Understanding Everyday Participation
by Robin Simpson
On Wednesday I had a telephone meeting with Dr Andrew Miles at the Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC) at the University of Manchester. Andrew is leading the Understanding Everyday Participation project – a five-year research study funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council under its Communities, Culture and Creative Economies funding programme. Voluntary Arts is one of the project partners and Andrew and I discussed the role Voluntary Arts will play in the initial phase of the study which will focus on mapping the cultural ecosystems in six contrasting communities (four in England and two in Scotland – supported by additional funding from Creative Scotland). We also talked about the parallels and potential overlap with Arts Council England’s Creative People and Places programme.
Robin Simpson.
Discussing Creative People and Places with Phil Cave
by Robin Simpson
On Friday I have been at the offices of Arts Council England East Midlands in Nottingham to meet Phil Cave, ACE’s Director, Engagement and Participation. With only a few hours to go to the deadline for applications to the first round of ACE’s Creative People and Places programme, Phil and I reflected on what we had learned from the Creative People and Places regional briefing sessions around the country. It has been fascinating to see the different approaches being taken in the eligible areas to form consortia and develop applications. I have been pleased by the extent to which applications seem to be taking seriously the need to involve local amateur arts groups, though I suspect there is still some work to do to realise this in practice. Phil said he has been delighted by the level of interest in the programme from across the country and was looking forward to starting to read the applications.
Robin Simpson.
Creative People and Places – Arts Council England East briefing session in Thurrock
by Robin Simpson
On Thursday afternoon I was in Purfleet in Essex for an Arts Council England East Creative People and Places briefing session. Thurrock is in the lowest 20% of local authority areas in terms of arts engagement. Hannah Fouracre from ACE East said that only 33% of adults who live in Thurrock engaged with arts activity 3 or more times in 2010 – which means that 110,000 adults in the area did not engage significantly with the arts. We met at High House Production Park, a 14 acre site which is aiming to be a centre of excellence for creative industries, offering high class facilities and state of the art technology. The site includes Grade II listed High House Farm buildings and a Scheduled Ancient Monument and now houses the Royal Opera House Workshop. Representatives of a range of local arts and community organisations took part in an interesting and challenging discussion about how to engage people throughout Thurrock and how to build a vision for culture in the area in 10 years’ time.
Robin Simpson.
National Participatory Arts Summit
by Robin Simpson
On Thursday I was at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London to attend ‘Because we’re worth it!’ – a national summit exploring and celebrating the value of participatory arts. The event was organised by Connected Culture and Mailout. Connected Culture is a network dedicated to adult participatory arts and Mailout is the national online resource for participatory arts. Welcoming us to the ICA, Arti Prashar of Spare Tyre and Rob Howell from Mailout said they had been overwhelmed by the positive response to the summit: they said they could have sold it out twice over and there was clearly a massive interest in participatory/community arts. Rob Howell said that Mailout has calculated that only 7.5% of Arts Council England’s core funding goes to participatory arts: he challenged the sector to work to increase this to 15% by the next round of ACE National Portfolio Organisation funding. Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive of the RSA, delivered the keynote ‘thought for the day’, suggesting that the arts sector “had it pretty good” under New Labour but he didn’t think the sector as a whole had exploited the opportunities as much as it should have. Too many arts organisations are too dependent on arts grant funding. Matthew Taylor asked us whether we could make a new case for the arts. He said “the arts sector should not be afraid of instrumentalism but it should be our instrumentalism” and he felt this “would lead to a shift in arts funding towards participation”. But he warned that we need to be able to distinguish between good and bad practice: “the Achilles heel of the arts is that we are all too polite to each other”. During the questions and answers at the end of the opening plenary session, Matthew Taylor used a sporting analogy, talking about his son’s involvement in football and cross-country running. When you take part in amateur football you never encounter a professional: the professional and amateur football worlds are very far apart, with most of the money heading towards the elite professional end of the spectrum. But in cross country running the beginner can find himself competing alongside someone who runs for the national team. And, even if you finish 15 minutes behind that international athlete, you all sit down together and have a cup of tea afterwards. Matthew Taylor asked us whether the arts is more like football or cross country running. He pointed to the answer by referring to a session he chaired in the ACE/RSA State of the Arts Conference in 2011 when John Hope-Hawkins from the Society for All Artists – a national voluntary arts umbrella body – spoke about the work the SAA’s amateur members were doing in old people’s homes to encourage people to paint. No-one at that massive arts industry conference seemed to take any interest.
Robin Simpson.
Arts Development UK National Committee meeting
by Robin Simpson
I was in London on Friday afternoon to attend the Arts Development UK National Committee meeting. AD:uk Chair, Jane Wilson, updated us on progress following the change of name and status of the organisation (which was formerly the National Association of Local Government Arts Officers). She said that officers leaving local authorities, for whatever reason, were now remaining members of AD:uk and the organisation is starting to get a good body of non-local authority arts organisations in membership. The new AD:uk fellowship scheme has made more than 50 awards in its first round – which is more than 20% of the organisation’s membership. AD:uk has also just launched its new knowledge and skills bank – asking members to commit a minimum of 10 hours per year to share their skills with other members. Jane emphasised that both these schemes are open to members of Voluntary Arts. I used my slot on the agenda to ask AD:uk to encourage voluntary arts groups across the country to sign-up for our Running Your Group online services. I also explained the role we are hoping that local government arts officers will play in relation to Voluntary Arts Week 2012. We want local authorities to promote the Week to voluntary arts groups and to consider running their own local showcase events during the Week. Voluntary Arts Week is 12 – 20 May 2012, more details at: http://www.voluntaryartsweek.org.
