The Artists Go Marching Two By Two, Hurrah, Hurrah!

I think the inescapable ‘national’ focus of the city and the presence of large national institutions don’t do any favours to the grassroots artists. Canberra’s movers and shakers like to stage ‘big’ events that make Canberra look like an international city and these seem to be enough to satisfy many Canberrans. If you’re happy going to one or two blockbuster events a year why are you going to drive halfway across town after work to check out a minor local artist you might not even like? Just watch TV until Skyfire rolls around again.

For music, the key limiting factors are population density and price.

There are plenty of venues – the problem is quality. High property costs leave music as a secondary priority to almost all bars; particularly given that they can’t afford to charge much for live music due to the low population density. I imagine that the transient population might reduce the number of people investing themselves in local culture.

But that’s the nature of the beast. Where you have scenes you have scenesters. There’s not much room for pretension, money or genre-exclusivity here, which results in cross-germination and a more honest music scene that I love.

Last week’s triumphant ‘Improvention’ demonstrated that high quality events with exceptional international, national and local talent can be put on in Canberra.

Well said Lulu and Kalfour. You’re right about artists needs to travel both for new audiences and influence, and about finding the right pace of life – at the right price.

I didn’t want to come across as negative. I know that Canberra is home to many amazing artists, some of whom sell on world stages. I just feel that this place is bagged out unfairly sometimes and although people are full of criticism, they never articulate why or what Canberra lacks.

Okay, I’m an old fart
but I appreciate ELK’s art around Canberra…sometimes it makes me laugh, sometimes it makes me cringe, sometimes it makes me wish I was so brave…

lulu said :

Given the housing affordability crisis in Canberra, I can see the attraction for artists of either moving to a larger city where the cost of living won’t be any higher but the markets for thier work are bigger or moving to a more rural setting where costs are lower and life is slower…

I think this is a big part of it. Even quite successful artists are often lacking in wealth. Canberra is an expensive place to live.

Canberra’s art scene isn’t bad. We have decent galleries and decent public art (accompanied by plenty of awful public art) and the arts get plenty of funding.

Even so, not many artists would be happy to produce art for just one area. They want to be seen throughout the country, by getting public art projects and exhibition spaces in lots of places.

Some artists stay. I really don’t think we should be concerned by an artist shortage in Canberra.

Almost any artist anywhere in the world who makes a successful career travels a lot and lives in more than one place. It’s part of the nature of the work. (Banksy’s work doesn’t only appear in London) I’m sure that our Luke (AKA E.L.K.) will retian his strong ties to Canberra as do many of our ex pat artists. Canberra does have a thriving arts scene but at the end of the day, it’s a limited market. Any artist in any medium who wants to make a living from their work must develop other markets. Usually this means moving away although online technologies and Canberra’s gradual cultural maturation are making this less necessery in some cases.

We also have strong regional artistic communities in our surrounding areas (Braidwood springs to mind). Given the housing affordability crisis in Canberra, I can see the attraction for artists of either moving to a larger city where the cost of living won’t be any higher but the markets for thier work are bigger or moving to a more rural setting where costs are lower and life is slower, allowing more time and space for creative practice and development.