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Bauble by Lewis Buttery
One of a series of E-Cards designed by young artists working with Soft Touch Arts
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Monday 21 December 2015
SEASON'S GREETINGS
Warm festive greetings to all our friends, colleagues, customers and readers, and very best wishes for a happy, peaceful, successful 2016.
Friday 20 November 2015
LEARNING FROM THE LEGACY
Our last post, inspired by other people's writings on the early days of community arts, prompted some nice conversations, including one with Stephen Pritchard. As luck would have it he was just heading off to the Black-E's Community Arts? Learning from the Legacy of Artists' Social Initiatives conference - a perfect opportunity to wangle a follow-on piece. Stephen is a second year AHRC (Arts & Humanities Research Council) funded doctoral research student at Northumbria University, exploring socially engaged art as a means of supporting radical social change. His research investigates how social practice might enable creative expressions of social justice and truly democratic common living. He is a socially engaged practitioner, activist, art historian, critical theorist, curator, founder of dot to dot active arts collective, and initiator of EngagedArtNet. Somehow he also finds time to write for his own blog, Colouring in Culture, where this piece on the Black-E event first appeared. Thanks Stephen for the re-blog.
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Photo: Dotto, courtesy of The Black-E
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Do we need to develop institutions to work with communities? Can’t artists work directly with and within communities?
I asked the two questions as an immediate response to a panel entitled ‘What kind of organisation do we need to develop to work with communities…?’ The problem seemed obvious; becoming increasingly apparent as the Community Arts? Learning from the Legacy of Artists’ Social Initiatives conference (part of Liverpool Biennial’s programming) progressed. Those ‘learning’ from artists should be organisations – who presumably had recently learned or were still learning the importance of working with people outside of our narrow arts world. This is, for me, a deeply problematic and unsettling narrative. Questions of appropriation sprang to mind.
Reflecting back, it was clear from the offset when (co-convenor) Sally Tallant said she preferred to ‘challenge institutions from the inside’ – a now rather hackneyed phrase within the arts. Fellow co-convenor Andrea Phillips presented a much more oppositional stance. She quickly highlighted the inherent ‘contradictions’ linked to the ‘institutionalisation of participation and engagement’ which could lead to the ‘banalisation of community’. She pointed to Community Arts’ deeply ‘political investment’ which had been dampened within a ‘misrecognition of intent’ and the Blairite shift from notions of ‘exclusion to inclusion’.
The founders of The Black-E and conference hosts, Bill and Wendy Harpe, presented a brief overview of their incredible archive of almost 50 years of community arts interventions and participatory exhibitions. Their commitment and passion was infectious. ‘Participation used to have one meaning – now we have 101’, said Bill. He later revealed that The Black-E were facing Arts Council cuts of 35% – the highest level of any NPO organisation in Liverpool. He was, as always, upbeat in his determination to keep going. For me, cuts to The Black-E with its long history of working as part of communities, represents an insidious and conscious decision by Arts Council England to replace great community art by artists and smaller organisations with glass bastions such as Home and The Factory (and many others around the country).
Frances Rifkin followed a fast-paced Jason Bowman with a more pointedly political reflection upon the field of practice. ‘We saw our work as political, transformative – not as do-gooders,’ she explained. She regretted the point in time when ‘the exclusive notion of excellence began to creep in’. She talked about battles, the importance of trade unionism and marginalisation - Issues I feel are all implicated within the creeping professionalisation and institutionalisation of our field. ‘The use of volunteers is one way of not funding artists,’ she added before going on to say that it is ‘disgraceful that there are no opportunities for young artists’ today. Frances revealed she was optimistic about a shift within the arts because, and I echo her thoughts, big arts organisations and funders such as Arts Council England are vulnerable after suffering from round after round of austerity.
Later Sophie Hope declared that Community Art could be seen as a form of ‘oppositional practice’ that rejected the marketisation and professionalisation endemic within the field today. Later still, Nato Thompson whistled through several of Creative Time’s ‘commissions’. His narrative was interesting. ‘We do public art,’ he said. He was immediately followed by Anna Colin of Open School East. She described the school as collective and self-organising with ‘a structure that’s quite light – self-reflexive and self-critical’. Yet, I was left wondering about the intentions of the founders: The Barbican Centre and CREATE London…
There was a perceivable heightening of tensions when Tate’s Director of Learning, Anna Cutler, began by asking the audience ‘Who would define your practice as educational or learning?’ Not many hands went up. She seemed ruffled. ‘I would like to see things changed,’ she said rather unconvincingly. She attempted and failed to describe ‘socially engaged practice’ as a ‘sliding scale’ in which she said she ‘liked to think I’m in the middle’. Safe and sound! Except, for me, Tate do not do socially engaged art – they do outreach and education programmes and participation. Oh, and let’s not forget their dodgy sponsors!! (#BPMustGo!) ‘As long as you’re transparent with participants, its ok,’ and, ‘It’s all about changing the processes, otherwise you’re just moaning from the outside,’ and ‘We’re an institution… change takes a long time,’ she added. Tensions rose further. Then, after several more references to change from Anna, I asked my question. The room ignited.
The rest of the day was notable for Sonia Boyce’s beautifully moving work, for some sort of democratic intervention that demanded more time for open comments (which were a little disjointed but really welcome) and a great summing up by Andrea Phillips. I listened intently to the various perspectives on Granby Four Streets but still felt somehow uncomfortable with the project and its potential to become an unwitting (perhaps even knowing) agent for gentrification. I remembered Andrea Phillips conclusion to Art and Housing: The Private Connection (2012):
The artist is a self-builder. The rich man is a self-builder. The yachts at Venice, with their open invitations for cocktails to socially engaged artists, facilitate the perfect and paradoxical nexus of new “social” housing. The poor can only stand and stare.
