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Lorna Mills and Sally McKay
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A terrific post and discussion thread on praxistheatre.blogspot (via simpleposie) about the magical $25 Million the conservatives pulled out of their asses to give to two Toronto business men (founders of the Luminato festival) in order to create the Canada Prizes for the Arts and Creativity.
One of the best quotes in the thread is from commenter michael:
"The money won't be used to develop anything: it's a tool to give Luminato - and by association Canada - more cred. They'll be able to attract talent, and "a better class" of talent at that, which they think will inspire us all. They won't be giving money to some unknown artist who is brilliant and needs exposure to become the "next Yoyo Ma", they'll give it to someone who is already well on the way, and who will make Canada look benevolent by taking our prize and a paid gig. It's managed culture, and it's a pretty pathetic way to suggest that "this is how it's done" by offering the money to non-Canadians.And please let's not say that this means the private sector is 'stepping up to support the arts in light of Government cuts'. That's absolute drivel.
You want to reach out to the international arts community? First of all, put back the funding that lets artists go abroad when they are invited to do so. Second: ensure that any artist who wants to make art in Canada can do so without being burdened with the bizarre notion of obligation that we have to deal with (bizarre, because we have still failed to define what "Canadian" means, and we probably never will - I haven't got a clue how to be a Canadian artist except to not trust my own instincts). That's it - it's that simple, but it scares the pants off of any politician because it means giving up control of, and being unable to take credit for (or defend yourself from) what the artist's work says."
(that's for j@simpleposie for spending so much time and energy tracking the news on the funding cuts)
Give us 25 mil for this blog, we'll fucking inspire you.