Liz Nicholls on how the gap between rich and poor can be bridged by the arts

Watching Searching for Sugarman at the weekend, one particular note chimed. The Oscar-winning documentary directed by the late Malik Bendjelloul tells the story of mythical folk legend Sixto Rodriguez.

The music is remarkable, but so are interviews with Rodriguez’s three grown-up daughters describing the kind of Daddy daycare they experienced growing up in Detroit. Their father, who had not hit the big time with his music, toiled at grimy manual labour. The family lived in houses with no bathrooms, no running water.

But, though every dollar was hard-won, the girls felt their souls were rich. Sandra says: “Detroit is a city that tells you not to dream big but he always took me to places I thought only certain elite people could go. He instilled in me I could go wherever I want regardless of what my bank statement said. He showed me the top floors of places and said ‘you’re just as good as they are’. He let us go into the libraries, art galleries, museums: that was our daycare.”

Oxford, even the scuzzier bits, is hardly downtown Motown (though both have epic car-making legacies). But the gap between rich and poor is shamefully wide, which packs all kind of trouble for the housing market.

One thing freely, abundantly available to all in this city is the arts. Millions travel from the world over to visit the dreaming spires, along with the university’s cultural gems, such as the Ashmolean Museum. But, perhaps because it is so impressively grand, with its pillars and palatial splendour, those living closer to home often don’t step inside.

I recently accompanied my daughter’s primary school on a trip to the Ashmolean to see Pissarro paintings. It was mildly chaotic, not least trying to shepherd my own offspring away from shiny bannisters, priceless antiquities and loud questions about willies. The five-year-olds’ observations bounced right out of the normcore. I don’t know how the teachers do it: I was exhausted after my hour. But trying to impose order on a group of fizzing minds should be a struggle if they’ve been inspired. For many of the children, it was their first trip, and hopefully not the last. They have not yet learned to feel daunted: they owned the place (which was possibly stressful for the staff) and were made to feel welcome. I hope this summer’s Discovering Tutankhamun exhibition, in partnership with The Oxford Times, draws in a similarly enthusiastic, anarchic crowd of families.

Sometimes, the feeling of being an outsider to art is learned. As an adult, I’m ashamed to say I was daunted by Modern Art Oxford and had never been, until this weekend, despite moving to Oxford three years ago. A perceived void in my knowledge stopped me crossing the threshold in case I failed to understand the art, sat on something I shouldn’t or unwittingly committed some stupidity that showed me up as a fraud.

We have a lot to learn from five-year-olds in this sense. Art is for everyone. Within five minutes of entering the cool, square, white space filled with stone-carving projections, union banners and fresh flags of screen-printed creations, I was stuck in, having a go printing, rolling ink on my sister’s nose without being told off. I found out about the upcoming Barbara Kruger exhibition (and made a date with it).

No formality, no instructions, no fear and no charge. And that one visit would make anyone feel richer.