondents were gladdened and enthused by non-quantifiables . No one was made happy  by shopping, or shoes. No one was made happy by their 54” plasma tele. The closest one came to such a thing was being enthralled by watching a movie. But movies are art, and their results intangible. They inspire emotion – mostly tawdry, sometimes profound – and that emotion is the driver of happiness and enthusiasm. This is one of the reasons the Arts are so important. They provide succour; a catalyst for intense emotion and novel ideas.

Australia, while not actually crying out for the Arts thanks to the bread and circuses mentality of successive governments (“Sire, the peasants are revolting!” “Build them another sports stadium.” “We did that last time, my lord.” “Ah! Well, raise the baby bonus!”, “But sire, they’re already breeding like mad. We’ll end up overpopulated.” “That’s alright, Winslow, we’ll just start issuing hunting licenses and declare baby-shooting the national sport…”), is in dire need of rejuvenation. Our prevailing culture is presently one of the pragmatic rather than the daring, the reactionary over the innovative and the indolent before the imaginative. The arts foster creativity, excite the imagination and, most importantly, promote intellectual growth. They are challenging. A great work of art forces the audience to examine it in a number of ways and presents many ideas, oftentimes conflicting, which leave those touched by them deep in thought. In the words of Professor Juliana Engberg of RMIT and the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, great art leads to “positive apprehension: that moment of radical misunderstanding that leads us to use our brains again. Art is great at creating these moments of arresting, conflicted thoughts .”

Without these moments of inspiration – of emotive invigoration and intellectual ambivalence – our society begins to flag. We become like the United States; socially and emotionally illiterate, churning out guff from massive studios – bastions of the culture industry, rather than real culture. We become vapid and valueless. We become barbarous. So, next time you’re watching footy on a Sunday, consider switching channel to the ABC, so you can watch Sunday Arts instead. Next time you’re buying tickets to the game, consider buying them for a play or an opera instead. Support your artistic community, and they will support you. The cornucopia of artistic merit lays forth its fruits to any who give to it, in return.

This must be born out by policy makers. We must have greater investment in the Arts, coupled with acceptance of the facts art is valuable, and happiness and quality of life are more important than profit. Without these our culture can only slide further into the abyss of Hollywood vapidity. Of course, money won’t solve all of our problems. There are a number of endemic problems in the Arts in Australia, particularly in education. Since the mid-eighties the arts have been denigrated in secondary schools as irrelevant to the contemporary workplace. The focus has been firmly on the more tangible domains – the sciences, maths, technology and, more recently, ‘skills’ (which can be anything from bricklaying to hairdressing). We are reminded at every turn we have a ‘skills’ shortage, that Australia needs more bioneoangeoplastochemists, that one should multiply for Queen and country (both physically and mathematically). As a consequence children these days think of the Arts (and, to some extent, even the other humanities and social sciences) as wishy-washy, namby-pamby fields best left to ‘ponces’ and psuedo-scientists who can’t cut it in the ‘real world’.

To counter this a focus on arts and social sciences in education must be enacted. We must bring back philosophy, classics, drawing and sculpture, mandatory music, languages and debate as primary components of our curriculum. Not only will this allow our young people to grow, learn and mature in myriad ways, but it will bring the Arts back to social prominence – a greater number of young people will enter our the creative community and our cultural life will flourish.

It is clear art has the potential to revitalise society in any number of ways, from the economic to the cultural to the imaginative. It is important for our children to experience art, in order their horizons are broadened and we don’t arrive at a society full of semi-sentient simians aping their favourite reality tv or sports stars. There are already enough poodle-loving airheaded heiresses and groin-brained rugby players, thanks very much. To ensure this doesn’t occur, we need excellent teachers. As a nation of cultural underachievers (excusing parts of Melbourne for the moment) the suggestion we can source all our exemplars, or even all our educators from within our solitary island is laughable. Of course, we have a few greats but nowhere near enough. In order to raise the arts from their present lamentable condition to one of strength and positive contribution we must look elsewhere. Art is universal – every culture has its own great genii. We would do well, multicultural melting pot as we are, to look to them.

If we can build up our Artistic infrastructure – successfully invest in our artistic community – then our society will flourish more than it ever has previously. A burgeoning cultural life is the first step on the road to a real information age,  and provides new ideas, from which social progress can be built. So, let’s build a few less sports stadia and commission a thousand paintings, compositions, novels and textbooks. Let’s invest in our creative future, rather than merely our athletic one.

See “The Art of Happiness (Part One)” here.

Simon Hukin is a student at the Australian National University, General Secretary of the Western Australian Secondary Students’ Association, peripatetic music teacher and general curmudgeon. He is heavily involved in politics and the union movement.

Tags: Australian Arts, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Simon Hukin, teachers arts