written transcript - university of south australia

Hawke Centre lecture: Try one day without the arts – Robyn Archer AO Adelaide Festival Centre, Monday 18 March 2013 www.hawkecentre.unisa.edu.au

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TRY A DAY WITHOUT THE ARTS The Hawke Centre Lecture, Adelaide, March 18 2013 By Robyn Archer AO © Robyn Archer, Canberra, March 2013

I begin by acknowledge the traditional owners of the land we meet on this evening, the Kuarna people of the Adelaide Plains. I pay my respects to their elders past and present, to the elders of any other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples here this evening, and thank them for their continuing contribution to our culture. Members of Parliament Government Department staff Provost Chancellor Members of the Board of the Australia Day Council Colleagues and friends If our culture in any way resembled the cultures of this world’s First Peoples, there would be no necessity to plead the centrality of the artist or artisan in our society. In any extended family or clan grouping of Indigenous Australians, for instance, there were always members valued for their ownership of songs, stories, ceremony, the visual representation of stories and totems ( in painting , three-dimensional construction and costume) and for their crafting of ceremonial and utilitarian objects. And for centuries this respect for an essential dimension of every society held firm. While a peasant under feudal law would not have had access to the magnificent objects, the exquisite compositions and choreographies created for the elite of state and church, they would have valued their singers, their bringers of stories, and their artisans for utensils and weapons, as highly as their healers and warriors. I’ve not devoted enough time, I’m no historian, to be able to pinpoint accurately when the great divide began, but surely the rise of Humanism in the early sixteenth century, and the escalating cult of the individual, started to separate out artists as special. Surely outstanding singers, dancers, poets, painters, architects and musicians were celebrated in all societies; but until the development of cults of the individual, it was not as warranting special treatment, just equal treatment as valued members of the community. The cult of the individual spawned the cult of artist as genius, and in the nineteenth century in particular, when the Industrial Revolution put cash, albeit most unevenly, within reach of every pocket, art became commodified. And we now live in a world where art is not only commodified – its value frequently measured not only a scale of monetary value ( a show, a star, a painting, sculpture, box office, print run, film


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rights) but also on a scale of utilitarian value ( health, social harmonisation, educational value, community well-being) – but regarded by many as a leisure pursuit or a luxury if it does not qualify as overtly useful or stellar beyond reach and critical analysis. When budget cuts come, the arts are an easy target because they are not viewed as essential. Any week when there’s new money for the arts, is a good week – and last week was a very good week for the arts. To reiterate some of the things Simon Crean, Minister of the Arts, talked about last week, in his announcement of the National Cultural Policy, it’s the big picture that’s important. No argument about the arts is going to be successful on the small scale unless we pursue a universal agreement about the fundamental necessity of the arts in our society today. So, allow me to be fundamental, even simplistic. I’m not going to try to argue tonight the inherent value of the arts, or the utilitarian value of the arts - you’ve heard enough about that from me in the past. Tonight I want to plant arts as unavoidable, and essential. Let’s hark back for a brief minute to those pre-industrial days of yore. A hard life of manual labour in serfdom. There may indeed have been no pictures in the humble home, with imagery only created in two and three dimensions for Christian or pagan celebration, perhaps just once a year. Still, a wedding, a funeral or a fair may have occasioned floral , botanical or horticultural constructions as decoration or costume. It seems as if the creation of imagery for gods or seasons is age-old. Music, too would have been part of all this, so-called ‘folk’ music, music for dancing, to accompany poetry or tales; and even possibly at home, there might be someone to sing a tune for a baby or on a special day. Tools, utensils and clothing may well have been home-made too – with little regard for aesthetics, and ultimate regard for solid functionality and durability. Simplistic picture though this paints, it serves a purpose. There is a chance that people living such lives may have had only rare encounters with art and design of any kind. Life was tough in a way we can scarcely imagine. But there may have been good days , perhaps one Spring, when good health, good weather, decent shelter, enough food, and an absence of war and plague allowed a family or a village to smile. It may have been a day when there was no encounter with art of any kind. But I ask all of you here tonight, and all who hear or read this subsequently, to imagine life today without the products of artists and designers. There was a woman in America some years ago , who tried to live a year without using anything Made in China. She found it extremely difficult, she said especially so, as she had children, and so many products for children are made in China. I believe it would be extremely challenging to go even one day without the products of arts and design: in effect you would have to deprive yourself of the basic conditions of life as we recognise it today. I imagine it may be possible, if you prepare extreme conditions, but the question then becomes, would you want to live like that? I was writing this at a desk in a very quiet neighbourhood. It is possible, that if I didn’t switch on any appliance on this day – no radio or tv or other electronic device, I may not have heard any music. I may have heard only birds from dawn to dusk, the wind in the trees, the occasional voice of a neighbour or a child. But if I were trying to avoid the product of artists and others in the


