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.
The voluntary arts and regeneration in Wales
by Robin Simpson
On Friday morning Hamish and I met Chris Warner from the Regeneration Directorate in the Department for Housing, Regeneration and Heritage at the Welsh Government offices in Cardiff. Chris is the Head of Regeneration Policy for the Welsh Government. Now that regeneration is part of the same ministerial portfolio as culture the Minister, Huw Lewis, is keen to look at developing better links between the arts and regeneration. The Minister has recently launched a review of the Government’s approaches to regeneration and Chris was keen to talk to us about the role that voluntary arts groups might be able to play in relation to regeneration. We discussed a number of possible approaches and agreed to try to develop some pilot activity in certain parts of Wales.
Robin Simpson.
Welsh Assembly Communities, Equality and Local Government Committee inquiry into participation in the arts
by Robin Simpson
I was at the Senedd in Cardiff on Thursday afternoon to give evidence to the Welsh Assembly Communities, Equality and Local Government Committee’s inquiry into participation in the arts. The inquiry was launched to look at whether budget cuts in the arts sector may be having a negative effect on participation in the arts among some groups of people. You don’t get the chance to say much in these sessions: I was one of three witnesses in a 30 minute slot. It was good to be alongside Maggie Hampton from Disability Arts Cymru and Leanne Rahman from the Black Voluntary Sector Network – together we were able to stress the need for funding, support and collaboration to encourage disabled people and BME communities to participate in the arts. I said I felt questions about the relationship between the Welsh Government and the Arts Council (the arm’s length principle) and whether we need greater scrutiny of the Arts Council were red herrings in relation to how we address gaps in arts participation. Most participation happens through organisations that are not funded by ACW. I made the point that the amateur arts is largely self-sufficient and sustainable and the overall levels of participation were almost the same in 2010 as they were 10 years before (according to the ACW Omnibus Survey). You could get rid of the Arts Council and not affect the overall levels of participation. But the effect of cuts in arts funding is to further disenfranchise those parts of the population who tend not to participate in the arts and need support and encouragement to do so. So arts participation as a whole always survives funding cuts but is likely to become less diverse and favour people from more affluent, cohesive communities. Finally I stressed the need for a more radical approach to raising the levels (and diversity) of arts participation by developing collaboration and links between professional participatory/community arts and the amateur/voluntary arts sector.
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.
Interviewing Nick Capaldi for Running Your Group
by Robin Simpson
On Thursday I was at the Arts Council of Wales in Cardiff to interview ACW Chief Executive Nick Capaldi in our first Running Your Group LIVE online event. The Arts Council of Wales is supporting the development of our Running Your Group online services in Wales and part of our agreement with ACW is a commitment to a number of online events with a Wales focus. This first interview also gave us an opportunity to test the technology and practice how these online events will work. Daniel and I arrived an hour before we were due to go live – but only managed to get a working internet connection with about five minutes to spare! Nonetheless we started webcasting on schedule at 2 pm and a small number of people from all corners of the UK joined us to watch the live video stream and contribute to the text chat. We had some problems with the sound – most people could see the video quite clearly but had great difficulty hearing us: we may need to invest in a better microphone. But apart from that the system worked and we were able to receive questions and comments from subscribers while we were webcasting. Nick Capaldi was a very easy person to interview – extremely eloquent, thoughtful and interesting – and very kind with some of my less than perfectly framed questions. Our discussion covered the issue of quality in relation to the amateur arts, the role of umbrella bodies, the Arts Council of Wales Investment Review and the National Assembly for Wales Communities, Equality and Local Government Committee inquiry into Participation in the Arts. Nick said some very supportive things about the amateur arts and Voluntary Arts Wales but I think I managed to push him on a few key points rather than giving him too easy a ride. You will be able to judge for yourselves as the full, unedited interview will shortly be available to watch again on the Running Your Group online events page (with enhanced audio!). We also plan to make the interview available as an audio mp3 file so you can listen to it on your ipod or mp3 player and we will be issuing a short video with some highlights from the interview on YouTube. Watch out for more Running Your Group LIVE online events soon.
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.
