Artists and Galleries are repeatedly challenged to defend the value and significance of their endeavours, backed against the wall, they struggle with self funding and recognition with ever dwindling resources and the effects of the economic downturn.  As a past student of  TAFE and now working in the Arts for the past 15years my question would be,  “why do we even need to justify the Value of Art in Society?”, when the Arts define what is meant by civilisation.  Art is a universal symbol that transcends language, race, religion and reaffirms humanity, causes us to think in ways we would not have considered, it is the basic and central medium of human communication and understanding.  It marks our time and place for posterity, both regionally and globally, dealing with current issues and events and putting them down in history.  From ancient cave drawing – through hieroglyphics that evolved our written word.  Art is a vehicle of evolution.

If you go home and switch on the television, listen to the radio or some music, go to the theatre or read a book or magazine, even the brand logo on your beer etc are all created by artists and the world would be a very dull place without them.

The Arts is a huge portion of our community and should at least be embraced and celebrated as a viable industry with we can all be proud of for our Community or we shall be the lesser for it.