In early December, a group of artists and policymakers agreed in San Francisco (USA) to launch the
National Campaign To Hire Artis to Work in Schools
or
N-CHAWS
(web and Facebook), that is, a campaign that promotes the hiring of artists to work in schools; in subsequent weeks, a broad-based support group has been formed, led by the organization
Americans for the Arts
, to promote its adoption by the new Obama administration and Congress. The campaign promotes the use of federal funds for job creation in order to hire artists in schools and community centers. The idea has been presented to the Obama–Biden transition team and to Speaker Nancy Pelosi for consideration within the new administration’s package of measures to promote employment and economic growth. The campaign’s proposal, according to the steering committee, is inspired by the historical precedents of the
WPA
program of Roosvelt and the national program for the arts
CETA
of the Ford-Carter years. Two other campaigns have joined this campaign to support the hiring of artists in public jobs, both in schools and in centers and entities of a local and community nature.
At first, it might seem to anyone that this is a good initiative: it generates employment in a particularly “sensitive” sector such as the cultural sector and improves, in principle, the public educational offer. However, many questions in different directions immediately assail us: Could artists play a critical and transformative role on school culture once their status within the educational system is officialized? It has always seemed to us that the school should be a much more permeable place and allow the flow of knowledge and people in and out, so why specifically artists and not also other professionals or agents? Or why not effectively take the school to the museum or other places and institutions (and not only as a mere consumer of “educational offers”)? And pointing in yet another direction, how does the fact that ‘creativity’ is considered today a first-rate economic resource affect artists, as critical social and educational agents?
It seems that cultural policies in the Spanish state are far from these issues. In Catalonia the
Program of neighborhoods and urban areas of special attention
(sic), better known as “Neighborhood Law” aims at “the integral rehabilitation of neighborhoods that present specific problems to avoid their degradation and improve the living conditions of its inhabitants” (the emphasis is ours) and contemplates, in addition to urban interventions and welfare improvements, the implementation of community cultural development plans. The application of the program is leading the town councils to hire cultural companies for the realization of the community cultural plans. On the other hand, according to our experience, the
Creative Partnerships
program sponsored by the British
Arts Council
is a reference for many culture technicians here, however it seems difficult that a program of these dimensions could be implemented from the local administrations. Finally, we link here this article by
Arlene Goldbard
(one of the promoters of N-CHAWS) in which she makes a historical review of previous public employment programs of artists in local communities in the USA and points out some of the challenges of the initiative although very few of the controversies that it presents.