“Parts of what I may say may strike readers as a statement of the obvious. Unfortunately, in an era of fiscal conservatism and lowest-common denominators, it needs to be said . . . [it is] a pressing time for Canadians to position culture at the centre of the social agenda.”

– Max Wyman, Lions Bay, B.C.,

January 2004

Talk about the benefits of the arts in our lives is all very nice. So is talk about the value of culture and the importance of nurturing a Canadian identity (especially one that does not have Idol anywhere in its title). Unfortunately, few authors today can afford themselves the luxury to talk about art’s grandeur, all of its wonderful promises for bettering our lives and still be taken seriously the morning after. Few authors, with the exception of veteran Vancouver Sun dance, art and film critic Max Wyman, author of The Defiant Imagination: Why Culture Matters (2004, Douglas & McIntyre, 234 pages).

Ten years ago, the mere mention of the revered critic’s attendance at an opening night performance made even the most confident director break into a sweat. Everybody who was anybody knew that Wyman’s mighty pen had the power to set the stage for a successful or a dead season. His reviews, often scathingly honest, were usually prophetic of how well the public would receive a film, dance recital, or exhibition.

Despite its seemingly pedagogical title, Max Wyman’s latest book, The Defiant Imagination: Why Culture Matters, is a political manifesto: an “impassioned plea” for Canadians to think of culture as essential to the well-being, prosperity and development of a nation, not merely as a garnish for its science and business initiatives. With cool pragmatism and real-life examples, the first section of the book, “Making the Case,” addresses all the cliched beliefs of what a connection with the arts can deliver, such as a sense of tolerance or solidarity. Then, the second section, “Making the Connection,” lists practical strategies for ameliorating our relationship with the arts. The last section, “Making It Happen,” goes into detail about specific, realisable policies the Canada Council, among other arts organisations, can do to address the loop-holes within its arts initiatives, management and funding system. In this particularly striking chapter, Wyman challenges the artist-as-a-starving-hermit myth (the actual average median income of an artist in Canada is a staggering $12, 633) and proposes a “Twelve-Step Program” for artists and art organisations for increasing their “corporate allure.”

In “Making the Case,” what begins as a finely articulated, prose argument that affirms the need for the cultivation of art and storytelling develops into a more terse, rationally-appealing argument about the economic benefits of the arts (“almost two out of every five of 7.5 million tourists who visited Canada from abroad in 1999 and spent 15.3 billion in the process took part in some sort of cultural activity”) that clearly addresses the sceptics of any “artsy-fartsy garble.”

Luckily, Wyman keeps the mood light enough to avoid overwhelming — or boring the reader with abstractions and empty ideals — preferring instead to give concrete examples of how the arts are benefiting our lives today. From Deepa Mehta’s Bollywood/Hollywood and its vivid depiction of Canadian plurality, to the Vancouver Orchestra’s Downtown Eastside Outreach program to students from Smithers, B.C. responding to racist graffiti in their community with totem poles, Wyman’s conviction about Canada’s creative potential is infectious.

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