[-empyre-] a bank of ideas

[simon]

Dear <<empyreans>>,

Johannes, it struck me that you - that your expression instantiates a 
general tendency - invoke the "future of education and the rising 
unemployment of young" as representing "more pressing concerns."

Education and the employment of the young are about the future, have or 
have no future, imply the future, whereas the arts are about funding, 
receive more or less funding, imply and unfold from funding, when and 
where it is rolled out.

Where it has been, arts institutions are healthier, exist, even, at the 
level of the power. But has-beens are not what they were, existing in a 
perfect past. Wannabes - won't be what we all wanna - from an imperfect 
present - if education has no future, if the rates of unemployment 
continue ... as they are, as they were when punks everywhere around said 
No Future.

It is the futurity of education and opportunities for the young which I 
wanted to draw attention to and the history - the will to recover it, to 
plumb the depths of the past - of the arts, of arts funding: it seems as 
soon as we want to discuss the future of the arts, we are pulled, by an 
undertow, into the past; as if the future of the arts were its history.

Best,

Simon Taylor

www.squarewhiteworld.com
www.brazilcoffee.co.nz