From 26–29 September 2024, Springback held an Assembly in Budapest, including 23 international writers and thinkers. One of the topics discussed was the current political climate and its devastating effect on the arts.

We are living in a time of cynical instrumentalism, where the seemingly unstoppable drive for political power and capital gain seems to overthrow the human potential for equality or (true) democracy as well as to preventing any attempts to take care of our planet or the people inhabiting it. As we observe the rise of the far-right across Europe, with its dehumanising politics and growing polarisation, we experience a steep decline in support for the arts, leaving culture workers running on fumes.

Art, culture and politics

The UN Declaration of Human Rights, Article 27, states: ‘Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.’ Culture being a human right should in practical terms mean that it is supported by our governments. In fact, it is being defunded.

In 2023, the European writers’ council wrote a joint letter of concern about the proposed cut of €40 million to the Creative Europe Program budget. In July this year, The Guardian wrote about Britain cutting its budget by 6%, leaving Britain’s cultural sector in a critical condition. As if the situation there wasn’t worrying enough, recent developments show how seemingly stable situations in Germany, France and Finland have turned dire. In April, France announced enormous cuts, slashing away €204 millon annually, mostly from ‘art creation’.

 Germany’s budget proposition for 2025 cuts the funding for the independent art scene in half, and a few weeks ago, Finland’s 2025 budget proposition cuts €65 million for art and culture.

In a recent Guardian article, theatre director and journalist Milo Rau wrote: ‘In seven European democracies, far-right parties have entered government, and in several more states, including France, they are pushing at the gates of power.’ He continues: ‘…budget cuts are no longer about money, they are nothing less than a tool of creeping censorship. They are about dismantling diverse and inclusive societies. In much of eastern Europe, the cultural clear-out is almost complete. In Slovakia, the heads of national cultural institutions are being replaced one by one by rightwing bureaucrats.’

What about the Nordics? Well, the utopian façade, if there ever was one, is starting to crack… In the capital of Norway, the renowned theatre Oslo Nye has been heavily defunded and its future is currently unknown. There was a sense of disbelief in the cultural sector when independent artists in Bergen, which has a reputation as the most innovative cultural city in the Nordics, had all working grants removed this September, without warning or discussion. In Stockholm, Dansmuseet, one of the few museums in the world which focuses on dance, has been forced to close down due to budget cuts in combination with higher rents. In many parts of Sweden, it’s becoming nearly impossible to work as artists in the independent field due to lack of funding.

Parallel to the cuts in cultural budgets, there are also worrying changes to media subsidies. In December 2023, Sweden changed their 40-year-old policy on press subsidy to a new system, threatening the existence of smaller newspapers. Those with a social democratic profile have been hit especially hard. The argument is that ‘without a substantial number of subscriptions, your publication is not regarded as of importance for media diversity.’

It’s becoming impossible not to draw a parallel between these developments and the fact that Sweden – where politics has historically been guided by social democratic values – has since 2022 had a right-wing party, with founding members with neo-Nazi backgrounds influencing its conservative government. 

The divisive force of populism 

In the last few years, right-wing populism has become normalised in the political landscape. According to Utrikesmagasinet (an independent magazine owned by the Swedish Institute of International Affairs), a 2024 AI-analysis of Donald Trump’s speeches reveals that he only speaks of politics 11% of the time. So, if real political content is missing, what is actually being said?

In Sweden, Trumpian language is being used by far-right populist Sweden Democrats party, especially when it comes to the ‘casting’ of foreigners as criminals and independent artists as the ‘cultural elite’. This creation of enemies and cutting of budgets – two birds with one stone – has been highly effective, leading to a disdain for the arts by the working class and the exclusion of art and culture in the debate on what is important to the large majority of people in a thriving society. At the heart of these divisions are genuine feelings of exclusion, and it is important that art institutions respond not by serving art that looks more and more like entertainment, but by letting the public be themselves as well as presenting work that reaches and touches hearts and minds.

But the independent field needs support as well. There are initiatives bursting with creative energy, ready to create social art contexts for everyone, meeting places where inclusion leads to collaboration and artistic expressions breed new initiatives. But they can’t keep running on passion only, they need financial support.

Struggles and hopes for the future

In some places in the world, it’s becoming increasingly hard to create art and to comment on politics (again, these two are interlinked) and one of these places is Hungary, where we held our Assembly. Yet it happened to be in an inconspicuous room on a quiet street in Budapest, one of Europe’s most right-wing populist and national-conservative countries, that I was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of choreographer Réka Szabó’s beautiful creation process. A group of young people of mixed abilities conducted a joyful investigation through improvisational tasks; speaking their minds out loud in a worn-down room, defiantly moving together despite the divisive political landscape they are living in. Here, the live exploration of movement and playful meetings between people spoke its own powerful language. I suddenly found myself sitting on the floor with tears streaming down my face. There truly is hope in our shared potential for resistance through such relentless artistic practices. 

But Szábo’s company The Symptoms (active since 2002) is currently hibernated after having been defunded by the government, which is controlled by Viktor Orbán’s far-right party Fidesz. Szábo has EU-funding for the project we got a glimpse of, but she doesn’t see a future for her company. 

In Hungary, there are ‘official’ magazines and theatres which write and perform what the government agrees with – in other words there is centralised state control. Independent art magazine Színház (active since 1968) has been so heavily defunded that it’s on the brink of shutting down. The magazine is currently looking into possibilities of corporate funding, as they realise that crowdfunding would put too much economic pressure on the already struggling people who are its readers. 

A change in government or in policy doesn’t seem likely to happen any time soon, but Fidesz is currently less strong than it has been. Perhaps hope lies in continued EU-funding, as well as philanthropic initiatives and foundations; solutions which can work out as long as art is allowed to play its important role in society without interference. 

Let’s face it: art can’t be controlled, because as soon as that is attempted, it ceases to be art and is reduced to an instrument of political gain or a tool for commercial forces. But we are many who who care about the arts, and we won’t be silenced. So in the name of art, let me quote from Samuel Beckett’s The Unnamable:

‘I can’t go on. I’ll go on.’