Grass roots arts being pushed out of house and home

Grass roots arts being pushed out of house and home
Image: source: tapgallery.org.au

The future of the arts in Sydney looks bleak following recent instances where artists have been forced to stop operating by councils.

City Hub reported that the TAP Gallery in Darlinghurst and Mark Cleary of Short + Sweet have both been driven out of venues due to Sydney being one of the most expensive cities in the world.

Lesley Dimmick of the TAP Gallery was told by the City of Sydney that she didn’t have the correct zoning for the upstairs space and and needed to cease using it as a theatre. They told her this after she had spent $10,000 on renovations to make her theatre fire-compliant,

Mark Cleary faced similar problems with Marrickville council. They informed him that he was not permitted to both work and live in his studio and gave him three days to leave. This is despite 15 years of work Mr Cleary has done for the council on a large number of community art projects.

Ms Dimmick says that these cases are not unique and that there is a cultural gentrification happening across Sydney.

“What happens is that artists move in and make the place interesting, then everyone else moves in because of that and force the artists out,” she said.

Mark Cleary holds the same beliefs but puts more of the blame on development.

“Artists are being pushed out of spaces because their areas are becoming units,” he said.

“All these interesting and eccentric places where people live and work to provide a cultural heart for Sydney are being eroded by development.”

Patrick Morrow, the President of the University of Sydney’s Dramatic society (SUDS) said that there are “immense barriers involved in progressing from amateur to professional art.”

“To have enough time to work on these things is essential, and that means having enough of a net to not be doing full time work,” he said.

“The people that I know that are making an impression on the arts scene are those that had the means to deal with the risk.”

Lesley Dimmick says this barrier exists on the selling side of art as well.

“People are buying art as an investment and not for love. Then they don’t buy living Australian’s art – only dead ones. How are you supposed to make a living if you don’t get paid for your work until you’re dead?”

“Young Australian artists are not only unsupported, but they’re also not respected, and that’s a sad reality,” she said.

Patrick Morrow says this influences the decisions that young artists are making.

“The sense that we need to address financial pressure through art is undermining the value of what we do,” he said.

Dimmick says that the mistreatment of artists goes on in all levels of government.

“Artists in Sydney are treated like doll bludgers and driven out to Western Sydney,” she said.

Mark Cleary, says that the City of Sydney are showing some promising signs.

“The medium-level things they are doing are showing positive effects. Like the Eternity City Playhouse – they gave that place to a small independent theatre company and kitted the place out.”

The Eternity City theatre is directly across the road from the TAP Gallery and its renovation has puzzled Lesley Dimmick.

“We thought we were going to be complimentary and that we could turn this into a wonderful cultural district,” she said.

“The government and councils understand so well what a housing block is, or what an infrastructure zone is, but they don’t understand the value of a cultural zone – there’s actually a huge financial industry revolving around the arts if you create ‘areas’ instead of patchwork.”

Artists are increasingly moving to other cities like Melbourne and Brisbane because they think they will be more supported.

This is despite the fact that the City of Sydney spends $34 million a year on arts and culture compared to The City of Melbourne’s $14.4 million.

A large amount of this money goes into the Biennale, Vivid, and New Years’ Eve with the expectation that there will be trickle down funding for the grassroots artists.

“TAP has not seen any trickle down,” Lesley Dimmick said.

“Not only have they managed to shut us down, but they’ve managed to make us spend so much money on renovations that we can’t even relocate.”

In 2012, the Mayor of London started the World Cities Culture Forum which gathers cultural data. Sydney is praised for its large scale events and public art installations in the forum, but the data tells a different story. Just 5.5% of Sydney’s population is employed in the creative arts – which is one of the lowest ranks of western cities in the study.

Sydney also has one of the lowest numbers of theatres per capita with only 73 theatres servicing the whole city.

Patrick Morrow said he worries for his future, and the future of art in Sydney.

“If you don’t have support for a fledgling community of art and theatre makers, you will not have a worthwhile mainstream in 20 to 30 years.”

 

 

 

 

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