BGCM Motions 2019

GFTU BGCM 2019 MOTION 2

AUE - Artists Union England

The movement for cultural democracy.

Conference welcomes and supports The Movement for Cultural Democracy creating a new radical and transformative agenda for democratic cultural transformation. Its new manifesto has been collectively created and sets out three interconnected projects: a) democratising the means of cultural production; b) decolonising and realising radical inclusivity in all spheres of arts, culture, everyday life and our public institutions; c) realising participatory democracy. This movement is necessary because at present the power and the resources needed to create culture at the grassroots are so unevenly distributed. For example, many of our UK cultural policies are currently funded from monies from general taxation and the National Lottery and distributed at national level by Creative Scotland, Arts Council of Wales, Arts However, public funding decisions are remain highly centralised and top-down, to the detriment of local communities, grassroots cultural organisations and artists. Conference notes, at present, that while it is the poorest communities in our society that contribute the most to the National Lottery, it is those who are wealthiest who see the most return – our cultural funding regime is fundamentally unbalanced, unjust and undemocratic. Council of Northern Ireland and Arts Council England.

Conference calls on the GFTU to:

I) support a fundamental rebalancing of the way our arts and cultural activities are funded in order to put control of cultural funding into the hands of local communities and people and make the funding of cultural activities more responsive to all of the people they should serve. II) work with The Movement for Cultural Democracy and its affiliates to create cultural policy and a cultural landscape which is radically inclusive, democratic and responsive to the participation of all members of society, not just the few.