Planning world cultural domination

ArtScape: Culture Ireland, the national agency set up to promote Irish arts abroad, replacing the long-established Cultural …

ArtScape: Culture Ireland, the national agency set up to promote Irish arts abroad, replacing the long-established Cultural Relations Committee (CRC) of the Department of Foreign Affairs, this week put the finishing touches to a "mission statement" on what it sees as its future role, writes Gerry Smyth.

The organisation, the membership of which was announced by Minister for Arts John O'Donoghue earlier this year, had been given as its initial task the drafting of its own remit. Now it is putting forward its Strategic Plan 2006-2008 for public scrutiny and discussion.

This wide-ranging, detailed document sets out the priorities for Culture Ireland in the years ahead and makes the point that the international cultural field has grown "increasingly competitive, as many other countries commit substantial resources and commit cutting-edge promotional strategies". The funding allocated to Culture Ireland so far is the €3 million it received recently from the Minister for its first full year of work.

While the CRC was, broadly, a funding agency for Irish artists travelling abroad, Culture Ireland is thinking well beyond the allocation of grants. It sees itself developing other supportive strands and collaborative relationships to ensure an international presence for Irish artists and arts organisations and the creation of new audiences.

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And where might these audiences come from? The document makes particular reference to the Government's "Asia strategy" and identifies China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam as geographic priorities. It views a proactive approach to arts promotion in these and the new EU member-states as an "imperative for cultural engagement with some of the fastest-growing new communities in Ireland". The importance of advancing our increasing cultural diversity and changing identity appears several times in the plan's objectives. The development of closer Irish-Turkish relations is highlighted as a key challenge.

In outlining its goals, Culture Ireland gives a nod to the current outlook of the Department of Arts, saying it will seek to "bring culture into the mainstream of the Government's international strategy" and to develop "synergies between international arts, cultural tourism and sport". This integrated approach can be seen throughout the plan, which acknowledges the need to promote heritage as well as contemporary arts, and to involve the national cultural institutions along with Irish studies programmes and "cultural industries". Collaboration with Unesco and the Council of Europe is also seen as important.

While the plan is full of ambitious goals - and lofty ones too, such as facilitating "artistic and cultural contributions to conflict resolution" - Culture Ireland sees a need to strengthen its own organisational capacity by recruiting a director and executive staff and acquiring a public office. The plan envisages greater use of Ireland's embassies abroad, suggesting arts professionals might be sent overseas as cultural attachés in some locations, and local professionals appointed as advocates for Irish culture in some embassies.

There is nothing modest about the scale of Culture Ireland's ambitions and there will be nothing modest about the cost, but many of the proposals are long overdue if we are to gain any of the benefits of cultural globalisation.

The board is inviting interested parties to submit views on its draft strategy (see www.arts-sport-tourism.gov.ie) and says all submissions will be taken into account in finalising the strategic plan.

And to cap it all . . .

Many individual artists who can avail of the tax exemption are probably relieved this morning that the cap was set at a relatively generous level. An annual income of €250,000 is unlikely ever to be reached by the vast majority of artists. And for those who work over a number of years on a project - a book, an exhibition - for which they then earn one large lump sum, it can't be rocket science to devise an acceptable way to divide the income over the years of work.

The Arts Council's gung-ho campaign in favour of the exemption's full retention, which included valuable commissioned research on its effects, worked well in clarifying how the erratic and low pay of artists justifies the measure. The council argued that the Exchequer would gain little ultimately by capping high-earners - a hard case to argue - and chairwoman Olive Braiden commented this week that "the only part of their income that had been tax-free is the income arising from their creative work. These high-earning artists are mostly working in popular music and writing. With this upper limit now introduced, commercially successful artists may be tempted to work elsewhere in more attractive and lucrative cultural markets in France, the US or the UK and may arrange to have their income taxed elsewhere. The Irish Exchequer could therefore lose out on these artists' non-exempt tax income, which would come into the country from touring, box office sales receipts, etc".

Time will tell whether these predictions come true and there is a gradual exodus of high-earners.

On Wednesday, the council welcomed the retention of the exemption but said it was disappointed at the cap. But surely it should celebrate the overall success of its campaign and the fact that most artists are at least in the same position as they were. A clue as to the council's future strategy may be found in Braiden's comment that "the scheme in itself is limited. As it applies to composers, visual artists and writers and their creative work, it does not apply to actors, musicians and choreographers. The news this afternoon that it is to be restricted even further is not welcome".

So perhaps the council may now argue for the extension of the artists' subsidy - for that is what the exemption is - to a wider range of practitioners, most of whose income is equally low and erratic, and whose talent and work also add both to the gaiety of the nation and to Ireland's international artistic reputation.

Meanwhile Minister for Arts John O'Donoghue, has continued to deliver on arts funding. The day after the Budget, he announced approval of money to acquire the UCD site by the National Concert Hall (without details of the amount involved) and for the Abbey at George's Dock. The Cabinet has decided to move on the George's Dock site, after the Office of Public Works advised it was suitable, and the Minister is "arranging to have all options for procuring the theatre as a PPP [public-private partnership] project", including an international design competition. Elsewhere, Wexford Festival Opera is to get €26 million towards the cost of refurbishing and remodelling the Theatre Royal, and the Gaiety is to get €4 million, also towards the cost of refurbishing.

So, good news for all, even if the heart sinks a little at the words "public-private partnership" given that it came to nothing at the Abbey when proposed before. But the department's experience with PPP at the conference centre may prove useful with the Abbey.

Omnipotent Druid

Hey ho, it's off to New York they go. DruidSynge continues on its path to world domination this week with confirmation that the Synge canon will be part of the Lincoln Center Festival in New York in July 2006, a prospect described by festival director Nigel Redden as "one of the highlights of the 2006 festival and a most eagerly anticipated event". But before that, DruidSynge will be the opening production at the new auditorium in Joe Dowling's Tyrone Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis next June in what's sure to be a home from home for Irish arts folk abroad.

Meanwhile, the marketing and promotion of DruidSynge this week won a marketing excellence award in the Marketing Institute's West Region Awards, and its programme book (by Bite Design, printed by Cityprint Cork) recently won the Robert Horne ÍON Trophy for Print and Design Excellence.

Druid's first production next year will be the premiere of an Enda Walsh play, The Walworth Farce, directed by Mikel Murfi, designed by Sabine Dargent and featuring Denis Conway, Garrett Lombard and Aaron Monaghan. It opens in Galway in March and tours to Cork and Dublin in April.