Make Art Policy!

Public Movement

Measured in terms of total public expenditure, Germany spends just 1.7 per cent of its budget on culture. For this reason, if for no other, politicians do not consider culture a prestigious area to work in. The social, political and economic frameworks within which art and culture operate tend to be determined elsewhere. However, the question of art’s role in society presents itself again at the moment with renewed urgency: What role can and should art play? Is there a need for a new guiding culture, possibly even a Leitkultur? Should art and culture be tools to integrate new inhabitants? And what does that mean for a federal state like North Rhine-Westphalia with its large number of cultural institutions many of which are located in small cities?? What happened to the credo “Culture for All”? What is worth preserving in difficult financial times? And what can go?
Such questions are central to ‘Make Art Policy!’, staged by Public Movement at the Düsseldorf city hall, where politicians from all relevant parties present their party’s at policy towards the upcoming elections. Presentations will adhere to a strict set of rules, communicate with the means of music, in order to guide debates towards urgent matters of the arts and society.

For over ten years the Israeli performative research group Public Movement – directed by Dana Yahalomi – have investigated political actions and studied and created public choreographies, forms of social organization, overt and convert rituals. ‘Make Art Policy!’ also utilizes the structural similarities of art and politics, the stage and the civic chamber, and invites audiences to a discursive performance whose aesthetic follows the records of official political events – with politicians on the podium, experts in conversation in adjoining rooms, music melodies leading the score of the evening and modest refreshments.
The Düsseldorf assembly takes place – just under a year before state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia – against a background of growing economic and financial problems for the municipalities and the state which also have clear repercussions for cultural policy. In addition, there are the social changes and challenges presented by migration and refugees, where art and culture in particular can or should play a special role. Ultimately what is at stake is not only the matter of public funding for the arts, but also the role which art can play in society, its possibilities and its future. This assembly relies on a strategy of highlighting art policy as essential information in electorates´ decision making process. It uses the pretence of performance to introduce a new political fact into the public realm.

Due to limited seating capacities please register for the event via mail produktion@festivalimpulse.de.

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Livestream on www.nachtkritik.de

Here you can find the conversation between Dana Yahalomi/Public Movement, Florian Malzacher and Kathrin Tiedemann about Mapping the Landscape of Cultural Policy.

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