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creative industries, then clearly I could not access my computer, so I would not have been writing. I could not read on such a day, and I would have to cover all the images that hang on the walls. And what should I wear – certainly no jewellery, certainly no designed clothing… but unless I made my own clothes, surely everything is designed at some level… So then, naked, barefoot, with no imagery around me, no music, no literature, no film, my food organised the night before because all labels are designed. What to eat on? Plates and drinking vessels are designed?

It’s a hard enough challenge, even if you try consciously to avoid the products of artist and designers, but the point is to illustrate just how comprehensive the reach of artists is. And if it’s that hard trying to take a day, secluded, to do it, imagine what it is like for those who must be out in the world. No radio to wake you, no tv. Do you consider your mode of transport to be designed? Your car, bike, tram, train – but on public transport you are already swamped with images that a graphic artist designed. Same in the workplace. And at home in the morning, music will come at you – from your radio, your i-phone, your kids, and then as you move into the workplace music comes at you from shops, so do posters – and guess what ? You’re wearing clothes and shoes and probably a watch.

So you’re getting the picture. Avoiding the product of artists and designers on any normal day is probably impossible in our world at present. And just in case anyone’s inclined to think this is a con because I have included design items ( such as cheap clothes, which some will dispute were made by artists), then why don't we just stick with the best example – music. It’s really hard to avoid it. And wherever music comes at you – at home, in stores, online, at the footy, at the B-Ball or soccer or church, in the streets etc – just remember, if you hear music, at some point there was a composer, and musicians, and if it is recorded music, there were recording engineers, and people who designed the recording equipment, people who manufactured the medium in which the music was recorded – MP3, CD, the cloud etc and people who transported it, labelled it etc – on and on and on, into all that other employment and creativity that the artist’s original idea spawns And even if you did walk around with super husha-foams in your ears all day, and blindfolded, and naked… is life bearable today with all that content that artists and other creatives provide? I suspect that we have so long taken for granted the artist product we get every day without seeking it out, that life would be insufferable without it. Every now and then this condition is made manifest. I was in Los Angeles for the Actors Strike in 1980. A middle-aged Hollywood costume veteran had moved to the couch and rented us her house, and bedroom (a let we found in an industry newspaper full of such desperation) because she couldn't pay her rent. Each evening around 4 pm she started getting dolled up ( quite a procedure I can tell you) to receive at 5pm, different gentlemen callers who would take her to various bars for Happy Hours where they could buy her a cheap drink and eat the free snacks – because they couldn't afford to eat. And that’s just one ageing costume maker.


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Can you imagine Adelaide in March if all performers and crews simply withdrew their services? What’s more, can you imagine the economic impact of that? What I’m saying is that, up to some point in the development of western civilisation, it may well have been possible to avoid the products of artists, but by now, it is simply not possible in this day and age. And more than that, I am saying that we are by now so used to having the products of artists and other creatives readily at hand on a daily basis, that we could not tolerate life without them. I believe that most urbanised humans demand music, imagery, film and other screen-based content and applications, as well as design everywhere in their lives. I believe that the demand for the products of artists and other creatives is as strong as the demand for water, shelter, food and human companionship – and that while in crisis in a wilderness or war, people can make do without (though Brecht was insistent that there is no war without singing) , it is not their normal expectation to be asked to do without those things which artists do and make.

