marcus westbury

There is something slightly disingenuous about the spin that came with the Australia Council’s More than Bums on Seats: Australian Participation in the Arts survey released last week. At the very least, it’s a double-edged sword. At the superficial headline level, the report shows that Australians love and value the arts. But dig a little [...]

I’m basically just posting this here so i can link to it from this discussion over at Larvatus Prodeo. But it’s a reminder though that I’m involved in many debates and discussions about arts funding and policy priorities in Australia at the moment (most recently here and here) and too easily forget that most people [...]

Culture circa 1960 IS THE flagship arts company destined to be a relic of the 20th century? The 20th century was an era of “big local” culture. We used to have big local media, big local brands and even big local football competitions in each state and territory. Each major Australian city also built a [...]

I am conducting a little experiment over at Facebook. I’m trying to work out whether it is possible to somehow round up all those people who don’t quite fit the “Art” boxes and as a result never get a seat at the table. My theory is that a relatively small number of highly centralised and [...]