Tuesday, October 26, 2021
Guest essay: Penelope McPhee on why Atlanta's next mayor must invest in the arts
ARTS ATL: In Atlanta’s first mayoral election since the onset of the Covid pandemic, candidates face new or exacerbated concerns around crime, health, racism, education and reviving the economy. What if there were a single investment that could address all these issues to improve the quality of life of all Atlantans? What if it were the arts?
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3 comments:
I found this article really shocking. I would assume that Georgia, with a live and creative city such as Atlanta would have far more arts funding than shown in this article. I have only been to the sate once, and that was for a theatre competition a few years back. The conference was massive and drew in people from all over the world. The city seemed to have a vibrant and glowing arts scene. In Savannah, there’s of course the active film industry and SCAD. There is a real need for Georgia’s government to look at supporting the flourishing creative minds they have their state. As the article states, the arts and now more important than ever. People are craving it, and there’s no doubt that local arts in Georgia need a boost. I was really drawn to Arundhati Roy’s quote. Post-Pandemic we do have the opportunity to imagine a new world for the arts, and change is happening. Hopefully, this will extend to non-profit arts funding across the country.
I will always support the arts. Arts has been a part of my life since I can remember and I have always found something positive that has come out of it. I started with art classes in elementary school, got into crafting when I was in middle school, join band in middle school, join theater in school, and now I go to college for theater. I used to live about 45 minutes outside of Atlanta and it is sad to hear that such little funding goes into the arts in those areas. I moved to NOVA about 45 minutes outside of DC which I think has a much larger investment in public arts funding. I am think about moving to Atlanta after college so I would love to see a greater investment in the public arts moving forward. I don’t think that the arts should only be for the rich and upper-class, it needs to be available to everyone. This was my favorite quote: “Art just kind of kept me away from all the bad things I could have been doing. I felt it saved my life,”
I enjoy this reference to the fact that I’ve heard stated before that it has provable positive impacts, but what I like more about this article is how it dives explicitly into how this is done, and the personal and emotional effects that it has and can have. Another quote from the article revolved around art being a necessary amenity for people, putting into perspective for me a bit about what we consider necessary, in the articles example a park, or more broadly food and water and that is where our commonly accepted standard lies. The idea of housing and funding for artists is nice and an idea that I love, but it reminds me that this is a way to make a specific job viable and not general. I now also want to take a look back at past pandemics and changes before/after them as this article references. I can see and have experienced the effects of this one but not those in the past.
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