Thus my argument that artists provide essential services, just as do those who work in retail, hospitals, food-production. I know many will have knee-jerk reactions to this and not wish to believe it. But again, I ask you all, here tonight, and listening and reading subsequently, to go through any day and make an inventory of the art and design products you encounter and use without even trying.

I’m not talking about going to a concert, the theatre, a gallery or a festival. It’s just what you bump into, and what bumps into you on any given day – and ask yourself if you can do without it, but more importantly if you want to do without it.

Again, some will say, of course I can do without music… well just give it a go. It’s not as easy as you think – and who would want a total absence of music in their lives?

If this is correct, why are composers and musicians some of the worst paid workers in our land? Working from one tiny infrequent unpredictable payment to the next, they struggle to support themselves. If they want a family it often means getting a day job and making music a hobby, and we often lose that creative force in our community. And they frequently lack the kind of backup that many of us afford- health or house insurance, for instance.

There’s an eminent artist who has worked all her life in community – she has been praised and awarded for her work as a community artist. She was poorly paid her entire career. She managed, however, to maintain a very modest dwelling on a lake in Tasmania where the traces and archives of her decades of work were stored. This was a seriously straightened existence. She bought where she bought because it was all she could afford. She caught fish for food, and she rowed across the lake to reach her studio. In the recent Tasmanian bushfires the house burnt to the ground. Had she insurance? Of course not - how could she afford insurance of any kind? Not only has the precious archive now vanished, those important traces of her work: but she has nothing – no home, no clothes, no money and is dependent on the kindness of family and strangers.


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I am aware of other Australians, performers who gladly sang and played for causes, for no fee, artists for whom we once applauded loudly on our stages, here in Adelaide, who now live, heroically cheerily, on a meagre pension in humble accommodations, often reliant on family.

Is this the way to treat those who have given so much joy, so much service, and those whom I am saying we rely upon for our quality of life? I don’t think so. We take their work for granted, we use it, we continue to use their recorded songs and their images, they get no return, and we abandon them to penurious old age.

If we need what artists make, then we must look after them as we do other citizens. Just as the reform on re-sale of visual arts, especially Aboriginal and Torres Strait arts, has meant increasing returns to the artist, we must strive to find other ways to ensure that artists get a proper return for their work. Royalties were meant to ensure that continuing income, however small; but every time you concede to a mate’s copy of anything, you are condemning the artist to penury. And the digital age has now lowered the gangplank to piracy. Let’s hope that the APRA style approach of digital giants to overall contributions will see some returns for the smaller artist.

One of the endemic challenges to fair pay for artists, is blanket ignorance about the pathway from the artist to the audience. The arts are one of the very rare industries anywhere, that subsidises itself. This means that, apart from the properly paid upper echelon of actors, musicians, visual artists, and their similarly elite crews, most of the work you see and use is subsidised because the artists themselves are mostly very badly paid for their work, or not paid at all. In order to do the work they are driven to do, they do it for nothing, rather than not seeing it done at all. Most upsetting to artists anywhere is the death of a great idea.

Please believe that this is not any kind of criticism of elite artists. I stand, more than most, for the value of ars gratia artis, and I use the word elite in a non-pejorative sense, in exactly the way I use it about elite sportspersons. But the fact is, as in sport, the elite are a mere handful. Without the passion and commitment of the vast numbers of underpaid or unpaid artists, we would not have art in our lives. And just a couple more cautions in case you misunderstand. Firstly it is clear that artists do not have an exclusive claim on creativity. Creativity exists and is demanded in all professions and spheres of life. But many, including scientists, will say that the arts have a special awe-inspiring power to stimulate the creative muscle in all of us, artists or not. At the ANU, visual artist Erica Seccombe’s artistic practice is now to some extent driving the research of the nuclear physicists she has been collaborating with for some years. In Adelaide, Dr David David uses the arts to speak to his cranio-facial surgeon colleagues. Art is not more creative, but has undisputed and widespread pathways to creativity in all fields – and this is particularly true in education. Secondly, I do not demand that anyone else love the art that I love, or demand that anyone share my taste. As you know, my passion for the AFL and my beloved Adelaide Football Club (yes, we’re back this Friday night – the drought breaks!) bespeaks a respect for all those whose thrills come from the battleground of spectator sport.


