The state of the arts

By Matt Harvey

Our Arts Precinct’s creative institutions are busy preparing new exhibitions and shows as the circuit breaker lockdown restrictions continue to ease, giving the arts sector some much needed relief.

Greater Melbourne has been out of lockdown for three weeks now but as restrictions are still slowly easing, different sectors have varying levels of restrictions.

Indoor non-seated entertainment venues like galleries are open to a maximum of 300 people per space with density limits of one person per four sqm.

Between 2019 and 2020 these industries lost 5300 jobs, and the economic difference between 2019 and 2020 is $756 million.

In the year to March 2020, Victoria welcomed 95.5 million visitors, including international and domestic overnight visitors, and those visiting the state for a daytrip only.

Tourism expenditure from these visitors was $31.3 billion, which equates to spending of around $85.6 million per day in the state.

Interstate border closures began on March 19 last year and on March 20 Australia closed its borders to all non-residents and non-Australian citizens .

With the exception of visitors from China, the top spenders are overnight visitors from Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, and South Australia, highlighting the significance of Victoria as a domestic travel destination.

Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts of Australia Paul Fletcher has spoken about the importance of the arts sector for Victoria.

“The arts and entertainment sector is pivotal to Victoria’s identity, supporting cultural expression, community and social wellbeing, along with significant employment and economic benefits for the state,” Minister Fletcher said.

The Greater Melbourne region drew 39.6 per cent of these visitors to Victoria; international tourists make up only three per cent of visitors to Victoria but add 26 per cent of tourism expenditure.

According to a mational arts participation survey 98 per cent of Australians engage with the arts, this includes listening to music, reading books, watching TV/movies, and other forms of arts.

Meanwhile, only 68 per cent attend live arts events including exhibitions, festivals, theatre, literary events, or others, up nearly ten percentage points since 2016.

What the arts mean to us

Appreciation for and greater understanding of the need for the arts among Australian citizens has been the clearest result of the National Arts Participation survey.

This includes increasing recognition of the impacts of arts and creativity on child development (63 per cent), our sense of wellbeing and happiness (56 per cent), dealing with stress, anxiety or depression (56 per cent), understanding other people and cultures (60 per cent), bringing customers to local businesses (41 per cent), while nearly one in two Australians believe the arts builds creative skills that will be necessary for the future workforce.

In recent years, multiple predictions about workforces of the future, both Australian and international studies, have identified an increasing need for creative thinking and skills.

As well as developing the talent pipeline and job growth, creativity enables adaptability, experimentation and innovation.

Creative skills have been integral to the fast-growing industries in Australia over the past decade and prior to COVID-19, the creative economy was growing at a rate nearly twice that of the Australian workforce.

From a non-economic viewpoint in an environment of increasing polarisation and heightened global attention on injustice, racism and inequality, the arts can provide vital space and opportunity to navigate multiple viewpoints and perspectives, and to engage with complexity and challenging ideas from a safe space.

Arts you can support

With 2021 slowly returning to pre-COVID allowances new exhibitions and shows are opening up across a number of venues in our Arts Precinct.

Southbank News has recommended a few events worth checking out this month …

Because The Night – Malthouse Theatre, extended until September

Devised during Melbourne’s winter lockdown in 2020, Because the Night delivers an immersive experience that gives visitors the choice of what to do, what to see, and experience. Taking place across more than 30 custom-built fantasy rooms in the theatre’s history, two performances are scheduled at 6pm and 8.30pm each night from Tuesdays to Sundays, with a matinee performance at 1pm on Saturday.

This is a poem – Buxton Contemporary, until November

This is a poem was conceived to creatively animate the Buxton Contemporary collection, bringing art, artists and poetry into orbit with audiences through an experimental and experiential exhibition which explores the longstanding tradition of ekphrastic poetry, or poetry that is conceived in response to art.

A multi-art project encompassing an exhibition, new commissions in a diverse mix of media and forms, live performances and a publication, This is a poem opens at Buxton Contemporary on July 9 and will run until November 14.

A Biography of Daphne – ACCA, until September

A Biography of Daphne, curated by Mihnea Mircan, revisits the classical myth of Daphne and Apollo as the starting point for an investigation of trauma, metamorphosis, symbiosis and entanglement in contemporary art, featuring newly commissioned and historical work by 25 Australian and international artists.

Works are assembled to explore the integrity and vulnerability of bodies, their performative or prosthetic extensions, and the alliances they enter.

A Biography of Daphne is a free exhibition open now at ACCA and will run until September 5, Tuesdays to Sundays.

The Lifespan of a Fact – Melbourne Theatre Company, extended to July 16

Nadine Garner (Photograph 51) stars alongside Steve Mouzakis (Death and the Maiden) and Ngatii Toa actor Karl Richmond (Punk Rock) making his MTC debut, in a play about an epic ideological battle over the nature of truth and the value of storytelling.

Extended due to popular demand, The Lifespan of a Fact is on at Fairfax studio, Arts Centre Melbourne until July 16 •