Winnipeg's next mayor must value, nurture the arts

When I left my job as cultural economist with the mayor of London, England, and moved to Winnipeg, I was entranced by its creativity and charmed by its welcome.

I was invited to the Winnipeg Arts Council (WAC) Cultural Capital event in 2009 and the mayor’s Luncheon for the Arts in 2010, where I discovered how deeply the arts were woven into the fabric of city life.

I joined the boards of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Video Pool, and Manitobans for the Arts (M4A) and got to know vigorous movers in the Exchange District, such as Arts and Creative Industries Manitoba (ACI), as well as the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce, who clearly grasped that alongside all the other reasons for support, there was a sound business case for the arts.

When the election race got under way, several candidates asked for my ideas on “arts policy” – an openness which I hope does not stop when the race is over. I did not respond immediately, because I did not see what I could add to the wealth of ideas which Winnipeg had already produced.

Upon reflection, however, I realised there was a further problem: why are none of these great ideas put into practice? Why is Winnipeg home to such unique institutions as the Winnipeg Art Gallery, the Manitoba Museum, its concert halls and its theatres, cashing in on the benefits these bring to our citizens and businesses, while it flatlines spending on them?

Why does it adopt comprehensive plans like OurWinnipeg and Ticket to the Future, then kill them at the secondary stage? Do our administrators not realise that they are killing off their city’s future as surely as if they cut down all our trees and let garbage rot where it sits?

The problem is not popular support. Winnipeggers understand that art – pleasure in beauty – is the key to the good life, not some poor cousin to snow-shovelling and pothole-filling.

As M4A puts it, art is what we are: it’s why we look up at the sky. We don’t just want our homes, cities, and neighbourhoods to be ‘functional’; we need them to be joyful.

Nor is it a “business versus community” issue. Smart businesses fully understand that their future lies with smart industries, the foundation of the world’s successful cities. The alternative is the kind of decline that is ravaging cities like Detroit and Cincinnati, which have become sinkholes because they just didn’t get it.

The modern economy depends on aesthetics, design, and creativity, not just churning cars off the line. To be a home to these industries, and the talented people who make them work, the modern city has to be distinctive: people need to say “I enjoy what this city offers, and I want to work here to help make it.”

Nor do I even think the city administration is entirely to blame, though I do think Winnipeg deserves better. The real problem lies deeper.

Why do Winnipeggers let their administrators off the hook? Why do they put up with councillors who wax lyrical about the arts and then strangle them in committee? Why, whenever arts budgets come up, do they let their city talk about “infrastructure” as if squat grey buildings were somehow more useful than fun family spaces, bustling sidewalk cafés, vibrant street art and a breathtaking urban landscape?

Back in 1905 – when Winnipeggers were a lot poorer than they are now – they lined their new boulevards with trees. That, for them, was their infrastructure. We are the beneficiaries today – it’s what gave us the “Emerald Carpet.”

How did Winnipeggers lose their understanding of these priorities?

I think what’s at issue is leadership: and I want to offer some pointers about what that means.

The irresistible economics of art for all

Each candidate will respond to these challenges in different ways and that’s how voters will choose between them. But first, no candidate should ignore the arts. They are vital to our future. Second, and this is my central point, candidates should stop thinking and speaking about the arts as a “special case.”

 In fact, all policies have consequences for the arts. Candidates should therefore explain the artistic impact of everything they will do in office.

Strong arts support is certainly needed. The very least we want from our next mayor is to restore real spending on the arts to the highest levels of the past decade.

But the mayor needs a wider vision. Art needs to be rescued from special pleading.

The mayor’s next job is to recognise art as something that everyone uses; not a luxury, nor just a “sector,” but a part of everyday life from the first day our kids start learning how to speak, sing and play. The source of resistance to the idea of supporting the arts is the feeling that it’s just for a privileged group of people.

The arts community, too, has to think about this. Such innocent ideas as that “high art” is for the appreciative few or that aesthetic appreciation or creativity are only found in special, talented people; we open the door to the fatal idea that artists are asking for special treatment. No, we need cities where everybody gets to enjoy what we know the arts can bring into their lives.

