Are artists paying the price for audiences?

Wednesday, 26 June 2024

Dr Claire Robinson is chief executive of Toi Mai Workforce Development Council.

OPINION: Artists are innovators and have a profound effect on the economy and society. We celebrate when they succeed on the world stage. We expand our horizons when we engage with live or curated experiences telling our stories and shaping how we see the world, each other and ourselves. We mourn when a pandemic prevents us from attending shows, kapa haka, movies and exhibitions.

While the arts help us to thrive, many artists struggle to thrive themselves. Of the 10,500 people working in performing arts for example, only around 1500 are earning more than $30,000 a year for their efforts, while around 5000 earn less than $17,000. This is well below the national median income of $62,000. Yet despite these incredibly low levels of income, the shows still go on. People still create. When a career requires you to have multiple sources of income or spousal/parental support, it limits the viability and attractiveness of a career. Yet people still create.

Thanks to recent research commissioned by Toi Mai Workforce Development Council, we now have some understanding of why people continue to work and pursue careers in the arts, despite the low pay. This research found arts workers have higher levels of life satisfaction than workers in non-creative fields, sacrificing stability and security for the ability to do work they love. The wellbeing people get from working in the arts means more of them persist in the sector than their low income would otherwise suggest.

Although it is widely believed the creative sector doesn’t survive without taxpayer subsidies, it is actually the opposite. With a few exceptions, our arts workforce bears the risk and fronts a significant proportion of the cost to entertain us. Our research shows people working in the performing arts subsidise New Zealanders’ participation in and enjoyment of the arts by up to $420 million a year. This is the gap between what they earn and what they forego by not working in a national median income earning job. This equals the funding provided by government for the entire arts, culture and heritage sectors ($426m) – including lottery grants.

It’s an easy out to say filling this gap is a matter of more government funding. This just kicks the can down the road. One of the challenges attached to artists doing it for love is that audiences and commissioners of creative outputs assume they can access them for free or for a small price. We need to make the value of creating the arts more transparent so the price of participation can better cover the costs of the creative workers currently subsidising it.

Toi Mai is setting a target for our arts workforces and the other creative, cultural, recreational and technology sectors under our legislation, to ‘Thrive by ‘35’. A little over a decade to invigorate industries and their workforces that already contribute so much to our economy, society and lives. This is an ambitious goal, but it is achievable. We have a highly engaged sector who want to show us what they can do. We also have a Minister of Arts, Culture and Heritage talking of an arts strategy to lift the profile and sustainability of arts careers. Thrive by 35 requires a concerted effort by all of us – policymakers, funders and audiences – to rebalance the financial burden on the creative workforce.