A Day Without Art & Culture?

A day without art is grey indeed.

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Arts Strike – Silent Grey Rally
Wednesday, September 9 at 11:30am

Look.

The times are tough. When one looks across the globe there is evidence of the hardship that greed and bad judgment has produced.

The people that suffer are the people that ultimately are paying the bill. What does that bill look like? the Billion Dollar Gram gives us an idea.

In BC, the government and it’s partners are showing a brave face and making good on a promise to the world. The people paying the price tag of that promise are truly, paying the price. Libraries and schools and daycares, and seniors’ programs are at risk and others are in their death throes. Our art and culture are under attack.

People are protesting:

• The Alliance for Arts and Culture – Provincial advocacy organization
• Save British Columbia’s Arts and Culture Community – Facebook group

People are talking:

• BC Arts Cuts Suck – Trending Twitter
• BC arts cuts media coverage – via Google news

Art is one facet of what makes life worth living for me. As a queer, black, woman, it is important to me that that stories be told and that representations are made available for those in the now and those in the future. These cuts have the ability to affect things that are important to me:

• The Vancouver Pride Parade
• Out on Screen Film and Video Festival
• The Vancouver Dyke March
• Pride in Art

Art is worth fighting for – not instead of, but in addition to youth programs and health care and education. Like the fight at the municipal level that often comes down to pipes, police and streets, it is often forgotten that what a society leaves behind INCLUDES culture. It INCLUDES art. It is part of what makes up legacy and what helps solidify memory.

Whether it is called (or considered) high art or folk art or pop culture or global culture, it ONE of the things that allows us to reflect on where we’ve been where we are and to consider where we might be going.

Look around you. What you see are the evidence and artifacts of art and culture. Aspects of our humanity that are one of many facets that INCLUDES all the sectors that the BC Government has in it’s sights. Now is NOT the time to pit one sector against another or measure for scintillas of value. We must all hold hands and work to move forward. I

If, as the government says, the cupboard is bare and hanging on a wall of deficit… then what are WE going to do about it? Me? I’m advocating for the arts. That’s my part.

How about you – what are you doing? What art would you miss in your world?