Crisis, what’s a crisis? The impact of Covid-19 on the evaluation of arts

Professor Julian Meyrick: Crisis, what’s a crisis? Reflections on the impact of Covid-19 on the evaluation of arts and culture in Australia

This paper presents the findings of a 2021 interview-based research project on the impact of Covid-19 on a cross-section of Southeast Queensland artists and cultural organisations. The interviews were structured but open-ended (“talking about the experience of Covid-19 in the arts”), aimed at capturing the emotional as well as the objective costs of the pandemic on cultural workers. It uses the findings to consider the term “crisis of value” and whether this describes the state of the Australian arts sector at the present time. Following the pragmatic sociology (convention theory) perspective taken by Will Davies in The Limits of Neoliberalism (2014), focused on how neoliberalism’s competitive worldview is constructed and justified, I ask what effect Covid-19 is having on existing evaluative methodologies in the cultural sector.

The paper builds on previous publications of my research team, Laboratory Adelaide, investigating the problem of value in arts and culture, especially: i. a 2017 exchange with cultural economist David Throsby on quality metrics; ii. our 2018 book What Matters? Talking Value in Australian Culture; and iii. a 2020 journal article on public value (details below). Though the paper engages with empirical data, it addresses conceptual concerns. It reflects on the themes, sentiments, and keywords emerging from an analysis of 14 interview transcripts to consider what might constitute “crisis” if it occurred in the mode of “ordinary” evaluation. Under what circumstances would the performance of neoliberal calculations of benefit cease to be convincing, or delivered by convincing people in a convincing way? What are the political implications of a breakdown in credibility of value methods? What would this feel like for those working in the cultural sector?

Background Publications

• Meyrick J, & Barnett T. “From public good to public value: arts and culture in a time of crisis” with Tully Barnett. Cultural Trends. COVID special issue, Dec 2020. DOI: 10.1080/09548963.2020.1844542
• Meyrick J, Phiddian R & Barnett T. What Matters? Talking Value in Australian Culture. Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2018.
• Meyrick J, Phiddian R, Barnett T & Maltby R. “Culture Counts: a ‘Step Along the Way’ or a Step Back?” Cultural Trends 26:4. 2017.
• Meyrick J, Phiddian R, Barnett T & Maltby R. “Counting culture to death: an Australian perspective on culture counts and quality metrics”. Cultural Trends 26:2. 2017.

Julian Meyrick is Professor of Creative Arts at Griffith University. He is Literary Adviser for the Queensland Theatre, General Editor of Currency House Press’s New Platform Paper series, and a board member of Northern River Performing Arts. He was Associate Director and Literary Advisor at Melbourne Theatre Company 2002-07 and Artistic Director of kickhouse theatre 1989-98. He has directed over 40 award-winning theatre productions, written the histories of five major Australian theatre companies, and published numerous articles on Australian arts and cultural policy, including 90+ articles for The Conversation. He was a founder member and Deputy Chair of PlayWriting Australia 2004-09, and a member of the federal government’s Creative Australia Advisory Group 2008-10. He was Chief Investigator for Laboratory Adelaide, an ARC project studying the problem of culture’s value from 2013-21, and Chief Investigator of the AusStage performing arts database 2012-19. His book Australian Theatre after the New Wave: Policy, Subsidy and the Alternative Artist, was published by Brill in 2017. What Matters? Talking Value in Australian Culture, co-authored with Robert Phiddian and Tully Barnett, was published by Monash Publishing in 2018. Australia in 50 Plays, his latest book was published by Currency Press in March this year.