Suburban culture plea

Press, 11 April 1979, Page 16

Suburban culture plea

PA Dunedin Local councils should encourage the growth of craft and cottage industries in “sterile suburbs,” says the chairman of the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council, Mr Hamish Keith.

Speaking on the final day of the Municipal Association’s sixty-sixth annual conference in Dunedin, he said that councils should turn their minds to the maintenance of theatre companies, orchestras and musical groups rather than the buildings they performed in.

“It is clear that the majority of authorities are locked into a kind of bricks and mortar and maintenance role. “Art galleries and museums account for a staggering 76 per cent of the total cultural expenditure. Theatres , community centres and historic places take 16 per cent, leaving the balance to be divided amongst 13

other kinds of cultural activity.” Mr Keith said councils were willing to build institutions, but not staff them or acquire significant objects for their collections. “Theatres, galleries and museums are realty of little value if nothing is available of worth in them, if they are poorly or inefficiently staffed or if their contents are rotting through lack of skills and finance.” The most compelling argument for local council support was the number of individuals involved in them, Mr Keith said. “In 1976 visits to the country’s art galleries and museums totalled 3.1 million: more than 120,000 have paid to see Roger Hall’s play ‘Glide Time’; the film ‘Sleeping Dogs’ was the third most successful at the box office in 1977.” Mr Keith said that so far 80 recreations workers were employed by councils, but only

Queenstown employed an officer in the area south of Christchurch. Not all the districts arts councils were seen as assets by local authorities, said Mr Keith. The average per capita contribution was not much more than 1 per cent of the average residential rate.