With the spread of the Covid-19 disease, the arts and
culture sectors have seen a flood of cancellations and postponements, affecting
artists around the world and putting the global 2,000-billion-dollar creative
industry at risk.
Concerts, book fairs, film and literary festivals -
including the famed Cannes Film Festival - and a range of other events have had
to move their dates or cancel outright, while bookshops, museums and cinemas
have been forced to close their doors.
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| American jazz singer Denise King. |
The sectors, which employ some 30 million people worldwide,
will be among those hit hardest by the pandemic, according to analysts, and
individual artists are already fighting to maintain their livelihood.
“Everyone is greatly impacted and suffering,” says American jazz singer
Denise King. “As a member of the artist/musician community, I’ve gone from a
fairly heavy touring and gig schedule … to nothing. To face this sudden loss of
income is devastating. Many artists like myself are scrambling to come up with
creative ways to generate income.”
With some 210,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 worldwide,
and 8,778 deaths by March 19 (about three months after the outbreak in Wuhan,
China), both wealthy and low-income countries are affected, but vulnerable
states are particularly at risk, according to the UN. Along with the health
sector, culture and other areas will struggle to recover.
In the Caribbean, several festivals have announced
postponements. The popular Calabash literary festival in Treasure Beach,
Jamaica, will now take place in September 2020 instead of May, while the
national Bocas Lit Fest in Trinidad and Tobago is similarly postponed.
“We watched and waited to make this decision,” stated
Calabash co-organizers Justine Henzell and Kwame Dawes, who stressed that there
was no other option given the travel restrictions.
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| Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness. |
Jamaica was among the first in the region to order
lockdowns and to restrict travel from several affected countries. The minister
of culture, gender, entertainment and sport, Olivia “Babsy” Grange, announced
the closure of cultural and sport facilities, including museums, galleries, and
stadia run by the government, on March 13, with effect from the following day.
She said the closures were “in keeping with the
government’s strategy to prevent the spread of Covid-19 in Jamaica and to
minimise the potential health impact on the country”, and she urged those in
the cultural, sport and entertainment sectors to “take all necessary
precautions and follow the guidance of the health authorities”.
The island had 13 confirmed cases of Covid-19 as of March
19, and World Health Organization Director-General
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has commended the government of Andrew Holness for its response to the pandemic. But officials are aware
of the fiscal effects of the crisis.
The Caribbean economy is strongly tied to tourism,
including cultural tourism, with the sector representing around 14% of the
region’s total GDP, while the arts and culture fields employ thousands of
workers.
According to the United Nations agency UNESCO
(which has had to close its doors in Paris), the cultural and creative industry
sectors generate annual revenues of US$2,250 billion and global exports of more
than US$250 billion.
These industries currently provide nearly 30 million jobs
worldwide and employ more people aged 15 - 29 than any other sector, the agency
said in a 2018 report, “Reshaping Cultural Policies”. Nearly half of the people
working in the cultural and creative industries are women, the report showed.
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| The poster for Paris Livre - now cancelled. |
For states such as France, which is the most visited
country in the world with 90 million tourists annually, the shuttering of the
cultural sector is unprecedented in peacetime.
The Paris Book Fair, or Livre Paris, was the first major
event to announce its cancellation. Normally attracting about 160,000 visitors
each year, the Fair was scheduled for March 20-23 and was set to put Indian
literature in the spotlight. But when France banned events with gatherings of
5,000 or more people in early March, there was no choice but to cancel.
“Everyone is going to lose a lot of money. Some of us won’t
survive,” an independent Paris-based publisher, who asked not to be named, told
SWAN. “Those who do manage to keep going will have to push back their planned
publications.”
The owners of some bookshops had hoped to stay open,
arguing that people need material to read when in confinement, but they too
have had to pull down the shutters, although newsagents can remain in operation.
The Louvre, the world’s most visited museum, first closed
its doors for a few days at the beginning of March because staffers invoked
their right to walk off the job if they felt at risk. It reopened, but soon it and
all museums, galleries and cinemas had to close because of the government’s
decree on March 16, putting the population in lockdown.
“We’re at war” against the virus, French President Emmanuel
Macron said in a televised address, ordering the confinement. Since March 17, only
places offering essential services are allowed to be open, and residents may
leave their home for brief periods only after filling in a form, on their
honour, called the “attestation de déplacement dérogatoire”.
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| Happier times at the Cannes Film Festival. |
With confirmed Covid-19 cases above 10,000 in France, the
organizers of the prestigious Cannes Film Festival said on March 19 they had
decided to postpone the event. The festival had earlier announced that American
director Spike Lee would head the competition jury - the first person of
African descent to have this role - and he is expected to be present for the
new dates.
“The Festival de Cannes cannot be held on the scheduled
dates, from May 12 to 23. Several options are considered in order to preserve
its running, the main one being a simple postponement, in Cannes, until the end
of June-beginning of July 2020,” the festival team stated.
The organizers said they would make their final decision
known following ongoing consultation with the French government and Cannes City
Hall, and they called on residents to respect the rules of the lockdown and to "show solidarity in these difficult times".
In the United States, where the government has been widely criticised for being slow to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic, cultural events
are being cancelled one after the other as well.
PEN, the international association of writers, said it was
with “heavy hearts” that it had decided to cancel the 2020 PEN America World
Voices Festival scheduled for May 6 - 12.
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| Some of the writers who were invited to the PEN festival. |
“We were hoping that this awful public health crisis might
ebb by May, and that we could emerge with the exciting events we had curated
for audiences in New York and Los Angeles. It’s now plain such plans are
neither realistic nor safe for our participants and our audiences,” stated
Suzanne Nossel, CEO, PEN America, and Chip Rolley, director of the festival.
“We join the ranks of cultural institutions in New York,
Los Angeles, and across the country that will temporarily go dark this spring,”
they added. “The World Voices Festival was founded in the wake of 9/11 to
provide a beacon for writers and audiences from around the world and to build
bridges across borders as an antidote to cultural isolationism. As a new and
unexpected isolation is thrust upon us, we regret deeply that we won’t be able
to shine that light or foster those vital in-person connections.”
The organisation said it was “seeking new means” to bring directly
to audiences the “words, ideas, and artistry” of the writers who’d been invited,
including Arundhati Roy and Colm Tóibín. This might be done “through a variety
of digital means”, including a new podcast set to launch soon.
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| Closed: UNESCO headquarters in Paris. |
In the face of the pandemic, not all is doom and gloom in
the cultural sector, however. Singers such as John Legend and Chris Martin have
been streaming concerts via their social media accounts, as part of the “Sessions:
Together, At Home” series - an initiative launched by the Global Citizen
Festival and the World Health Organization.
In addition, some publishers are offering significant
discounts on their books, while others have made stories, poetry and textbooks
available online. From confinement, one can also view many of the world’s art
masterpieces via museum web platforms and see films that festivals have decided
to stream for free.
King, the jazz vocalist, said she will present a
performance on Facebook live, and she called on the public to assist at-risk artists
in whatever way they can.
“We have to hold each other up,” she told SWAN.
“Perhaps this virus serves as way to help us focus on what really matters and
to reconnect.” - A.M. / SWAN
You can follow SWAN on Twitter: @mckenzie_ale