Art is still seen as a luxury, something we enjoy once we’ve paid for “necessities” like roads, wrongly placing the arts community as the custodians of a “begging bowl.” Art is actually a service.

Artists don’t free-ride off the public; the city free-rides off the arts.

How ridiculous it would be to say “we’re going to get rid of the hospitals because we can’t afford to keep people alive?” Art is no different from health. It’s a necessity. It’s what life is about.

 All our citizens, rich or poor, from all communities and all parts of the city need it. Art is a requirement of modern life, along with waste disposal, policing, or road mending. Every policy – education, housing, policing, health, or transport – has to start by asking how we can ensure that more people get to take part in artistic experiences.

The same wrong thinking feeds the wrong idea that we should focus on the economy. If I learned one thing from my time in London, it’s that the economy’s future is in the arts. Advertising, architecture, arts, fashion, film, heritage, music, photography, broadcast, theatre and performance art all employ more than two million people in Britain – one in every six Londoners. They are the fastest growing economic sector by a factor of more than four.

Winnipeg has to make itself the location of choice for these industries.

These two things – access and employment – are two sides of the same coin: the first generates the demand, and the second supply. National and global film companies, performers, media companies, music producers and all the complex infrastructure that now supports them – not least software industries – will come to our city if they find a discerning population that understands, and loves, the products they are going to make here. Conversely, Winnipeg will stand out in Canada and worldwide, if we make unique things here and cash in our well-deserved existing reputation as a centre of excellence for art of all kinds.

Art as a public service

A radical conclusion follows: art is a service, something the city and province have to make available to everyone. But if art is not a “sector” what kind of support does it need?

Does this all mean we don’t need to spend any money on it? The answer is that we should spend money on art for the same reason we spend it on roads and waste disposal; because everyone needs it. How can this be done? This is not a blueprint: it’s a challenge. If you want to be the next mayor, you should spell out how you will put Winnipeg’s art at the service of all its people. I want to spell out that challenge.

Can we plan for the arts?

One of the fascinating things about the arts is that you can’t do them from blueprints. Of course, music has scores and films have scripts, just as musicians, camera people and actors have specialist training and talents which bring the performances to life. But the vital element of art, just like sport, is people. No matter how well you know the rules, it’s the experience that counts.

That’s why you can’t plan for the arts like you can plan roads or buildings. Planning for the arts means planning for people – both audiences and players.

So what can a city leader actually do? I was fortunate enough to witness the transformation of London that made it the city of choice for the Olympics and one of the world centres of today’s creative economy. It wasn’t planned the old-fashioned way, but it didn’t just happen. A lot of work went into it.

Cities big and small are now finding that this work is repeatable: there are lessons we can learn, and apply – but it’s the players who will make it work. Winnipeg is unique; the art of governing it for the arts will be one in which the city, and its people, work together to apply these principles to make the city everything it is capable of becoming.

Art for all

The most fundamental way to plan for the arts is to provide access. Does every Winnipeg child get to play an instrument? Or draw, or act, or shoot movies? They should. What will you do to bring this about?

Education matters. Creative talent lies in everyone but to mature and flower, it has to be nurtured. To the majority of Winnipeggers, this nurture is not available. How are you going to change that?

Excellence matters. Winnipeg’s young people need a city which makes it possible to be excellent, to develop and exploit their talent to the full. The city needs to foster and recognise talent: how will you help it to do that?

Our city’s places matter. A town with nothing more than homes, jobs and shops isn’t a city: it’s a suburb. Ticket to the Future describes the major places that are unique and special to Winnipeg. That innocent word “place” is very different from what many think; it is space in which people meet and make things happen – the core of modern creative production. How will you develop Winnipeg’s places?

For the same reason transport isn’t just commuting, as we found out with the mess around buses to Investors Group Field; how will your transport plans let people get to entertainment, to cinemas, music, theatres, even restaurants – the places where they will enjoy, and take part in art?

