The arts and the political world exist largely in isolation from one another in Australia. Artists and politicians don’t tend to meet regularly, or respond to one another’s work, or rely on each other’s perspective, or call on one another’s advice.
Why is that? Yes, both are incredibly busy and incredibly determined. Both can get lost in the detail of one particular idea, or pulled in a thousand different directions as that idea takes them somewhere unexpected. And both have a sense of how their work contributes to that constantly evolving thing that is the Australian culture – a sense that’s extremely difficult to articulate, but one that is complex, galvanising.
For exactly that reason, I suspect also that both find one another too intimidating to contact or talk to easily…
IMAGE: Mitch Fifield, Georgina Nicholson, Adam Bandt, Patricia Karvelas and Mark Dreyfus at the National Arts Election Debate.
ESTHER ANATOLITIS 