Y Pwyllgor Diwylliant, y Gymraeg a Chwaraeon

Adolygiad Polisi: Cyfraniad y Celfyddydau a Chwaraeon at Adfywio Cymunedol

Mike Hotson. Community Artist.

Response to Culture Committee Review of the Role of Arts and Sport in Community Regeneration. Dear Committee, I welcome the opportunity to add my voice and suggestions into the great melting pot of political debate. It is, I feel, a very positive step forward in having and operating an ever increasingly open, receptive and proactive body politic. More power to the Welsh Assembly and at the end of the era, it’s success in this most basic grass roots area will mark it out as something with real staying power, intention and a desire to govern for the good rather than a lap dog rubber stamping bureaucratic machine that inhibits good cultural practice. I am a Community Artist by profession (A person who uses a variety of art forms, with individuals from all backgrounds, in local geographical communities or communities of interest etc. for personal, social and political change.) An English incomer, who lives in South West Wales, works locally, nationally and internationally. Wales has an amazing international reputation for being a land of Song, a highly prestigious and respected Poetical nation with an envied High Art Performance scene and some say the greatest number of skilled professional and amateur Artists per head of population in Europe, second only to Italy. It is these artists, whose principal genesis in their creativity, I believe can be attributed to either their birth in Wales or their Life in Wales, surrounded by all it’s natural beauty and an endemic thriving social artistic cultural scene. On a very local level, in every Welsh community there is some form of social interaction, (often voluntary), steeped in tradition and heritage of artistic cultural experiences. It is this basis then that I firmly believe, shapes an individual, defines a way of interacting with those closest to one and ultimately gives rise to a defining marker of the culture one inhabits. The Arts, then in all their various forms and guises are the very glue and oil of any society. They define the very cultural building blocks of ones humanness. Ultimately, describing for the world to share, ones cultural humanity. I know from my professional experience that arts practice and participation quite literally changes people’s lives. On an increasingly regular basis I am privileged to witness some amazing personal, community and group transformations. Be it a deeper connection to self, to others or a collective sharing of a group or communities expression / celebration of being Alive. For me the whole artistic process is far to valuable to be left to such an ad hoc funding criteria. If Wales has come this far with such mediocre financial scraps, just imagine what it could do with a properly funded, organised and sustained level of positive arts provision. The Arts has time and time again proved it’s financial worth in commerce and income generation. Community and Voluntary Arts has always been the poor relation in the Art World. Regarded as frivolous and icing on the cake in terms of economic hardship. When the ironic fact points in the direction that it is just this very local, ordinary creative participation and expression that gives birth to an individuals artistic soul, provides an informed, experienced arts audience, and ultimately defines a nations culture. I sincerely hope that the committee will grasp it’s unique opportunity to replicate a leaf out of it’s own ethos and way of working and properly fund, nurture and design a comprehensive artistic culture for every Welsh community, accessible to all, from the grass roots up. I thank you for your offer of allowing myself to add to and inform your debate, for your attention in this matter and await with interest the outcome of the review. Yours in friendship, Mike Hotson.