Covid-19, cultural policy and the Irish arts sector: continuum or conjuncture?

One of the sectors most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, in Ireland as elsewhere, was the subsidised arts sector. In this article we examine one key aspect of this situation: the supports for artists. Specifically, we consider whether these supports are consistent with pre-pandemic policies in Ireland. We offer an overview of both the impact and responses to COVID-19 on the sector, and the historical narratives within Irish arts policy that informed those responses. In considering the range of instrumental policy developments within the Irish state and their relationship with the status of the artist, we question whether the introduction of the Basic Income for Artists (BIA) scheme constitutes a change or a continuum in policies articulating the relationship between the state and the arts. Using Hall's idea of conjuncture as a tool for analysis, we argue that the different social, political, economic, and ideological contradictions brought together by COVID-19 have resulted in a strategic policy focus on the ambiguous category of "the artist" and that a number of the policy contradictions that the BIA scheme attempts to resolve are of no intrinsic concern to artists.