Page 3515 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 22 October 2014
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I would like to mention a special exhibition put on by Megalo in collaboration with its neighbour, the Canberra Glassworks, another key arts organisation we support. This exhibition, Glint, was collaboration between four printmakers and four glass artists who worked across disciplines to present a fabulous joint exhibition of glass and print. This exhibition could not have been possible without the government’s co-location of both organisations at the Kingston arts precinct.
Another 18 key arts organisations do great work here in the ACT. Any suggestion that they are not developing the territory arts sector displays a lack of knowledge about what is actually happening in this sector.
Just recently I announced successful applications for the 2015 project funding round, and I am pleased to report that the government was able to provide a record number of grants—49—for next year, up from 42 in this year. This is evidence that the government is not only supporting the arts sector but increasing its support. A record number of applications were received.
Mr Smyth has mentioned the Aspen Island Theatre Company’s project, a play being developed with the working title Kill Climate Deniers. It is, no doubt, a provocative title, but without knowing anything about this other than its title, Mr Smyth has instantly declared it unworthy of project funding or support simply because it holds the word “kill”. If Mr Smyth’s logic were applied to all works of arts, generations of school children would never have read To Kill a Mockingbird, and what a tragedy it would have been for our children and others not to read that classic. The reaction to Mr Smyth’s kneejerk attack on this play shows that Canberrans are a little more sophisticated when they look at titles.
I found it personally amusing that a week or so after the announcements were made and in response to something Andrew Bolt had put out, the creator of this theatre piece had months before pegged Mr Smyth’s reaction almost to a T. I will read from act 1, scene 1 of the play:
Politician—I am appalled and disappointed that this organisation has chosen to fund a theatre project entitled ‘Kill Climate Deniers’, using, let me remind you, taxpayers money. I understand it to be an offensive piece of leftist propaganda. I haven’t read it, nor do I intend to. I have no desire to engage with the work itself or to discover that it might be more complex and layered than its title suggests. I am only interested in using it for short-term political leverage and to stir up some outrage to distract from how little I myself am doing with my own taxpayer-funded salary.
The creator of Kill Climate Deniers had Mr Smyth pegged to a T. It is a shame Mr Smyth chose to follow Andrew Bolt and attack these artists. It is also a shame that Mr Smyth—and he has continued to here—has disrespected the esteemed Canberra artists of the panel who assessed the applications and recommended the projects. That panel included Professor David Williams from the Childers Group. Indeed, Mr Smyth is often quoting the Childers Group. They are a very fine group and very strong advocates of the arts. Mr Williams is from the Childers Group and is a former Director of ANU School of Art. Other panel members are: Francis Owusu, former
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