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I understand that a footy game, played or observed, seems more exciting for many than any overt encounter with the arts. On the other hand, there would be only a tiny fraction of those sports fans who could honestly confess to not liking music. Even at the end of the triumphant game, how they love to sing the theme song – me too. But how many of my fellow Crows fans know that when they rise to sing the club song on Friday night when we thrash Essendon, they will actually be singing an operatic tune? The original music of the Crows’ theme song was composed by none other than Jacques Offenbach. It is from the Gendarmes’ Duet, from an 1867 revision of his 1859 opera, Genevieve de Brabant which premiered in Paris in that year. The tune was picked up, and the lyrics re-written, to become, which it still is, the official hymn of the United States Marine Corp. In this context, and known as The Halls of Montezuma, it is the oldest official song in the United States Military. The Crows’ bold adaptation even retains one line from the military adaptation “Admiration of the Nation…”. We know that the footy spirit fears no authority as it borrows boldly where others fear to tread – in Brisbane still singing the Fitzroy boys’ version of France’s national anthem La Marseillaise, written by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle in 1792, and down at Kardinia Park, the Cats fans roaring out a version of Bizet’s Toreador song from Carmen, written in 1875. It seems the French hold the record for the most durable popular tunes, and how can we dispute that the work of artists is all encompassing in our lives?

_____________________________________________________ And, important as it is, the matter I was referring to when football distracted me, as it often does, the payment of artists as a working wage for all involved in essential services, is not my theme tonight.

Just as artists should receive a fair return for their work, so all those who intend to enter this essential service, must have access to training – to allow them to develop the skills they need , just as in any other profession, to enter this field. This is the ipso facto of arts as an essential service, and this is my theme tonight. You would be horrified if nurses had no training, or plumbers or electricians – your health is involved. I say the same for the arts – they too are to do with your health and your well-being, and they too must be adequately provided for in the training regime. Now, there may well be these days, the odd alternative for mavericks whose career pathways emulate mine many years ago in Adelaide. I had no formal training in any of the arts – except the study of literature, a skill in reading and critical theory which I had the privilege of acquiring at Adelaide University, and which has stood me well. But I had no training in music, singing, drama, theatre, directing, dramaturgy and certainly not in festival direction. This should have horrified Adelaide arts-lovers – and indeed I recall that Christopher Pearson did make his horror manifest in the Adelaide Review at the time of my appointment.

But, despite my lack of formal training, I did unconsciously apprentice myself to my father throughout my childhood. I learned from this stand-up comedian, MC, tenor how to work a crowd – and it was he who put the plastic ukelele in my hands when I was 8, together with the 3 minute teach-yourself manual.


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We know there are still alternative pathways that are not dissimilar to what I was doing when, at 12, I won the Channel Niners’ Junior Talent Quest ( first prize a trip to Woollongong and an appearance on WIN TV – it was grand), and when , at 15, I reached the national finals of Bandstand Starflight International. The difference is that while I had to beat off a predatory middle-aged male folksinger trying to seduce a minor in the long grass at Kings Cross, now the kids who get on The Voice or Australia’s Got Talent, or Idol, all enter into a kind of apprenticeship that guarantees them some skills whether they win or not. I hope there will always be a place for the guy, like Anthony La Paglia, who doesn’t make it at NIDA, but makes it anyway. But the fact is, that by far the largest percentage of artists and artsworkers now employed in their chosen field, do have formal training of some kind. Therefore, training has become important. The certificate has become important, and the degree, whether its status is deserved or not, is the object of desire for most tertiary students.

