On Thursday artists and community members rallied outside Winnipeg City Hall to protest a funding cut proposal that would devastate many organizations that run community programs.
I am not even being dramatic.
The proposal is to cut funding from 3.4 million to 1.3 million and include no core funding. For organizations like Art City, just one of many recipients of these grants, this is a devastating proposal, cutting off primary funding they use to offer community arts programs over the last two decades.
It is very rare for community art to be lucrative. Art costs money. Offering spaces where artists can create, children can learn, and community members can benefit from creative programs requires predictable funding. Ā And while I doubt that anyone one would argue against the benefit civic funding for arts programming, every once and a while there are tremors along the fault lines determining who, what, where, when, how and why public funds get distributed.
Mayor Gillingham says these cuts are necessary to help reduce city deficit, but that will always be the case when it comes to civic planning. There is money to be spent, the question is how to spend it and where stable community programs fit into that conversation.
Running operations on grant funding is incredibly precarious. I know this personally from working in non-profits for over 10 years and now owning a business which runs a galleryācultural programs cost something and require stable funding. Spending money on non-capital producing labor requires the choice to prioritize something that goes against the the dominant logic of a capitalist economy. Ā After a period of stable funding it might be possible to forget the precariousness of government benevolence, but the fault lines will inevitably show up. So, when I hear these stories of rallying to āsaveā organizations that are about to lose their funding I think to myself, āyes, andā¦ā Ā
My instinct by now is to ask whether we are patching a boat in a fleet that stays afloat by occasionally perforating other boats? Maybe we need a new strategy for how to support our artists, cultural workers, and arts organizations. The model of government grants works when there are counsellors who value the role of stable community programs, but what happens when that value is not represented at the table? In an economy where money is the only exchange value, operations that do not produce capital will always hold a precarious place in the social fabric.
For now the counsellors voted to pause the decision–but doesnāt mean that the trouble is over. It just means the earthquake got rescheduled to next month. Ā
Folks should definitely keep rallying to āsaveā their beloved community organizations. But, after we patch up the hole in the leaky vessel, lets also strategize an exit from this dominant structure that, like an abusive partner, sometimes shows us love and care, while other times psychologically undermines our value and worth.
Alexandra Ross Works 