We publish quality short stories, poetry, extracts from forthcoming novels, and articles and essays on topics of social, environmental and cultural significance.ISSUE NO. 108
AUTUMN 2007
EDITORIAL
Gina Mercer
A friend recently commented about an artist of her acquaintance that he’d chosen not to take a political stance in his painting practice because ‘he needs to make money, he has a family to support’. I was somewhat surprised. To me, all art is political. This artist was making a political choice in feeling he needed to conform to certain individualist and capitalist imperatives in his art practice. I’m not knocking his choice. Hungry children are their own imperative. But he was not making an apolitical, value-free ‘choice’. Capitalism is a philosophy, a political position in its own right. The personal is always political. This made me think again about what gets labelled as political or activist art and what is allowed to pass as ‘neutral’ and seen to be somehow above ‘grubby’ political considerations.
The essays in this issue consider this question from a number of different angles. Saul Eslake ponders the ways in which philanthropy works as effective political activism, intervening to support (or not) certain art forms even though the philanthropists concerned may never view what they do as political or activist. Natasha Cica considers the effect that the Howard regime has had on Australian writers and their choices at every level, from subject matter to genre to even whether they get their work published or performed.
Moving further afield, Anna Mandoki gives a poignant account of the use of drama in post-tsunami India to deliver messages of optimism and public health. And Dutch writer Fleur Bourgonje illustrates the practice of activist art with her allegorical piece ‘War is a Woman with a Rug on Her Back’. Her work is like a short black coffee: brief, intense and powerful. May these varied contributions engage you in fruitful conversations about this vital issue and make you think in fresh ways about the ‘politics’ of art.
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