Under the hashtags #imaginationworks, #hetisnogniettelaat and #ambitieuzerdandit, artists and cultural workers are asking to increase the arts budget from 0.27 to 0.35 percent of the Flemish budget.
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With that extra budget, converted 38 million euros per year, the art organizations can be fished out that now received a ‘positive outside budget’ advice with their application for Flemish subsidies for the period 2023-2027. This involves large and established cultural organizations such as the Kaaitheater in Brussels, the Nona arts center in Mechelen and the Kopergietery youth theater in Ghent. If their operating resources within the Arts Decree disappear, many of those organizations are in danger of disappearing. The same applies to large institutes that received negative advice from the committees, such as Toneelhuis in Antwerp, Z33 in Hasselt and companies such as Needcompany and Ictus.
‘Art imagines, expands, entertains, invigorates, astonishes, unleashes, moves, delights, nourishes, meets, connects and strengthens’, so opens the manifesto entitled ‘Imagination works’. The text has since been signed by more than 1,400 artists and cultural workers, including actress Clara Cleymans, musician Frederik Sioen and NTGent director Milo Rau. They are calling on Minister of Culture Jan Jambon (N-VA) to increase the total annual arts budget for structural subsidies, now about 154 million euros, by at least 38 million euros.
If this does not happen, the international reputation of the Flemish arts is in danger of being lost, according to the signatories, and the artistic landscape will deteriorate. ‘In that scenario, one in four of the existing arts organizations will disappear and long-term investments, by the entire sector and by the Flemish government, will be negated’, it says in the manifesto. ‘Not updating the operating resources means turning back the clock.’
Jambon has until the end of June to decide on the Arts Decree subsidies. With their manifesto under the same title, the letter writers call on Jambon ‘to put the Flemish government’s slogan “Imagination works” into action’.
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