Branding is key

Branding is probably the most central, and least understood quality that a city needs. Brand is often mistaken for image-making. The flop that was “Spirited Energy” shows just how ill-thought out this idea is.

Brand has to be a real description of the city. How would you summarise Winnipeg’s unique qualities?

A Brand is for this same reason not just declared but made. London’s brand, 10 years in the making, was “A World in One City.” It was arrived at by turning London’s unique qualities into a description of what London was, what it wanted to be, and a set of measures to ensure it happen.

Winnipeg could be “The Creative Heart of Canada” if we wanted, but it has to be true. If you are not going to fund the creative industries, the creative artists; if you are not going to build exciting, creative places, don’t call yourself a creative city.

How will you make Winnipeg’s Brand happen?

A brand describes the city to itself, not just the world. It defines the kind of work we want to do, and the kind of life we want to lead. Get it right, and employers and talent will beat a path here. Get it wrong, and the world will see us as just another city in the midwest. How will you build a city to come to and stay in?

Brand should describe the values of the people in the city. As Larry Beasley, former chief Planner for Vancouver, explained to us back in 2009, people have to love their city. What are Winnipeg’s values? Can you define them in terms that everyone can identify with and want to live up to?

Celebrating uniqueness

Brand is not where you are in any league; it’s what you have that nobody else has. Winnipeg doesn’t have to compete with London, Toronto, or Calgary, because it has a stack of things that none of them has.

What does Winnipeg offer its people, its visitors, and its employers, that nowhere else has got? Our city is home to an historic and ancient meeting of waters. It has a tremendous sense of community; it has a vibrant creative community. It has a tremendous sense of how to enjoy life. What will you do to ensure these assets become our signature?

It is home to a unique meeting of peoples: its English-speaking settler core mingles with one of Canada’s largest Aboriginal populations, a bustling new immigrant community from countless parts of the world, and Canada’s western-most intact French-speaking urban centre.

This mixed population isn’t a problem – it defines Canada. In Winnipeg, we have a microcosm, a living realization, of Canada’s highest aspirations. What will you do to ensure we live up to the promise this offers?

Our population produces winning combinations that make Winnipeg one of Canada’s major film and music centres, home to the largest collection of indigenous art in the world, with an orchestra that beat all the Canadian competition to perform at Carnegie Hall last spring. How will you develop and promote Winnipeg’s unique capabilities in the rest of the world?

Winnipeg should embrace diversity as an asset. London turned the corner when it realised it was one of the most exciting cauldrons of creativity that the world has to offer, precisely because of the communities who had made it their home.

Notting Hill Carnival was turned into Europe’s greatest showcase for Caribbean culture; St Patrick ’s Day rivals any Eastern U.S. city for the year’s best chances to party. In so doing it gave London’s communities the one thing anyone needs to become a full citizen: respect.

Artistic provision

Perhaps the most central challenge we face is to understand where artists come from.

They are not born, and they are not made. They don’t just show up on street corners, and nobody has yet made an artist factory.

They are enabled.

An artist is simply a person who has discovered, within herself or himself, the capabilities or vocation which, if it is given access to art, time to develop, and work in which talent can be expressed and realised, makes it a life. What will Winnipeg do to enable its artists to grow?

Artists do not just work in a vacuum. They need institutions, they need technology, and they need employment. Today’s modern economy is creating jobs by the million for the creative workers of tomorrow; but these jobs will only come to the cities that offer them a home.

That home will not just be a place to find cheap business taxes and low-end manufacturing; it will be one where employers can find creative talent beside public institutions that nurture that talent, cheek-by-jowl with high-quality software and communications technology. How will you make that happen?

Be a mayor, be an artist

Last, but not least: if you want to be mayor, you need to be an artist. You must be your city’s maestro, its public representative, and its inspiration.

Deserve to be mayor: make an artwork of our city!

Alan Freeman of Winnipeg is a former economist with the mayor of London, England.