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You don't have those curtain up moments where you either celebrate or have a moment of reckoning about whether what you're doing is working. You work on policy, you make investments. You have to wait often years to see whether the effect, the impact, is as beneficial as you think it might be. And that's a different cadence. And in a way, you have to be more determined, because you don't get your kind of thrills along the way.
Adrian Collette:
You don't have those curtain up moments where you either celebrate or have a moment of reckoning about whether what you're doing is working. You work on policy, you make investments. You have to wait often years to see whether the impact is as beneficial as you think it might be.
VO:
This interview is part of Visionary Realms, an audio series produced by FT Longitude in partnership with The Royal Commission for AlUla.
Meg Wright:
With a history that spans more than 60,000 years, Australia is a continent that has a rich and unique artistic heritage. Today, as the home to more than 270 ethnic groups, it's a place of diverse voices, perspectives and stories.
Hello and welcome to Visionary Realms, a series that explores new visions for community development, tourism and cultural landscapes. Each episode, we take a close up look at a community or region that is drawing on lessons from the past to build for a sustainable future.
I'm your host, Meg Wright, and in this episode, we're headed to the land down under as we take a close up look at how policy can support the arts to deliver both economic growth and cultural value.
Joining me to discuss this is Adrian Collette, CEO of Creative Australia, the principal arts investment and advisory body for the Australian Government. Adrian, it's lovely to be speaking with you today.
Adrian Collette:
Very good to meet you. Meg. Look forward to our conversation. And I'd like to acknowledge that I'm here on Gadigal land, and pay my respects to elders past and present, and particularly to all my First Nations colleagues here at Creative Australia.
Meg Wright:
And Adrian, you've worked right across the arts sector over the course of your career, I think it's fair to say, championing everything from opera and book publishing right through to galleries and museums. Creative Australia has certainly been a significant advocate for arts in the policy sphere. Could you share with our listeners some of the key priorities that you're working on right now to support the sector?
Adrian Collette:
I think it is this role, if I might say, which is about recognizing the value of creative practice and creative enterprise. And because we are a funding body, an investment body, and increasingly influential in the policy sphere, which is one of the most exciting things that's happening with Creative Australia, I think you begin to reflect your motivation is always about the value of not only what great art is, but if I can say also, you think a lot about what great art does.
Creative Australia was born out of a policy. So we have 50 years of the Australia Council, as you said, the federal government's principal funding and advisory body in the arts. When the current Labor government came to power, within two days of being sworn in, the Federal arts Minister Tony Burke was in our offices saying to us, we're going to have a national cultural policy, not an arts policy, a whole of government cultural policy. And we're going to work on that and get it out quickly, in a matter of months. It won't be born perfect, but it's its best chance to embed it and to start advocating for this broader value to society that artistic skills and talent represents.
We're moving from being a grant-making body to artists and arts organisations, as vital as that is, and it will always be central to our work, but the way we are now structured and funded allows us to be much more what I think of as an investment and development agency for creative practice. And what is key behind that is we now, for the first time, have a series of dedicated funds around music, literature, I'm so happy to say, you know, by far the least adequately funded of all the arts in this country.
So while I accept that artistic practice is increasingly interdisciplinary, by having these dedicated bodies, and most importantly, a newly-created fund for First Nations arts, it allows you not only to make grants to wonderful artists and but it allows you then to start investing in an industry, and we're not shy of that word, we really advocate for a contemporary, generative, valuable, creative industry.
Meg Wright:
I think it is a very exciting time for Australia, because we are seeing this growing recognition of the arts, not only as a cultural asset, but as you've alluded to, as well, a driver of economic growth. So based on all of this change that you've seen in the last 12 months, what are some of the practical steps that you think are now required to start to make the arts an even stronger part of Australia's economic strategy?
Adrian Collette:
I think it really does begin and end with policy. I mean, the money, of course, the investment is vital, but we have tilted on our axis, and in many ways, we were playing catch up with other parts of the world. So I think the practical steps is supporting investment with policy.
Anyone who's actually worked in the industry understands you do this day in, day out. You know, when I was running the Opera Company, I was constantly thinking about, what is its value to society, and that was in no way at odds with investing in insanely brilliant artists who could tackle something as ambitious as opera or theatre or any of those things. So I don't see any conflict in doing those things.
But the other thing I think that is born out of the current policy is, for the first time, as a government agency, we have the ability now to co-invest. So we are very keen on the idea of public-private partnerships, and the new legislation that has been created for us allows us to do this really meaningfully for the first time.
And because we are working now with a much more kind of, let me call it a public value agenda, where, yes, we, investing in in wonderful art is central to what we do, but we are anticipating great public value—whether it's through health and well being, through education, through tourism—and we have a small but mighty research unit that supports all this with a very good evidence base, working with universities, we found philanthropists and philanthropic foundations are increasingly interested in our work because of the beneficial effects to society. So it's quite a nice mix. So along with kind of thinking of ourselves as an investment and development agency, we are taking our ability to leverage public-private partnerships very, very seriously.
