Why the Arts Can’t Wait for the System to Fix Itself

In my work at BASA, I have the privilege of engaging daily with extraordinary arts organisations – institutions that are quietly, consistently transformative in their communities. What is most striking is not only what they achieve, but how they achieve it, often with minimal resources, under constant financial pressure, and yet with an unwavering commitment to their purpose. Even when they are struggling to keep the lights on, they will not cut the township outreach programme. They will not cancel the production because funding fell short. There is a deep, almost unshakeable accountability to their constituents – a commitment that sits at the very heart of what it means to be a social enterprise.

According to social entrepreneurship scholars Dees and Santos, “social entrepreneurship is a process undertaken by bold, innovative individuals with a social mission who refuse to be limited by financial constraints and have a strong sense of accountability to their constituencies” and “provide innovative and sustainable solutions and new models to bring about positive systemic change” These definitions come alive in the work of our arts organisations – they are not simply cultural producers; they are builders of social value, resilience, and possibility.

And it is precisely because of this that I cannot accept that the resource constraints they face are inevitable. There has to be another way. We must find new models, build new systems and think (deeply, collectively, and differently) about how we resource the arts sector.

I am reminded of one of my favourite Buckminster Fuller quotes: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

Call me naïve. Call me a dreamer. But what do we really have to lose? Yes, some things will fail. Some may fail spectacularly. But what if something works? What if we discover a new model that shifts the system – one that enables sustainability, scale, and dignity for the very organisations that are already doing so much with so little?

Systems thinking teaches us that change rarely happens in sweeping, top-down interventions. It happens at the edges, in the spaces in between, on the periphery, where experimentation is possible, where constraints force innovation, and where new patterns begin to emerge. It is happening already in the work of organisations like Sibikwa Arts Centre, Joburg Ballet, Jozi My Jozi, Makers Valley and so many others who continue, against all odds, to show up and deliver impact.

Perhaps the future of the creative economy will not be built through a single grand solution, but through the cumulative effect of these efforts….where the sum of the parts becomes greater than the whole.

So come dream with me. Join us as we think about how we’re thinking, and begin to imagine – and build – the new models that will make the old ones obsolete.

Beth Arendse
CEO – Business and Arts South Africa