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[/audioplayer]An explosion of confetti will greet the announcement of Scottish independence. This isn’t another one of Alex Salmond’s fanciful promises, but an installation by a visual artist named Ellie Harrison. She wants Scotland to become a socialist republic. She has placed four confetti cannons in Edinburgh’s Talbot Rice Gallery. They will only be fired in the event of a Yes vote.
Most artists in Scotland favour independence. Harrison’s installation is typical of the pretentious agitprop they produce. This isn’t a uniquely Scottish problem. ‘Nationalist’ art is by definition functional: it promotes a cause. And though art with an agenda tends to be uninspiring, if it serves its purpose nationalist politicians are happy to fund it.
Scotland’s artists are keen to remind us that a vote for independence doesn’t reflect support for the SNP. Very few of them are party activists. Despite belonging to a group called National Collective, many of them aren’t comfortable with nationalism either. Aidan Moffat, a hairy man in his forties who sings cynical pop songs, sounds positively earnest when he dissociates independence from nationalism: ‘Independence isn’t about breaking away or creating borders, nor nationalist pride. It’s about building the better society that we hope for. It’s an opportunity to create the environment we’ve consistently voted for; it’s being responsible for our own future by democratically electing the people we trust.’
That’s all very well, but isn’t there a conflict of interest here? Scottish artists and performers are hungry consumers of government arts funding. A theatre director told me recently that it should be protected as a ‘basic human right’. And, happily for them, their enthusiasm for subsidy coincides with the statist ideology of the Scottish Nationalist government that signs the cheques.
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