Michael J Sandel contended that recognising and accepting the role of chance in human affairs would humble the winners and restore dignity to the losers.

singular arms race. In spite of well-published criteria, several tutorial sessions and readily available feedback with graded scores, the dominant impression from the selection process is one of arbitrariness.

The process is not so different from the highereducation admissions process that some understanding could not be gained from arguments about the latter. In a 2013 article, Peter Stone also advocated the use of lotteries for admitting students, but he is less concerned about the hubris and humiliation that the reliance on standardised examinations might generate than about the question of fairness: namely, what is the fairest way to distinguish between competing claims?

Stone points out that the principle of a lottery to distinguish between equal claims has few opponents; what is contentious, however, is whether there ever are equal claims. The question then hinges on what can be considered as equal claims and how much effort should go into distinguishing between them. No one seriously advocates making no distinction whatever; too ine distinctions, however, can easily con late with arbitrariness. Stone points out that, if low levels of scrutiny can make clear distinctions between claims, with minimal risk of bias intruding, ‘for higher levels of scrutiny, the balance shi s in the other direction, until the undetected distinctions between claims become small enough to be easily con lated with arbitrary social factors unrelated to fairness’.

Thus, a lottery which, above a given threshold, distinguishes between claimants without reference to reasons, would thereby ensure that reasons unrelated to fairness taint the process.

To a large extent, Stone’s considerations can be transposed to how arts funding is distributed between applicants – here I’m thinking of artist-led applications such as project awards and bursaries, rather than annual funding for national organisations, which raises a different set of issues. Selection processes might vary between arts councils but, routinely, applications go through an eligibility assessment before being handed to a jury panel. The applications are then graded through a series of criteria that include variations around artistic merit/originality of the idea, track records of the applicant/s, the feasibility of the proposal and potential impact on audiences; only once applications have been graded by all members of the jury can discussions begin. One can readily imagine the dif iculties that grading artistic practices and art projects involves. Arts councils’ literature is full of qualitative terms such as ‘excellence’ or ‘great art’ but they are given little content and can mean very different things to different people.

Over the past few months, once-fringe ideas – such as an artist basic income – have been moving mainstream, and a number of alternative selection processes are already being tried. Kultureprojekte, for instance, which is funded by the city of Berlin, allocated a Covid-19-related bursary through a lottery where all quali ied applications (to be a professional artist resident in Berlin) entered a draw for 2,000 bursaries of €9,000. Elsewhere, a set-sum award was automatically given to all applications reaching a 50% score. Different awards could bene it from different selection processes, and various levels of pre-selection – based on a simpliied application form – combined with a lottery could certainly be considered. It could be decided whether funding goes to all eligible applications, or those reaching a 50% score, or some higher score to be determined – bearing in mind Stone’s warning that the iner the distinction the greater the possibilities of prejudices intruding. Sandel had proposed that the lottery could adjust to diversity criteria by giving additional ‘lottery tickets’ to the favoured category.

Lessening the intensity of the competition over scarce resources might promote more solidarity among artists. It would also make redundant much discussion about selection criteria because these would have a reduced impact. Stone makes the point that, although admission of icers can congratulate themselves for having selected successful students, this did not mean the selection was fair, because there are many ‘right choices’. To paraphrase: ‘If the rejected applications have reasons for being funded that are just as good as the reasons for the applications receiving funding, and no lottery is used, then a serious unfairness is being committed.’ A lottery would thus be a fairer way to allocate funding and would enable a larger diversity of artists, projects and practices to be supported.

Sandel contended that recognising and accepting the role of chance in human affairs would humble the winners and restore dignity to the losers, and how ‘a lively sense of the contingency of our lot’ would point towards a more generous public life. Perhaps there are signs that this is happening. It is heartening to see the topic of chance and lotteries being increasingly discussed, with citizen assemblies drawn by lot tentatively (re)entering the democratic process with some good results. With the rather unedifying spectacle that elections have become and the challenges ahead, perhaps this might be a good time to try the luck of the draw instead. Michaële Cutaya is a writer on art living in County Galway. She is editor of Circa Art Magazine.

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Art Monthly no. 442, December 2020 – January 2021