Last Wednesday Minister Crean took a lead and threw out a challenge. While he announced very welcome new money for the arts, especially for the Australia Council, there are also new moves within education. There is particular funding to strengthen the base of some of the elite arts training institutions. But the most important initiatives sit within primary and secondary schools. The establishment, with agreement from the states, of arts as one of the eight core competencies within the National Curriculum, is a very good thing. Arts Ready as a parallel path to Sports Ready is also a good thing, and particularly valuable in that it will create awareness about the vast array of behind the scenes skills that are required to enable the core content on a stage or in a gallery. It may bring erstwhile unlikely candidates into that skills arena.

Yet, at the same time, on the tertiary front, Humanities in general, and practical arts training in particular, are being downgraded across the nation. While there are glimmers of hope here and there, such as Paul Grabowsky’s efforts in Performance at Monash , the ongoing strengths of the VCA, the new Art and Design initiative being launched tomorrow at Uni SA, and most importantly in the Adelaide context, the continuing strength of Drama at Flinders and the appointment of Julian Meyrick who is tackling from the academic front the real meaning of ‘cultural value’ ; we are also painfully aware of instances like that at the ANU last year, when the School of Music suddenly announced that all staff jobs would be advertised and that the school would be restructured. Whatever the rationale, this has resulted in just 40 enrolments in music this year, in a school which last year had 100 highly competitive places. In NSW, arts training was suddenly cut from TAFE – and how inexplicable is it that there is no dance training school in Sydney where contemporary dance is so popular? So, you want to dance in Australia? Here’s one skill you really do have to train for– no different from elite sport, just as rigorous, and testing – and with equivalent grace. You can go to QUT, VCA, WAAPA or the Australian Ballet School,… and… the Adelaide College of the Arts – more of which later.

So, outside the national elite training schools – AFTRS, NIDA, ANAM, the Australian Ballet School, all in NSW and Victoria, the echo that sounds around our country in tertiary institutions is the


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voice of economic rationalism –“Yooo arrr all overrr buuugdet ! Yoo arrr allll looooosing unacceptablllllle amounts of muuuuunnnnneeeee !”

But who sets the budget? What is the actual cost of training Australians to take their place in the essential service called the arts? They need special studios and equipment – not unlike the mining industry apprentices who need vast hangars and extremely expensive trucks and other vehicles they practice on. It’s not good enough for tertiary and further educational institutions to set unrealistic budgets for training in the arts, and then say you’re over budget, so let’s cut you loose. A Physics or English Lit class may well be able to have their numbers swollen with more full fee-paying students, and it still have no major impact on the quality of their education. It may even be perfectly fine for them to learn online, even skype tutorials online. Yale now deploys the full complement of new technologies for learning : and I’m sure they work and have even greater potential for genuine democratic open-access learning, even though I’m still fond enough of human contact to think that person-to person and peer-to-peer dialogue is still of inestimable value in education. But the fact is, you can’t pack infinite numbers into a dance class, or a voice masterclass, or the preparation of a theatre production, or around a potter’s wheel, or the precision instruments required for jewellery making. Some skills cost more to teach. But is anyone saying loudly enough that we’re not happy to lose the products of such skills from our lives, just because they require special conditions for teaching. We want those products, and therefore we demand an honest rationale for resourcing the skills acquisition they require. As Minister Crean remarked, there’s a cost to training in the arts, there’s a cost to investment in the arts, but there’s also a remarkable yield – one, as I have been emphasising, which is often, and dangerously, taken for granted. He also talked a lot about partnerships, and advised that small-thinking, directional lobbying for money for the arts often leads to buck-passing. It’s the big picture that’s important – the fundamental grasp of the value of the arts in our society – as I opened with. If we accept that the arts are fundamental to our societies in the twenty-first century, then the training of artists is also fundamental – and it costs what it costs. Plan for that. If the cost of training an electrician suddenly went up, you wouldn’t cut training in the electrical trades: you’d re-budget and ensure we trained for essential services. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m definitely not advocating expensive training for every young woman who thinks she wants to be Cate or Nicolle, every young man who thinks he can be Hugh. There are an awful lot of school-leavers who have stars in their eyes. They may want to be actors and singers – but they may not have the talent or the capacity for training which is hard and long. Same goes for costume-makers.

