A couple of weeks ago I was invited back home to Toronto to attend the Canadian Youth Arts Network Forum wherein a group of about 40 young artists were brought together with various leaders in the cultural and creative industries and policy advisors. We discussed ways to strengthen the youth arts sector and our common predicament under this government among other things. It was a really interesting meeting of minds and practices, and a lot of critical information, expertise, and advice were made available not just to the youth delegates of the conference, but to the leaders and advisors as well. It was the fortunate situation of us mutually needing a better sense of the others’ perspective.
There has been much made of the business argument for the arts. As artists, we’re fortunate that it’s within the mandate of institutes like the MPI and that they’ve made the kind of point that might resonate with our current federal regime: the arts are drivers of regional income. They help people make money – that’s a compelling argument to Conservative values. Another potentially persuasive argument to Conservatives or those of any political persuasion is the outreach potential of the arts to two oft neglected groups that I hope to hear addressed in the upcoming debates: youth and the homeless.
In both cases, the arts have shown themselves to be the most effective tools to affect the lives of youth at risk or otherwise, and the homeless as well, particularly in urban environments. This is on target with much of the latest research and theory on cities. Prof. Adam Krims’ latest work, Music and Urban Geography theorizes about how music affects and has affected the tremendous physical upheaval that urban and ex-urban space experienced in the modern, post WWII era. One of his most interesting observations is the way in which the city has moved toward design intensity which he defines in the introductions as “the tendency in advanced societies for products and services to owe much of their value to aspects of design and informational content, and for design and informational aspects of products and services to develop rapidly.”
As young people and (sub)urbanites, the bar has been raised as far as our tolerance and expectations of design. The simple fact is that unless the content of our products and services appeal to this heightened design sensibility, they are disadvantaging themselves with respect to young people as well as urban populations who are native to this design intensive era we occupy. The value of art has never been higher. It’s no surprise that, at the international level, the UN has acknowledged hip hop’s outreach potential with their Messenger of Truth program. At the local level in Toronto, programs like Sketch make this point more poignantly than I ever could. Even at the most crass level of pop culture in these media-intense times, not supporting your ability to compete in the arts is like surrendering your access to the interest of the youth contingent, at least.
If the arts are understood to be the most effective outreach tool for affecting change in youth, then by cutting funding for the arts are we diminishing our ability to communicate with our young people? What is the potential fallout of a less engaged youth population? If arts programs are helping those without homes get on their feet and contribute to society then why do we not understand contributions to the arts as “investments” rather than “funding”?
Much will be said at the debates, but it will be more important to see what our politicians actually do.
And now as always, some music.
