Sophie Roberts is speaking for Silo Theatre to Kate Prior. She asks what sort of feedback Roberts got from sector peers when she made the announcement,
“2023 is Cancelled”
Prior says, “I’m thinking of [chief executive of Creative New Zealand] Stephen Wainwright, and the fact that he acknowledged the cancellation on the Creative New Zealand blog at the end of 2022.”
Roberts says, “All the feedback we’ve had from artists or sector peers was very much like, ‘Yep, get it, makes sense, would like to do it myself.'”
The interchange happens in an interview that is part of Metro Magazine‘s cover story for Autumn 2023, a “Special Report on our impending Cultural Crisis.”
The introduction to the report, by editor Henry Oliver puts it this way, “Sure, Covid changed everything for everyone, but for the arts and culture industry, things have been slow to return to anything resembling normal. It’s looking more and more likely they never will.”
Then, “We are approaching a cultural crisis.”
The report deals with philanthropy, celebrity culture with a subtitle I particularly like, “Cultural fragmentation and the dilution of fame.” Local music, its “existential crisis”–looks like one crisis can cover a multitude. And the cancellation of Silo Theatre’s 2023 season.
It returns to the theme of celebrity with its handling of film, “Bankable Productions: It’s only going to get harder to make local films if we can’t make local film stars.” And the whipped cream (meme) on top, Tavis Hughes, who as star of social media seems to give the lie to the whole story of fame dilution and the case of the missing celebrities. He gets 3 double-page spreads, but I don’t care.
The cover posts the report as “The Curious Case of the Collapsing Culture.” Covid, yes, but it’s multifactorial. It’s cancellation on many pretexts. And looking at this coverage I can’t help asking, what culture?
The culture of celebrity? The star system? Or the culture of social media?
I ask this because of how the report presents the problem. The cultural attrition Auckland is currently suffering from is due to the money going elsewhere, choosing to, that and to the decision of the current Council to follow a programme of austerity. Yet the problem is presented as if it were a crisis of fame and influence, influence winning, fame difficult to come by. And there not being enough influence to influence the outcome.
Unless this is the desired outcome?
It’s not clear what part desire should play. The question what is wanted from culture is not raised. Neither is the question of what is called culture.
What, for example, does Roberts want?
Yes, the Silo thing. I don’t understand the casualness, either on Roberts’s part or on Wainwright’s, CEO of CNZ, as the square brackets remind us. I don’t understand this statement,
Yep, get it, makes sense, would like to do it myself.
Yes? You understand why 2023 should be cancelled? It makes sense to you to cancel 2023? …Is it the culture of 2023 that’s all wrong for Roberts, Wainwright and Metro so that this year is cancelled? Or 2023 is in the process of cancellation?
Does 2023 itself constitute the crisis? Of what then is it critical?
You would like to cancel 2023 yourself. If you could. If you had the power, the money and influence, the fame and flare for making memes, you would cancel culture.
I think this Yep-get it-makes sense-would like to do-it-myself is what it says it is, a DIY cancellation of culture… and of 2023. And are sector peers sad about it? No. I’m thinking like Prior of [chief executive of Creative New Zealand] Stephen Wainwright.
Not really a peer but a sector leader. Up to his elbows in influence.
Remind me, what’s his response?
Roberts says, “All the feedback we’ve had from artists or sector peers was very much like, ‘Yep, get it, makes sense, would like to do it myself.'”
This strikes me as, in my own headline,
a consensus and consensus-seeking statement of willing resignation in the face of betrayal that is deeply complicit with this betrayal.
What betrayal?
The political one of course. The one that enables Roberts to speak for Silo and speaking for Silo announce the cancellation of 2023. The political one that enables Wainwright to speak for CNZ and speaking on behalf of the principal funding body of the arts in Creative New Zealand say, Yep, get it, makes sense, would like to do it myself. But you have.
That’s the betrayal. The political one that enables Metro and its editor, Oliver, to look on at the collapse of culture and looking on at the cultural collapse say these words, the arts and culture industry have been slow to return to anything resembling normal and it’s looking more and more likely they never will. The political one that enables Metro and its editor, Oliver, to write that cultural collapse in Creative New Zealand is a curious case.
Hang on, that’s not a betrayal, unless, wait a minute, it is intentional, intentional in the way Yep-get it-makes sense-would like to do-it-myself is.
Creative New Zealand is Cancelled.
No surprise there. What is cancelled is precisely creativity. That is culture.
Leave a Reply