Bussemaker: 'Encouraging our culture to add value to society'

Of course it's ok, that cultural and creative summit we had here. Bussemaker could suddenly return to high level join in and art suddenly appears to matter again. After all, the creative industry is also about art again. Even if only our old art, because at such a conference with those Asian countries, of course, it is mostly about heritage.

That said, in her closing speech, Bussemaker once again makes a case for an active art world. About art education, of course, and that we here in the Netherlands are so good at 'doing it ourselves'. And a lot about freethinkers like Daan Rosegaarde, whose smart highway is still waiting for water-resistant glow-in-the-dark paint. Thankfully not about his ideas for statecraft, because those are a little too modern.

What we do need to continue to pay attention to is the third and final point our culture minister mentioned in her speech:

3. And the final step is that we need to stimulate our culture and creative industries to add value to society. We have to take them outside the boundaries of the cultural world and connect them with other areas of society. Such as health care, infrastructure and environmental sustainability. Because we are becoming more and more aware of how fruitful these crossovers are and will be.

'Encouraging our cultures to add value to society.' And then: 'We need to draw them out beyond the boundaries of the cultural world and connect them to other areas of e society.'

I don't know about you, but that gives me chills. Since when is the government going to require art to add value to society? I think it was always the case that a society assigned value to art. And that art naturally adds value that way. Art has no 'task' other than to be 'art'.

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But no. Those times of art being there to be art, what we discovered somewhere in that cave in primeval times, those are over. Everything must have a purpose, must be useful, otherwise it is worthless. Alas.

The wait is for a Lower House to turn the reasoning around and say: 'we need to encourage our society to value our culture and creative industries.'

Jet's closing speech can be found here.