On Hollywood’s biggest night, newly crowned Oscar winner Tamara Deverell used her time in the spotlight to condemn the Nova Scotia government for cutting millions of dollars of support to the province’s arts sector in this year’s budget.

Deverell, who lives in Inverness, N.S., and Dartmouth set decorator Shane Vieau earned the Academy Award for best production design Sunday night for their work on Frankenstein.

“I’m living in Nova Scotia right now, which is getting arts cuts by the provincial government, which is making it really difficult to support artists like me and Shane who need to grow [and] young people who need to learn,” Deverell said in an interview in the press room at the Oscars following her win Sunday.

“Art is important. It’s essential to our human culture and well-being.”

In Nova Scotia’s budget, released at the end of February, the province made $130 million in cuts to discretionary grants, impacting many programs and organizations in the arts and culture sector.

After widespread protests, the government reversed $53.6 million in cuts to services for people with disabilities, seniors, and African Nova Scotian and Indigenous students, but left cuts to the arts intact. 

Deverell told CBC Radio’s Mainstreet Halifax on Monday that she wouldn’t have been in the position to win an Oscar in the first place if she hadn’t been able to grow her craft while working on projects that were publicly funded. 

“I think it’s really important that we understand where the arts are in our economy and in our culture,” she said Monday afternoon, speaking from Los Angeles International Airport. 

“I wouldn’t be getting an Oscar if I wasn’t supported by government funding when I was younger, and you know, my hope is that that continues for the younger people moving up in the industry and in the arts.” 

Back home in Cape Breton, Deverell is the co-chair of the Inverness Centre for the Arts, which she says has been severely impacted by the cuts, losing around a quarter of its core operating budget.

One day soon, she said, she plans to bring her Oscar to the centre and use it to raise funds by letting visitors hold the statue in exchange for a $5 donation. 

Members of the legislature, however, will have to pony up a little more if they want to feel the weight of an Academy Award in their hands, Deverell joked. 

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