They may come in thinking it’s an easy option and soon find that making clothes for performance is very specific, and extremely hard, concentrated work. You don't blame the training regime for that- instead you ensure that there is a rigorous process for selecting candidates – on the basis of aptitude as well as attitude. You don't abandon the arts because you have predicated their


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training budget on false premises. You work out what the cost is, invest in it, and see how it grows – like any good business.

The last few weeks has seen a gathering of important constellations, and hence my chosen theme. Working backwards there was the timing of this lecture tonight, and last Wednesday the announcement by Minister Crean of the first National Cultural Policy for 18 years ( the last being Creative Nation announced by Prime Minister Paul Keating).

Just a week earlier South Australia announced a re-brand as Creative City. This is a terrific aspiration for any city to have. Many places now brand themselves via culture as they catch up with Richard Florida’s Rise of the Creative Class, or the various research and theorising of Charles Landry, but especially The Creative City. These ideas have penetrated many parts of the world, and I’ve had the luck to be able to see for myself how encouraging artists and other creatives into inner city precincts has revitalised formerly dull and even degraded areas. Quebec’s lower wharf area is typical, as are Melbourne’s laneways, and New York’s never-ending role of artist spread, which has revitalised first the Lower East Side, then Brooklyn, and now Queens. The story’s the same everywhere. Property prices fall, artists move in, activate the spaces and the streets, good cheap food springs up, design enters in, gentrifcation begins , property prices and rents rise, artists move on. Same in Berlin.

But South Australia has a particular reason for following the Creative City path. The Festival State brand has been around for a long time. I do recall I was in SA when former Premier Dean Brown wanted to change the number plates from The Festival State to his campaign title – Going All the Way. He clearly didn't attend the same drive-ins I did. How I longed to see those shaggin’-wagons all lined up and bouncing up and down with number plates saying Going all the Way. Opportunity for merriment sadly lost. But, of course, I would be the first to be glad that the festival brand remained. Part of the states’ economy has been predicated for many years on the success of an increasing number of festivals. I don't need to tell you how busy your March is. The news on the weekend of a 10% rise in Fringe tickets sold will no doubt point to a rise in economic impact too – a contribution that this State’s economy would now find difficult to do without. Also, given my earlier reference to payment of artists, it would be every interesting to have a look at what the artists got out of all that – many of them, a mere nothing, many of them, hundreds of them, in the red for their efforts to contribute to our joy and the state’s economic health. As much fun as a Fringe is, it is based largely on a kind of participatory exploitation – and we are all joyfully complicit. Fringe artists pay a fee to participate, and also contribute to the state economy by sleeping and eating here, and drawing bulk crowds to the event as a whole. But many go home broke. Everyone loves it, but it’s weird – and very successful. On the back of this festival state success, the ambition for a Creative City goes further. It expresses the desire to move towards a place which is not just a host or a showcase for the world’s best artists and creatives, but aspires to be a place where creatives live and work. Bearing in mind that creativity is vital in every profession and every trade, the aspirations of a Creative City


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must go beyond just having international arts festivals or car races. It must be a place where creatives want to live and learn and work and collaborate, and yes surely feed into the various festivals, but with influence and effect at the local level all year round. Given what I’ve said so far, it would seem evident that South Australia must also take new responsibilities for the training of its creatives. Surely what we want for the kids of the Creative City, is a similar, but less haphazard, parallel to my career. A kid who had no connections or advice to train in the arts, was nevertheless able to grow up in adolescence with a great festival by her side, one in which the kid eventually gets to work and eventually direct. We want our creative kids, the ones who love the arts, to serve the community in this way, to find a place in these festivals, as well as contribute more widely to the Creative City. And it’s by no means just artists I’m talking about. Currently festivals still have to import crews and back of house services from interstate – there’s a growing skills demand which we could easily supply locally, if we make the right moves now. And unless South Australia pays attention to the training of its artists and creatives, in a very few years, the Creative City claim will be an empty one, and a seriously lost opportunity.

