The arts are being sidelined in the cost of living crisis. It’s time we stopped framing them as a luxury

The cost of living crisis undermines the right to participate in cultural life. Australia’s federal cultural policy, Revive, acknowledges and even celebrates

the entitlement of all Australians to have access to culture (a liberty […] enshrined in Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which Australia is a signatory).

Currently, however, that right is threatened by the cost of living crisis. This crisis cuts in several directions, affecting the community’s capacity to access art, as well as artists’ and organisations’ capacity to make it.