BUILDING THE INFRASCAPE (2001)

The task before the intelligentsia and creative community is to build an environment in which the ideal material system can hope to flourish. For this environment to be sustainable and desired by our people, the creative community must have a significant material stake in the system, i.e. in the infrastructure and institutions, which nurtures the environment on a daily basis. This stake in the infrastructure-building process simultaneously demands creative inputs at both the levels of maintaining the integrity of the idealistic vision and taking on the responsibility for the financial self-sufficiency of the process.

Thus creating this infrascape* is no longer about a division of activity where idealism is the duty of one set of creative minds and the wealth generating and redistributing obligations burdened upon another set of implementing organizations. A fundamental redefinition of the Arts & Cultural Institution is now inevitable, as is the duty demanded from an artistic creative individual and the intelligentsia as a collective force.

One requirement of this new duty is the need to recreate or re-mould the mechanisms and terms by which economic wealth is to be generated and simultaneously redistributed in a more effective manner. This in turn demands a reassessment of all forms of patronage - governmental, corporate and philanthropic, and the possibility of the arts generating wealth for their own infrastructure-building efforts. It also demands a deeper debate, asking: can the creative integrity maintain its obsessive focus, its inspirational force to a wider humanity, when it suddenly places itself amid material obligations and all the distractions of administration and the pursuit of material power?

Another implied responsibility of building the infrascape becomes the task of documenting, preserving and restoring to daily life our artistic and cultural heritage. This in turn opens out a vast educational responsibility. Also, from nurturing and harnessing this heritage and knowledge base emerges the possibility, if undertaken with the integrity of an infrastructure-builder, of generating and redistributing significant amounts of wealth ‑ aesthetic and economic, and thereby tackling one of the fundamental dilemmas facing the whole task.

This task, ideally to be fulfilled in partnership with government, requires a holistic vision which was once the privilege of government, but now must become the responsibility of the private sector. Recent introspection regarding its role in the cultural arena and a greater recognition of its fiscal imperatives is placing the government in a growingly difficult position. On one level it seeks greater influence in the infrascape, on another all major archives, heritage properties and educational facilities are facing a significant loss of motivation, confidence and resources. In the process the respect for merit and a belief in intellectual integrity and freedom is suffering. Corporate sponsorship will brand the heritage belonging to the public, and in the process persuade that all creative, aesthetic, intellectual and historical efforts are now but another commodity to be purchased. This in turn will negate the potential impact of increasing respect for creativity and its family of values, which in turn lessens the chances of providing the economic value system with a counter-discipline.

Criticising this whole scenario is now easy and pointless, unless a viable alternative is possible and offered. Obviously, the chances of a sustainable alternative exist. On an individual level, one has sowed the seeds of an institutionalizing process which may be able to implement an alternative infrascape-building process, away from the dependence on the usual forms of patronage and their conditions. Of course, the process is still in its infancy, and failure is as likely as success. Osian’s will fulfil its duty. Others will follow and deepen the process. Momentum and progress are inevitable.

* Infrascape seems an apt word to describe both the environment and its underlying infrastructure for the arts and culture.