Art is the highest expression of human creativity and expression. It is a public good that every member of the society can consume and contribute to. It is through these creative avenues that civilizations have felt more human. But despite its supposed universality, the arts remain exclusivist and elite, with its inaccessibility still plaguing the industry.

In UP, for instance, the usual ticket cost of a Dulaang UP production is now above P500. And while we must consider that prices have skyrocketed in recent years, such a pricing point could inevitably hinder members of the UP community, especially students, from watching their plays.

This disparity in access to art is not just in UP. Even the government-owned Cultural Center of the Philippines’s resident theater company Tanghalang Pilipino’s plays typically cost P1,500, with only a 20-percent discount available for students. Still, such a price remains considerably high in a country where a worker, on average, earns P18,000 in a month.

But despite the exorbitant cost that mainstream art charges patrons, artists, and workers remain at the losing end. They continue to be underpaid and overworked, and most do not have security of tenure. Even with the passage of the Creative Industries Law, which recognized the contribution of artists in the economy, the rights of creators and workers do not remain fully recognized and protected.

Art is indispensable in any modern society, and to restrict it only to the privileged few is impermissible and repugnant to the very nature of art. The creation of art is difficult due to the high barrier to entry, including its perception to be a nonlucrative field. The practice of art criticism is also reserved for a few to intellectualize the arts and its meanings.

Gatekeeping art does nothing but stifle creativity and expression. It becomes imperative, then, that the government vigorously extend its support to the country’s creative industries. At the outset, financial grants and subsidies must be furthered by cultural agencies, to offset the exorbitant costs of staging a production. Yet these grants should neither stifle artists’ creative freedoms nor censor art forms that the state may consider critical.

Inside the university, while funding grants by the Office of Initiatives in Culture and the Arts are laudable–as they also include various support programs, even those by students—they remain sorely lacking due to the extremely shoestring budget that UP is in. And while we acknowledge bourgeois art patrons for their generosity, we must note that their influence can sometimes skew artistic direction toward specific aesthetics and political leanings.

But beyond state investment in the arts, there must be an acknowledgment that the prevailing model of art production—one that is feudal and bourgeois—is unsustainable and is in dire need of radical restructuring. And it begins with the artists themselves, them being the primary casualty of the systemic problem. An assertion of their right to organize, a decent livelihood, and security of tenure is already a good starting point.

To subvert these prevailing structures that restrict arts for the few is a crucial task, both for the artist and society. It empowers artists to break free from the constraints of the status quo and their dictated expectations. For our society, it ensures that art becomes more vibrant and a force for meaningful change. It's an assertion that art is not a luxury and instead an avenue to advocate for a more equal society. ●