Una Mullally: We need to become a culture-first society

‘This recording was supported through funding from the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sports and Media as administered via the Music Industry Stimulus Package 2020.” That increasingly common sentence, which appears on the liner notes of Kojaque’s new album, Town’s Dead, shows how some musicians in Ireland are finally and rightly being supported. By the time this brilliant record was released, Kojaque, one of Ireland’s finest musical talents, had already moved to London.

In March, Gareth Murphy wrote an excellent piece for the Journal of Music, about what Ireland is doing wrong with the music industry. He wrote: “A musical, tech-savvy island like Ireland should be embracing the future with wide open arms. This is an opportunity to become a truly independent, copyright-owning, job-creating music culture.”

Musicians are squeezed at the bottom of a power structure that only exists because of their talent

The issues Murphy outlines have long been discussed amongst industry observers. We have a live music industry, but we don’t have a substantial independent record label infrastructure. Murphy’s main point, beyond the lopsidedness of how the live industry dominates, is how music copyright leaves the country, along with talent. Irish acts sign to UK, US and European labels, and young production talent tends to leave the country for bigger opportunities. “And who can blame them?” Murphy writes, as “without native support structures capable of giving them the same breaks, the pattern of copyright drain and music class poverty will keep repeating.”

Let’s make an industry comparison. Right now, there is a production boom in film and television in Ireland. One of the things that differentiates how those working in film and television compare to those working in music is how workers are organised and unionised. There is a small musicians’ union, and very encouragingly, a new union called Praxis, the Artists’ Union of Ireland. But when you examine how the screen guild structure for film and television represents workers and practitioners, you begin to see the difference.

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There is the Art Directors Guild of Ireland, the Assistant Directors Guild of Ireland, the Irish Society of Cinematographers, Camera Guild Ireland, Construction Guild Ireland, Costume Guild, Digital Imaging Technicians Guild Ireland, Film Drivers Ireland, Irish Screen Editors, Grip Guild Ireland, Film Hairstylists Guild, Locations Department Guild of Ireland, Irish Film Make-Up Committee, Modelmakers Guild of Ireland, Production and Accountants Guild, Irish Prop Guild, Riggers Guild Ireland, Irish Guild of Set Decorators, Screen Audio Ireland, Script Supervisors Guild of Ireland, Stunt Guild Ireland, Stunt Register Ireland, VFX Guild Ireland, the Screen Directors Guild of Ireland, and Screen Producers Ireland.

How are we going to address the fault lines in a society designed to shove culture out so viscously that we have to develop schemes for artists to essentially exist on welfare?

Yet when we examine how the independent music industry operates, labels are often run as labours of love, and for the artists there isn’t even a large award ceremony for popular Irish music besides the Choice Music Prize, which gives an award to one album a year. Despite the fact that the musicians make the entire industry exist, where is their power, really? Too often, they are squeezed at the bottom of a power structure that only exists because of their talent.

Music From Ireland does a brilliant job in supporting and funding the showcasing of music from Ireland abroad. First Music Contact, funded by the Arts Council, is a vital support and development body. There is also Music Network which is a touring and development organisation, focusing primarily on jazz, classical and traditional music.

The National Campaign for the Arts has done excellent work in centring the plight of the artist, particularly at the outset of the pandemic when the live events sector shut down – and still hasn’t reopened. People who work in the non-subsidised part of the music industry (which is most of it) never dreamed of asking Government for support or funding. And it showed. When the pandemic hit, those who work in the sector had to organise essentially overnight, and form new bodies to advocate for the live events industry in particular.

We need to develop policy to allow all derelict spaces to have a culture-first option, where artists can inhabit them cheaply or freely

Beyond – but including – music artists, piloting basic income for artists has been widely lauded as a positive innovation. It may, vitally, take the sting out of the widespread poverty affecting many Irish artists. But how are we going to address the fault lines in a society designed to shove culture out so viscously that we have to develop schemes for artists to essentially exist on welfare?

Increasing funding is essential and it works. But along with that, the best support we could introduce for artists – musicians and others – is cheap rent and rent control. We also need to address the amenities crisis that has seen venue after venue, creative space after space, demolished. We need to become a culture-first society. It’s not just about “pay the artist” rhetoric, or the infinite lobbying and advocacy cycles to increase funding. We have to interrogate the ecosystem that has failed artists, and how their habitat is being destroyed by brainless commercial development.

We are facing into a retail crisis that will leave many spaces empty. We need to develop policy to allow all derelict spaces to have a culture-first option, where artists can inhabit them cheaply or freely. It doesn’t matter if they’re small or wrecked, artists invent and create – just let them at it. We cannot pretend to value culture yet have cities that are hostile to artists. Culture and art is our greatest asset. It’s not about sweating it. It’s about letting it breathe.