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For some years now, Adelaide has had an institution which screams potential for arts training. It has already produced highly successful graduates in all genres – they are out in the world working – dancers, actors, jewellers, writers, glass artists, technical production workers, and so many more. The Adelaide College of the Arts has the most envied studios and rehearsal spaces in the country. But ACARts has been working under the nationally familiar cloud of ‘you cost too much’ . Since my review of the organisation three years ago, its present has seen a revival of spirits under the inspired leadership of Christie Anthoney, and the hard work of one of the most authoritative and genuinely committed boards of arts professionals I have ever worked with; but its future has continued to remain uncertain because of various shifts and changes in TAFE SA. Just a week or so before the Creative City branding, the new TAFE Board, chaired by Mr Peter Vaughn, announced the new shape of ONE TAFE as it will be in the future. I had a very good meeting with Peter and we agreed, that under this new system, the ‘centre of excellence’ at the Adelaide College of the Arts, which had been promised by TAFE for years, and which promise was the continuing motivation for the Arts Advisory Board and Christie Anthoney in that post-review period, will not be possible within this restructure.

I sincerely respect the scale of the job that Mr Vaughn and his Board has to do, to restructure to ONE TAFE and a healthy business operation by July 1 this year. And I respect the desire to create a financially viable TAFE for South Australia: I have great confidence in Peter’s business acumen and hard work ethic to be able to lead his Board to achieve this. But, naturally, I lament the fact that in that structure, the kind of training institution that we have envisioned, the kind that Adelaide deserves, the kind that we have been building towards, and which various Monisters appeared to


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endorse - the kind that your children and grandchildren deserve in this Creative City - will not be possible . Peter has said he would welcome in principle, however, the creation of a Centre of Excellence at the Adelaide College of Arts, which might exist in tandem with TAFE. Clearly it could also be resourced as a stand-alone institution. This college is already so far ahead of the game in terms of philosophy and planning, that it would be a serious loss to South Australia, and to the Creative City we might become, not to follow this path.

As I said before, ACArts has the best facilities in the country. It should, and could so easily, sit up as an equal with VCA, QUT, WAAPA, even NIDA, and grab from amongst the best intake of talent in the land. The absence of a delegated and competitively sized marketing budget has prevented this so far: most national and international aspirants to study the arts don’t even know ACARts exists. High numbers of ACARts dance graduates have gone straight into companies such as ADT or Leigh Warren and Dancers, and tour the world – most aspirant dance students don’t know ACArts exists. The Jewellery students from ACARts regularly take by far the most first prizes in the national student competition – but those who can’t get into RMIT, don't know ACArts exists. It is has been subsumed under the TAFE SA brand and will be more so under the new ONE TAFE structure. As such, it will continue to suffer from a lack of the kind of individual brand awareness that characterises the competition.

Yet, its individual characteristics are outstanding. Its Bauhaus style aggregate of so many genres and disciplines under the same roof puts it in perfect synch with the kind of cross-collaborative arts which so many young practitioners wish to develop. Its only rival in this sense is the VCA which has so successfully fought for its independence within the Melbourne University. The location in South Australia is a perfect basis to serve not only South Australian students, but also those in the Northern Territory where, like everywhere, festivals and events which require the same kind of skills, are starting to proliferate. The successful introduction of a foundation course for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students at ACArts marks the way for further fantastic development in this area. Adelaide could not be better placed. ACArts is also leading the way in terms of creating dynamic articulation between the TAFE sector and the Higher Education sector, the federal funding models for which have recently changed. ACArts has the only dance degree in town, but given the new arrangements, TAFE will not support degrees. ACARts is already working in a terrific spirit of collaboration with Flinders University towards a combined degree and certificate in dance with others hopefully to follow in coming years. ACArts and Flinders lead the country in this process, and we can only speculate on the educational and economic benefits if students in other states start to hear about this- this exceptional facility where you can cross-collaborate with artist in other genres, all under the same roof; where you can get both certificate and degree; and all this in an easily-navigable city where creativity is prized, and the arts abound year round. Many doubt that the stigma of TAFE can be overcome – that it has so long been seen, outside the traditional trades sector, as a second choice for those who don't get to universities; that gifted kids will never want to enrol in TAFE. But I’ve asked the parents of gifted young musicians – music


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where the cult of the conservatorium so dominates choice – and learned that if the great teachers are in TAFE, then the parents will be happy to send their children there.

