Flashing silhouettes at an art museum.
Credit: Sergei A
Art is a luxury, not a right; UK´s “class ceiling”
UK´s oldest think tank Fabian Society issued a call for the government´s reform of the arts sector, urging the “class ceiling” to be broken.
The think tank called for a “universal library card,” and a “culture pass,” for all children across the UK despite their upbringing and financial status. Their report, Arts For Us All expressed the PM, Sir Keir Starmer´s necessity to democratise access to the arts and school and revive UK´s state education.
At least 10 per cent of children´s school week should be spent on arts activities, urged the Fabian Society, adding the 11 by 11 initiative, which involves 11 arts and cultural experiences that every child in the UK should have access to by the time they´re 11. Alison Cole, the director of the Arts and Creative Industries Policy Unit at the Fabian Society emphasised; “By embedding creativity in the school curriculum…we can harness the arts as powerful engines of change, inspiration and future growth.”
A 2024 report by the Campaign for the Arts and The University of Warwick stated that the UK currently faces “catastrophic declines” in participation in the arts in state schools and has cut its culture budget by 6 per cent between 2010 and 2022. Meanwhile, Finland has increased its budget by 70 per cent, France by 25 per cent, and Germany by 22 per cent.
Art is a right, not a luxury; Germany´s efforts
“Arts and sciences, research and teaching shall be free,” stated the German constitution and it has, since its creation, stayed true to its claims. A study by Kuntskompass recently published the top 100 countries with active artists; Germany came second after the US. For decades, the German capital, Berlin has been among the top cities for artists and art lovers.
The large reason for this is the government´s support for the artists; during the COVID-19 Pandemic, a €50 billion Aid Package was released to develop art and culture, granting immense support to self-employed artists faced with financial losses. With opportunities including open call residencies and programmes for international artists, people from across the world come to Berlin to make their living as an artist, with an average salary in Germany being €3,000.
Art is a right for all, not a luxury for the fortunate; Spain´s efforts
“Culture is the basis of society, and cinema and theatre are part of the culture and what we are,” believes Angel Garcia Crespo, the head of the Accessibility and Semantic Technology Laboratory of the Carlos III University in Madrid. “There can be no excluded people.”
In 2012, Crespo´s film Mileuristas premiered with subtitles available for people with hearing disabilities. Initially, Crespo thought that was enough to make his work “accessible.” Yet, when a deaf person asked him why there was no sign language translation, he realized his efforts weren´t enough.
“My engineer mentality got to work, and I began to see what needs blind and deaf people had, how they could get a movie,” he shared. With the University, he developed WhatsCine. Enrique, who is blind and has been a researcher behind the application, explained; “It is an application for mobile or tablet that synchronizes with a device that exists in the movie theatre and for the people who don´t see sends an audio description about the characters when there are silences in the dialogue…For deaf people, the film is told in sign language or in subtitles that they can see on their tablet.”
Not only are there increasing efforts in Spain to make arts accessible for the disabled, subscriptions for visiting museums and galleries in culture centres like Madrid and Barcelona cost no more than €38,00 per person, with discounts for students, young people and elderly people.
Art is a means of union; a right, not a luxury
“Art is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feelings, and indispensable for the life and progress toward well-being of individuals and of humanity,” said the historic author Leo Tolstoy. The notion that “art is a luxury,” cannot be anything but a myth that keeps us away from progress. Just as we attempt to help those in poor health or financial status, those without access to art must be able to share in universal cultural exchanges.
Harvard Health Publishing 2017 study, the Healing Power of Art, proved that art experiences stimulated dopamine production and raised serotonin levels, allowing people to identify community values and build the collective psyche. In the past, as white colonists banned slaves from following African musical traditions and Nazi Germans forbade the music of Fryderyk Chopin to the mere fact that he was Polish, art has proved its power in controlling and changing the world; at times for the better, and at times for the worse.
Only with art can we build an improved and safer society and start to live instead of surviving.
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