The global Arts and Culture sector has faced unprecedented challenges in finding and creating lucrative market and live-performance opportunities under the strain of Covid-19. Beyond the current preservation efforts in place, what can be done to actively expand opportunities for individual artists and arts organizations during this crisis? To fully understand the economic and social recovery from such a downturn, an emphasis must be placed on the potentially crucial role of arts and culture in resolving this quandary, far from its perceived role as an economic hindrance that drains vital capital from other, seemingly more fruitful strategies.
Arts and Culture Leading Recovery
Understanding the importance of unifying social structures in times of crisis, the World Bank and UNESCO published a position paper called “Culture in City Reconstruction and Recovery” (CURE) in 2018, considering urbanizing cities undergoing conflict and natural disasters. The paper laid out principals and strategies for recovery during post-crisis situations. For example, a major tenant of this paper was the acknowledgement that a city is a ‘cultural construct’, containing physical spaces which greatly impact the social fabric. Moreover, it highlighted that the process of reconciliation starts with the reconstruction of significant cultural spaces.
In terms of strategies, CURE suggested a people-based recovery approach centered around local communities, local governments, and the ‘intangible cultural heritage’ of affected communities. In a separate study called “Social Capital: A Missing Link to Disaster Recovery”, a comparison was drawn between recovery from the Gujarat earthquake in India (2001) and the Kobe earthquake in Japan (1995). It detailed that communities with “higher internal trust, stronger social networks, firmer leadership, and better participation” were able to recover more quickly.
What do such notions of culture in city reconstruction look like in the context of Covid-19 for developed countries? Bringing culture to the forefront of the recovery approach translates to supporting, investing in, and innovating manifestations of culture including, but not limited to, opera companies, art galleries, museums, and heritage sites. This allows for a reinvigoration of social consciousness which contributes to a greater sense of solidarity and community recovery as was examined in the study above.
What's being done around the world?
With the value of the arts and culture sector in mind, what is the current climate of innovation in the world? The following cases depict specific initiatives that are being developed, going from micro to macro in terms of approaches.
1. Facilitating side hustles
As the need for multiple revenue streams increases, especially for independent artists, a facilitation of ‘side hustles’ can help alleviate the financial pressure many of these artists are facing. Instead of encouraging artists to transition to so-called ‘real occupations’, as was done by the CyberFirst Campaign in the UK, governments and arts organizations can encourage side hustles or freelance work through education and training. I point to organizations such as the Interdisciplinary Network of Students in Music who provide resources and host events on applying skills developed in music to other disciplines, whether in support or in lieu of their musical pursuits.
2. Direct employment by municipalities
In the OECD’s report entitled Policy Responses to Coronavirus, they detailed the efforts in São Paulo, Brazil where the city is looking to directly employ and train freelance artists. These artists will create online content directed by the city. This illustrates an active effort by a municipality to directly employ creative workers during a time when other employment avenues may be cut off.
3. Programs for adaptation and professional development
The Pivot for Individuals program presented by the BC Arts Council in British Columbia, Canada, provides a dual-category approach to supporting professional artists, cultural practitioners, and arts administrators in adapting their practices to the reality of the pandemic or gaining training opportunities to sustain or further their careers during this uneasy time. For example, in their first category, artists and cultural practitioners are given support to adapt existing work to the current setting or conduct research that allows them to adopt new approaches to their work.
4. Investing in economic research on the arts and creating investment incentives
As the OECD detailed in its report, Amsterdam, London, San Francisco, and New York have all commissioned a wide-reaching economic impact analysis examining damage to the cultural sector, in turn providing crucial research to inform future policy making and recovery from Covid-19. With regards to investment incentives, I point to the Belgium Tax Shelter Agreement as an effort to encourage direct private support to arts and audio-visual sectors. Producers and artists are able to receive funding for individual projects, while their inventors receive a tax exemption for their work by the Belgium government.
Concluding Remarks
These snapshots of global efforts provide insight into the array of approaches that broaden the scope of how a society can recover from Covid-19. The acceptance of culture as a vital stakeholder in economic recovery provides a new framework to conceive of post-crisis reconstruction.