Toespraak van minister Bussemaker op de Apeldoorn Conference

Toespraak | 18-11-2014

Ladies and gentlemen,

It is a great honour and a great pleasure to meet you here. Politicians and artists, policy makers, and cultural professionals from both of our countries. I am pleased that we have gathered to exchange ideas about the social power of art and culture.

And where better to do so than right here in the welcoming city of Liverpool? A former cultural capital. A city with an excellent range of art and heritage. And a city providing fertile ground for the creative industries.

Am I forgetting something?

Of course: the city of the Beatles. I wouldn’t dare forget the Fab Four right here in Liverpool.

I was born in nineteen-sixty-one, when the Beatles were still playing just a few miles from here in the Casbah Coffee Club – with Pete Best as the drummer. And they already parted ways when I was ten years old. I’m still amazed at the incredible artistic development they achieved in a relatively short period of time.

I was five when the album Revolver was released, which has the song Tomorrow Never Knows. Perhaps it’s not the most beautiful song on that album, but it’s definitely the most exciting one...

•  A single undertone, a drone, resonates during the entire song. This was the first time that the Beatles profoundly combined classical Indian music with Western pop music.
• A great deal of the song is comprised of samples – tape loops in fact, that can be repeated endlessly. A technique that Paul McCartney borrowed from the composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. And a technique that only entered mainstream music years later, especially in hip-hop.
• And the text is a major departure from tired lyrics about undying love.

It’s based on a Tibetan text about death and rebirth, lending a voice to a time of major socio-cultural transitions. Like the second wave of feminism, and the sexual revolution tot the flower power movement.

The Beatles are a wonderful example of how artists work.

Breaking down borders between existing worlds and bringing those worlds together, giving rise to innovation. Seizing new techniques to further the development of your art form. Using your art to lend a voice to the spirit of the age.

And their musical heritage shows just how wonderfully innovation, experimentation, beauty and meaning can come together in art and culture.

This is why art and culture have such a big impact on us and on society – an impact that transcends personal experience or economic gain. Art and culture help us to open our minds and become receptive to the new, the different. And this is why a society without art and culture is simply unthinkable. The theme of this thirteenth Apeldoorn Conference is 'How art works'.

And I feel it is important to emphasize this comprehensive, social power of art and culture. Especially now. As a society, we are facing major issues that affect us all. Such as: how can we ensure that the population stays healthy as people live longer and longer? And how can we ensure that our major cities, with their ever-growing populations, remain not only dynamic, but also sustainable, liveable and inclusive?

Especially now:

We have developed new technologies that offer us opportunities to solve these problems and can make life more enjoyable. Just think of robots in retirement homes, think of bionic artificial arms, think of emergency field hospitals that can be created with 3D printing technology. And this is just the beginning.

We live in an era in which human talent and computer technology together are creating opportunities that we could never have dreamed of - based on traditional approaches and classical methods. It will give us the opportunity to do things smarter, different, better. But the new era also requires us to address the negative implications presented by our new-found capabilities. Such as the loss of mid-level jobs. The impending escalation of socio-cultural inequality. And the new ethical problems that advancing technology presents.

To face these challenges, we need to appeal to our creative, innovative powers. We need to adopt an open attitude to different ideas and approaches. As artists do naturally. Driven by the power of their imagination.

Right now, I’m seeing more and more how artists in my country – often in collaboration with professionals from other fields – reflect on new questions and see new opportunities for society.

Theatre Group Amsterdam is currently playing The Fountainhead, based on the book by Ayn Rand, one of the muses of neoliberalism, as a mirror on that period. Daan Roosegaarde links the beauty of his designs to solutions for environmental pollution by using technology – he designed a ‘smart highway’ with paint that stores sunlight during the day, to light the way for motorists when night falls.

Artists do not hold a monopoly on solutions to the world’s pressing problems. But they often do ask the right questions.

During a recent visit to the Dutch Design Week, I saw work by young designers who had all incorporated the 'why' question into their projects. 'Why are there no mobile phones that can be put together like Lego, so you don’t have to discard the entire thing when one part breaks?' 'Why do we not use squid bacteria to generate clean and cheap electricity?' Or, as the Dutch composer Merlijn van Twaalfhoven wondered midway through his musical career: 'Why should my music always be played in a concert hall? Why not right in the midst of society?' As he now does, by performing his music together with musicians and civilians in war zones.

And thése are the kinds of questions we should all be asking. For: Tomorrow never knows. It is up to us to give shape to that uncertain future as best we can.

Art and culture have a major social impact. And I want to identify that impact. Support it. And encourage it.

I want to help artists and cultural institutions forge solid connections with the public and with society. For example, by enabling more cross-overs between designers, artists and architects with technologists and scientists. By giving cultural talent the opportunity to develop, and the scope to experiment. By challenging the cultural sector to jointly use every means at its disposal to reach the widest possible audience. And by – and this is probably the most important aspect – by putting cultural education at the top of the agenda.

Your fellow countryman Ken Robinson gave a wonderful TED talk in two-thousand-six on the industrialized structure of our educational systems. Today, there are mány who share his conclusion that greater scope is needed for education that encourages children’s natural curiosity and creativity. And that helps them develop an open attitude.

Qualities that each of us has inside. Qualities that society needs, now more than ever.

And cultural education has a vital role to play in this regard. Not only to encourage children’s artistic development, but also to make our educational systems fit for the twenty-first century. By creating unexpected connections between school subjects, for example, as they do in Singapore. There, children analyse chemical reactions during dance class. And they combine mathematics with music lessons. In the Netherlands, we’re now working hard to identify how we can best adjust our educational system. And we’re discussing this not only with education professionals, but also with technologists, scientists and professionals from the art world (such as the director of the Concertgebouw).

And that brings me back to where I began, when I spoke of a Beatles song. A song where the formerly divided worlds of Eastern and Western music come together. Where talent and technology augment each other. And where the transition to a new era is expressed in lyrics. Various layers of creative power brought together in a strange, evocative song. A song that moves us or surprises us, that comforts us, shocks us or makes us happy.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is 'how art works'. This is what creativity is all about, the creativity that we need in order to shape the society of the future. And that will forever serve to distinguish us from plants, animals, from robots and computers.

As John Lennon sings in Tomorrow Never Knows:

'Listen to the colour of your dreams.

It is not leaving, it is not leaving.'