Meg Wright:
Of course, when we think about the long term sustainability of those partnerships, and of all the different facets of Australian art and culture, of which there are so many I mentioned in The introduction, Aboriginal and Indigenous art and culture, of course, are vital to Australia's identity. How is Creative Australia working to empower First Nations artists in particular, and to create the sort of sustainable art that will be able to carry on for generations to come?
Adrian Collette:
When the Australia Council was established in the late 60s and early 70s, the funding and advocacy of Aboriginal art was fundamental. It was one of the fundamental principles around which we were established. We don't want to go into history lessons, but if you think of Australia at that time, it was a significant signal about the growing perception of the value of Aboriginal art.
What we've seen through the National Cultural Policy is the investment has been, in effect, doubled. But again, in a very, I think, enlightened way, that we now have a dedicated fund for First Nations arts and culture, overseen by a First Nations board. Not an advisory panel, not industry peers, who we will continue to use to evaluate what is and isn't great art. But the decision-making rights on what is invested in is entirely determined for the first time by a First Nations board, which is part of Creative Australia.
Of course, we will continue to give grants. But it also means a board can determine what are the skills that have to be invested in? Ironically, there is so much demand now for First Nations skills across the country, in so many areas, that we're having to think really hard about how we support them to do all the things that is being demanded of them, not just by the arts community, but by the business community, by the education community. So it is a pretty exciting time, but it will come back to investing in First Nations arts and culture more broadly than we've been able to do before.
Meg Wright:
You mentioned there, too, remote and rural communities, which, of course, make up a huge part of Australia's artistic cultural identity. What, in your experience, are some of the more successful programs or ways that you've been able to overcome urban-rural divides in arts participation?
Adrian Collette:
I think you have to fund at the source. So what we used to fund, in the name of regional funding, was very much organisations based in the cities touring to ensure that regional communities enjoyed the benefits of arts and culture. It now seems a very quaint, if not patronising, way of thinking about it. So I think you actually just have to bite the bullet and fund regionally-based organisations.
If you go to Yirrkala in Darwin, you see that these are cultural centres for the community. Yes, they foster, teach, nurture great First Nations artistic and cultural practice. But I can't think of a better or more telling example of how those practices build communities, become vital resources for the communities in which they are located and and directly answer to some of the challenges around particularly First Nations youth and learning about inherited cultural practice and storytelling and things about which I hesitate to talk because I'm simply not qualified. But if you talk to our artistic, our First Nations cultural leaders, the investment that governments can make in community, in areas of practice, begin to answer some of the biggest social challenges that we have. Just moving examples of how it captures the imagination of young First Nations people, how traditional practice is passed on, and we fund these programs. Things like spear-making is actually a deep, arcane cultural practice that is very important for the binding of generations and First Nations communities, so it’s an absolute a joy to be able to investing in these kinds of practices, cultural practices, and will always be a challenge for Australia, because First Nations communities in particular are so remote but increasingly vital to the way we think about ourselves.
Meg Wright:
Thinking about all of your experience in this sector and everything that you've learned so far about the Australian arts sector, what recommendations do you have to other leaders around the world that are working to support and sustain a thriving arts ecosystem?
Adrian Collette:
As strange as it sounds, I'd say talk to as many people as you can who don't work in your sector. If you are responsible for organisations, even arts practice organisations, or as I am now, for an investment and development agency that offers policy advice, you have to engage with a broader community.
And the good news is, all our research shows us that Australians, and I'm sure everywhere else, they participate in the arts like there's no tomorrow. I think the number is, you know, 97% of Australians, and we do serious longitudinal surveys, and this number keeps coming back at us, engage with the arts. But if you say to them, ‘Are you engaged with the arts?’ Many of them will say no, because they'll always, they'll immediately go to the high arts or some version of it, or museums, or whatever, often with great respect. But if you say, are you reading a book or listening to music or, you know, I'm saying a very obvious thing, suddenly, oh, yeah, of course, you know, of course.
And the last thing I would say has been very interesting making this transition. I think it's instructive for anyone contemplating it. Running Opera Australia, we were performing at least once, often, a couple of times a day in different parts of Australia, the curtain went up, and everyone kind of knew if they were doing their job. You know, the singers were on song, the musicians were playing brilliantly, the stage machinery was working, the theatre was full or not. That was the cadence. Like every day you had this moment of truth.
And then I came to creative Australia, which I often refer to as deferred pleasure. You don't have those curtain up moments where you either celebrate or have a moment of reckoning about whether what you're doing is working. You work on policy, you make investments. You have to wait often years to see whether the effect, the impact, is as beneficial as you think it might be. And that's a different cadence. And in a way, you have to be more determined, because you don't get your kind of thrills along the way, if that makes sense.
Meg Wright:
It's that unique combination of passion, determination and that long term view, which you've articulated so clearly. Adrian, I think that's a great note on which to end. So thank you very much for joining me here today.
Adrian Collette:
Thank you, Meg, nice to talk to you.