Background
From February to May 2009, Bayimba Cultural Foundation presented to the general public and the arts sector in Uganda a series of discussions about the Role of Arts and Culture in Society. During these discussions, the role of arts and culture in society, the role of arts in development, the role of the public and private sector in supporting arts as well as the role of the media in developing arts were discussed.
During the discussions, panellists and public defined and discussed culture and arts from their perspective. Opinions were aired, comments were made and questions were raised.
Summary of topics discussed during previous discussions
The Role of Arts and Culture in Society
Culture is continuously changing in step with changing social processes while at the same time constituting a common point of reference to a society. Culture can be viewed as the collective habits of thinking and acting that give particular meanings to the existence of individuals, a group or a society as a whole. These two functions make culture a relevant and powerful factor in (shaping) society.
Arts is the visible expressions of culture. It was discussed that arts can be defined as a way of articulating cultural memories. However, not to imprison us in the past but to free us from the traps of habits. This is a transformative process.
If people are given a chance to question the meaning of arts, they typically assume that “art” applies to those things or activities that exist or happen in places like theatres, museums and galleries. Many people will say they have no art or culture in their communities, simply because they don’t have cultural venues. It was noted that creativity can be found in every aspect of life and society – creativity is not restricted to artists. Creativity of the individual needs stimulation and encouragement and arts can play a role in this.
Arts and Development
Arts are being used to encompass all disciplines of performing and visual arts. It was understood that arts create and bring awareness to people because of its powerful means of presenting truth about humankind that can not be expressed in any other way. Arts also connect people by presenting an idea that everyone can relate to in a universal way. However, the awareness that comes from arts will only lead to changes in society if people take action based on the ideas they discover in arts.
So, arts have the power to contribute to better societies but there are several steps involved. Arts must reach the public, people must appreciate the value of arts and people need to start changing their behaviour as a result of confrontation with arts. First step is therefore to make arts available (and accessible?) to the public if arts were to have any impact on society.
Supporting Arts – Whose Role?
Arts sector in developed countries are a key sector that contributes to economic and social development. The arts sector needs to be supported to reach this level – a vision for a sustainable creative arts industry needs to be in place and creative minds and creativity in general need to be supported.
It was stated that support is needed, though the question is whether public and private sector are ready to invest in arts sector. To obtain government support, a clear argumentation will need to be presented to the government, else the static interpretation of culture and arts will continue to prevail. Also for the private sector a clear argumentation will have to be presented and private sector will have to be engaged to create an understanding of “corporate cultural responsibility”.
It was recognised that communities often take on the role of supporter (voluntarily) in case of absence of funding but it was questioned whether there are such communities in Uganda and East Africa.
A clear wish was expressed to see Uganda and East Africa develop as a community where arts are vibrant and alive, balancing between traditions and emerging creative industries so that arts is available and accessible for a wider public. The arts sector will need to become recognised by other segments to fully develop the potential of arts as a contributing factor to positive change.
The Role of the Media
Media representatives were accusing arts for not being consistent, not being creative and not involving the media in their activities while artists questioned the criteria which the media uses for reporting on certain arts or not – there is little using of archives and documenting for the future (short term focus rather than long term focus) and there is little attention to non-mainstream art expressions.
It became however clear that media and arts have a number of things in common: they are both the result of creative minds at work, they both have a powerful influence on people’s life and mind-sets, they both have the potential to contribute to development.
There was one issue that Bayimba Cultural Foundation feels the general public and the arts sector did not explore sufficiently – the way forward. During the final “grand” discussion, we are therefore specifically looking at the way forward for developing the arts sector in Uganda as well as in East Africa.
So, what is the way forward if arts are to be relevant to our society and communities, and to social and economic development in present Uganda and East Africa (Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi) where we are forging a way of being one community but where there are many different cultures and where the arts sectors are at a different level of understanding and development).
Therefore, we will focus on discussing the way forward for arts and culture in Uganda and East Africa. More specifically, the questions are:
- How to ensure that culture is not understood as static but as dynamic factor in transforming and shaping society? How to pass on a dynamic understanding of culture? Who should pass on this message?
- How to ensure that art is seen as a relevant factor to positive change? How to involve the wider public? How to ensure that artists becomes respected profession? Who should take a lead in this?
- How to stimulate individual creativity? Is curriculum in schools stimulating creativity? Do we have good education/training institutions for creative minds?
- How to stimulate the arts sector? How to ensure professionality within arts sector? Who to take a lead?
- How to support creativity and arts sector? How can government and public sector, and how can private sector? How and who to engage these segments of society?
- How to ensure that media and arts sector have a better understanding of each role and of their things in common? How to establish a mutually benefiting relationship?
- How to ensure that arts sector become sustainable (and not depending on external support)? How to promote and create a demand for arts? Who to take a lead?
It is upon the arts managers, the artists, public and private sector, the media and the general public to jointly forge a way forward to do away with the misunderstanding about (the relevance of) culture and arts.
We welcome you to join us for this grand discussion and we would be grateful if you could prepare your remarks. We are looking forward to receiving you on the 13th June 2009 at the National Theatre Auditorium at 10am.
Bayimba Team
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
A BRILLIANT DISCUSSION.