TALKING THROUGH YOUR ARTS – STARS IN THEIR EYES

We are encouraged to see the city as a space for creative experimentation, to use the city as a site for counter forms of existence in the here and now rather then focusing political activity on distant utopias. Enter the spectacle-driven “designeering” of Sydney. From the lucky Embrace of pop princess Kylie Minogue, to the “shine” of an all-seeing eye by Reg Mombassa for NYE13, Sydney’s pupil is facing REM.

Communities including large sections of architectural and design fields seem powerless to State Government planning laws with projects such as the East Darling Harbour site Barangaroo, which has been taken out of the City of Sydney’s 2030 vision and mounted on the short-sighted frameworks of State Government. These new constructions will have a substantial impact on our culture and environment.

While the NSW Arts Funding Program for 2014 has closed out projects that seek to “revitalise” or “renew” urban initiatives, the NSW Government Creative Industries Plan has announced support for making Sydney a global centre for creative industries. What we are seeing is a ten-year plan that has no financial backing and no funding guidelines.

The Creative Industries Action Plan (IAP) will seek to raise the city’s global profile with events such as Vivid Sydney. Research indicates that employment growth was nearly double that of the rest of NSW workforce with more people working in the creative industries than those employed within the NSW agriculture and mining industries combined.

In amongst the many recommendations by the IAP task force, is the reversal of current education policies by reinstating funding to TAFE arts courses and the need for a range of affordable and practical education avenues – the government has rejected these submissions.

The forces that provide us with the space to create propel us to critical discussion. A balance is one of a few ways to protect the city from reproducing existing power relations and being eyeballed by those who already shape urban governance. There are many benefits to the critical debates in the dynamics, mutations and conflicts of life in a contemporary city. It is the neglected, urban fallow land that conserves the potential of the city’s undefined and unspecified elements. (AS)

BY ANGELA STRETCH