Robin Simpson.
Creative People and Places – Arts Council England East briefing session in Peterborough
by Robin Simpson
I first visited the Key Theatre in Peterborough in 1990 but I’ve not been back for a while and was surprised this morning to discover that they’ve moved the stairs! The building has recently undergone a substantial refurbishment and is looking in good shape in its pleasant setting overlooking the River Nene. I was there for the latest Arts Council England Creative People and Places briefing session. This was easily the most inventive of the sessions I’ve been to so far: it was certainly the first to involve a toy Dalek! Kate Hall from Jumped Up Theatre facilitated the event, leading us through a series of creative exercises which really helped people to start to think through what they could do collectively to get more people engaging in the arts in Peterborough. Belinda Bryan from ACE East took us through the details of the Creative People and Places programme and Greer Roberts from Vivacity – the independent organisation now responsible for the city’s culture and leisure services – reminded us of the particular cultural journey Peterborough has been on in recent years. In many senses Citizen Power – the ACE/RSA/Peterborough City Council collaboration – has paved the way for a potential Creative People and Places project. Greer said there is now “a willingness from a lot of people to make something spectacular happen” in Peterborough.
Robin Simpson.
Creative People and Places – Arts Council England London briefing session in Barking
by Robin Simpson
Last Friday I was at Barking Learning Centre in East London for the Arts Council England London Creative People and Places briefing session. Coincidentally, as well as being one of the 71 eligible areas to apply for Creative People and Places funding, Barking and Dagenham is currently developing a new arts strategy. One of the consultants working on the strategy joined us on Friday to take the opportunity to talk to a wide range of local arts organisations and community groups about how they could become involved in the development of the strategy. After Shira Hess from ACE London and I had outlined the details of the Creative People and Places programme and the role that amateur arts groups might play within it, there was a fascinating discussion which made real progress in starting to develop a consortium application for Barking and Dagenham.
Robin Simpson.
Creative People and Places – Arts Council England East Midlands briefing session in Corby
by Robin Simpson
I was in Corby, Northamptonshire on Wednesday, at the magnificent Corby Cube arts centre, for the Arts Council England East Midlands Creative People and Places briefing session. Rebecca Blackman from ACE East Midlands opened the event by emphasising “it is really important to us that communities are empowered to take the lead on shaping arts provision”. She said that Creative People and Places is not necessarily about arts organisations coming up with fantastic programmes or projects: it is not about communities “being done to” but genuinely about them having a say in what provision they want. Rebecca was also very clear that “we see the amateur sector as very important”. I then gave a presentation about the role amateur arts groups could play in a Creative People and Places consortium. There was also a fascinating presentation from Charlotte Handel from the Theatre Royal Stratford East about the ‘Open Stage’ programme (not to be confused with our RSC Open Stages project). ‘Open Stage’ has involved handing over programming power to the community for the January to July 2012 season at Stratford East. The Theatre Royal has been asking the people of East London and beyond to say what they want to see on the stage. A group of volunteers from the community has been involved in talking with the public and making decisions about what will be programmed on the stage, based on the wider public’s ideas. It’s been an amazing, empowering and surprising experience and provides many lessons to anyone hoping to become involved in Creative People and Places, not least Charlotte’s plea: “do not underestimate the power of tea and cake!”
Robin Simpson.
Creative People and Places – Arts Council England South East briefing session in Chatham
by Robin Simpson
On Tuesday afternoon I was at the Brook Theatre in Chatham, Kent, for the Arts Council England South East Creative People and Places briefing session. The neighbouring local authorities, Swale and Medway, are both among the 71 eligible areas of lowest arts engagement for Creative People and Places and the discussion focussed on the development of a single consortium bid to cover both places. Stephanie Fuller from ACE South East said “we’ve done lots on audiences and engagement in the past but we’ve not cracked it. To make a statistically significant change is actually quite difficult. We are looking for something different here – something long-term.” She emphasised that ACE would be looking for three things from Creative People and Places: more people doing more stuff, sustainability and learning. Of the five Creative People and Places events I have been to so far, this was the first discussion that really started to tackle the question of how we might persuade people who don’t currently engage in the arts to do so. It was an inventive, creative discussion that started to get to the root of the issues and came up with a three-part strategy based around enticement, enjoyment and empowerment.
Robin Simpson.
Creative People and Places – Arts Council England London briefing session in Newham
by Robin Simpson
I was at Stratford Circus in the London Borough of Newham on Friday afternoon for an Arts Council England London briefing session on Creative People and Places. Shira Hess, who is leading on Creative People and Places for ACE London, stressed that ‘engagement’ in the context of this programme means the full spectrum of being inspired by culture in its widest sense. She talked about the importance of legacy and sustainability – what will be left at the end of 3 years – and said that successful bids will need to consider this from the outset. London has been allocated less than £1.8M of the £37M Creative people and Places fund: there are only 3 eligible London boroughs falling with the 20% lowest areas of arts engagement (Newham, Hounslow and Barking & Dagenham). Shira emphasised that the key to sustainability will be having the people in the relevant communities sitting at the heart of the Creative People and Places activities. My presentation on the potential that amateur groups offer to Creative People and Places was well received and lots of people came to talk to me, in the networking session that followed the presentations, about working with amateur groups.
Robin Simpson.
