Death rattle

A parallel use of the idiom of doctors and nurses, as I imagine it, is, of course, not at all crazy in this day and age. The number of coronavirus infections is on the rise again; thousands of people are testing positive every day and one fears a new overload of hospitals. Diagnoses of other serious diseases are made too late or not at all so that in the near future more people will die of cancer for example. Psychological help for people who really need it is more often not available with all the social consequences that this entails and many people lose income, which usually has no good effect on either physical or mental health.

Creators are the first to feel the hard knocks that ultimately resonate throughout the industry

And then we spend most of our time at home, with much less social interaction and fewer visits to art and culture. And the latter not only affects our own lives, but also those of the makers. The makers, the artists, they are the bearers - the oxygen, the organs, the blood circulation - of the cultural sector and they are having a hard time. They are the first to feel the hard blows that ultimately resonate throughout the sector.

The industry fights because its life depends on it

How can art and how can artists survive in a time when art can hardly be sold? More and more artists are leaving the profession, causing the sector to lose talent and become increasingly weakened. What do we do when the entire sector - in poor health due to the failure of vital parts - gives a final death rattle and leaves us?

What do we do when the whole industry gives a final death rattle and leaves us?

Imagine a life without new art? We could immerse ourselves in the past of art, but without an imagined reflection on the present. Then the splendour of the present passes us by and we take in the world through lists of facts. Our life changes into a spreadsheet where everything has a predefined place and where there is no room for anomalies. No imagination, no wonder, no escape.

Our lives are changing in a spreadsheet where everything has a predefined place

An ominous thought; science fiction Because it won't come to that. There are too many people who have to let their creative and critical capacities speak for themselves. We were just on our way to giving artists a better place in the world and in the cultural sector. With fair pay for example, or with professionalisation, inclusiveness, talent development and all the other cultural policy spearheads that you mention here in BK Information has seen in the past. Now, however, it is a matter of survival.

Let's do everything we can to keep the creators, the bearers of the sector, working

Let us therefore do everything we can - everyone in his or her own way - to keep the makers, the bearers of the sector, at work. So that we do not end up hearing a deafening death rattle, the sound of the last breath, which makes us realize "art is no more".