Want to make art? You better be rich: how Australian culture locked out the working class

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Wages are low, work insecure and funding has been gutted. Amid a cost-of-living crisis and a pandemic, are we about to lose a swathe of artists to obscurity?

, public funding continues to prioritise those “high” and mainstream arts that few can afford to experience, let alone create, “drawing a line between ‘legitimate’ art for the respectable classes versus the unruly, experimental, different and new”.

The cost goes beyond the financial. The Support Act helpline reported a 300% increase in calls, with over 2,700 hours of counselling provided to clients across the arts. Data collected by On the ground, the pain is felt keenly. Writer Travis Hunter says that while being gender diverse presented barriers when they first started in the industry, being working class has made it an ongoing struggle.

Data on this point is elusive. While arts companies regularly self-assess for diversity, class background isn’t a criteria. What we do know is thatin 2021 went to government schools, yet public school funding in the latest election budget was slashed by half a billion dollars. If the Coalition is re-elected, private school funding will increase by over $2bn.

Badham believes Australia has “wilful class blindness”. The advantage overseas, she says, was “no one could hear my bogan accent”.

 

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