Given the incredibly insecure and suddenly, unexpectedly vulnerable futures that many great teachers have had to contemplate through a lack of faith by their universities, it may be that persuading them into TAFE is not as hard as we think. What’s more, the quality of existing staff at the Adelaide College of the Arts is already excellent –professionally and pedagogically. Again, it’s just that the conditions do not allow the College to promote itself as it should – to tell the very good stories that just keep on coming about both students and staff.

It is for these many reasons, that today, based on the lead taken by the Federal Arts Minister in placing a high value on training, and the value of the arts in general, that I have had the opportunity to discuss the future of ACARts with the South Australian Minister for the Arts, The Hon the Premier. Tomorrow discussions will take place with the Minister for Higher Education and Skills, The Hon Grace Portolesi, and we are seriously asking them to consider the establishment of a Centre of Excellence at the Adelaide College of the Arts, either as a stand-alone institution, or in tandem with TAFE. As I have said, I believe its necessity is self-evident in terms of ensuring the concept of a Creative City as a real and enduring one, and its desirability can be seen in its potential yield.

Minister Crean talked about the cost but also the yield of arts investment. In this State it’s a no-brainer. Better management of existing resources, along with independence of brand and financial delegation will allow ACArts to develop as a national Centre of Excellence in Arts and Creative Industry Training. The cost is negligible, the return is enormous. The business plan is very sound. I do not pursue this as a small-picture piece of lobbying. I ask this in the context of my belief that in twenty-first century Australia, the arts are indispensable to what we have come to expect of day to day life. If this is so , we must commit to the training of those, young and mature, who wish to enter this trade, this profession, to serve the people of our county . I ask this of all states in our country, not just South Australia. I know the squeeze is being felt acutely in Victoria just now by those who wish to ensure the survival of the National Institute of Circus Arts, and those who are concerned about the shutting down of arts training and loss of facilities in the TAFE sector there: there are so many stories that have come to me since I first started talking about the crisis in training when I addressed the NCVER conference in Adelaide, July 2012, and the Currency House Arts Breakfast in Sydney, November 2012. My colleague and friend Justin Macdonnell , the gifted producer who changed the course of my life when he invited me to perform in New Opera South Australia almost forty years ago when we opened the Space Theatre here with Brecht and Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins , has warned that if governments do not take up this challenge, then the private sector will step up, and already has, to the commercial supply of arts training. International educational and vocational suppliers are rushing to fill the obvious gap. Nothing wrong with that – we thank them for it. But what it means is that arts training will again, as it was in the past, become something only available to those who can afford it. That would mean a sad and wholly unnecessary loss of talent and creativity.


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Every now and then a rough and ready raw talent like Robyn Smith, from the wrong side of the tracks, would slip through the cracks and step onto the beautiful road to fulfilment and usefulness in the arts, but do we want to return to the accidental ascendancy of raw talent?

The expression of urgency around training in general, and ACARts in particular , is made in Adelaide, tonight, for a few reasons; because of the healthy aspirations for a Creative City, because I so value this city as one where an artist can grow from scratch, develop and go on to a challenging and ever-transforming career ; and because there is in this city, the most perfect arts-training institution already equipped with state-of-the-art facilities, superb leadership, and a top-drawer board, all just ready and rearing to make it all happen Thankyou Robyn Archer AO Creative Director, Centenary of Canberra Artistic Director, The Light in Winter (Federation Square, Melbourne) Deputy Chair, The Australia Council Chair, Arts Advisory Board of the Adelaide College of the Arts

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