My lasting memories of this exceptionally interesting and revealing conference revolve around the notion of oppositions. Community Arts was an oppositional movement. Socially engaged art is based on the premise of anti-institutionalism, amongst other things. Institutions seem to feel that they can, given enough time and undoubtedly lots of money, change to take on the role of community artist. This move will come at the expense of the local, independent, autonomous interventions of many individual artists, collectives and smaller artist-led organisations working within communities. Community Arts is about trust and togetherness. Are large arts organisations really best placed to replace people (artists) who are driven to work in this way? Can they?
We must indeed learn from the legacy of Community Arts and STORM THE CITADELS as Owen Kelly suggested back in 1984!
I asked the two questions as an immediate response to a panel entitled ‘What kind of organisation do we need to develop to work with communities…?’ The problem seemed obvious; becoming increasingly apparent as the Community Arts? Learning from the Legacy of Artists’ Social Initiatives conference (part of Liverpool Biennial’s programming) progressed. Those ‘learning’ from artists should be organisations – who presumably had recently learned or were still learning the importance of working with people outside of our narrow arts world. This is, for me, a deeply problematic and unsettling narrative. Questions of appropriation sprang to mind.
Reflecting back, it was clear from the offset when (co-convenor) Sally Tallant said she preferred to ‘challenge institutions from the inside’ – a now rather hackneyed phrase within the arts. Fellow co-convenor Andrea Phillips presented a much more oppositional stance. She quickly highlighted the inherent ‘contradictions’ linked to the ‘institutionalisation of participation and engagement’ which could lead to the ‘banalisation of community’. She pointed to Community Arts’ deeply ‘political investment’ which had been dampened within a ‘misrecognition of intent’ and the Blairite shift from notions of ‘exclusion to inclusion’.
The founders of The Black-E and conference hosts, Bill and Wendy Harpe, presented a brief overview of their incredible archive of almost 50 years of community arts interventions and participatory exhibitions. Their commitment and passion was infectious. ‘Participation used to have one meaning – now we have 101’, said Bill. He later revealed that The Black-E were facing Arts Council cuts of 35% – the highest level of any NPO organisation in Liverpool. He was, as always, upbeat in his determination to keep going. For me, cuts to The Black-E with its long history of working as part of communities, represents an insidious and conscious decision by Arts Council England to replace great community art by artists and smaller organisations with glass bastions such as Home and The Factory (and many others around the country).
Frances Rifkin followed a fast-paced Jason Bowman with a more pointedly political reflection upon the field of practice. ‘We saw our work as political, transformative – not as do-gooders,’ she explained. She regretted the point in time when ‘the exclusive notion of excellence began to creep in’. She talked about battles, the importance of trade unionism and marginalisation - Issues I feel are all implicated within the creeping professionalisation and institutionalisation of our field. ‘The use of volunteers is one way of not funding artists,’ she added before going on to say that it is ‘disgraceful that there are no opportunities for young artists’ today. Frances revealed she was optimistic about a shift within the arts because, and I echo her thoughts, big arts organisations and funders such as Arts Council England are vulnerable after suffering from round after round of austerity.
Later Sophie Hope declared that Community Art could be seen as a form of ‘oppositional practice’ that rejected the marketisation and professionalisation endemic within the field today. Later still, Nato Thompson whistled through several of Creative Time’s ‘commissions’. His narrative was interesting. ‘We do public art,’ he said. He was immediately followed by Anna Colin of Open School East. She described the school as collective and self-organising with ‘a structure that’s quite light – self-reflexive and self-critical’. Yet, I was left wondering about the intentions of the founders: The Barbican Centre and CREATE London…
There was a perceivable heightening of tensions when Tate’s Director of Learning, Anna Cutler, began by asking the audience ‘Who would define your practice as educational or learning?’ Not many hands went up. She seemed ruffled. ‘I would like to see things changed,’ she said rather unconvincingly. She attempted and failed to describe ‘socially engaged practice’ as a ‘sliding scale’ in which she said she ‘liked to think I’m in the middle’. Safe and sound! Except, for me, Tate do not do socially engaged art – they do outreach and education programmes and participation. Oh, and let’s not forget their dodgy sponsors!! (#BPMustGo!) ‘As long as you’re transparent with participants, its ok,’ and, ‘It’s all about changing the processes, otherwise you’re just moaning from the outside,’ and ‘We’re an institution… change takes a long time,’ she added. Tensions rose further. Then, after several more references to change from Anna, I asked my question. The room ignited.
The rest of the day was notable for Sonia Boyce’s beautifully moving work, for some sort of democratic intervention that demanded more time for open comments (which were a little disjointed but really welcome) and a great summing up by Andrea Phillips. I listened intently to the various perspectives on Granby Four Streets but still felt somehow uncomfortable with the project and its potential to become an unwitting (perhaps even knowing) agent for gentrification. I remembered Andrea Phillips conclusion to Art and Housing: The Private Connection (2012):
The artist is a self-builder. The rich man is a self-builder. The yachts at Venice, with their open invitations for cocktails to socially engaged artists, facilitate the perfect and paradoxical nexus of new “social” housing. The poor can only stand and stare.
My lasting memories of this exceptionally interesting and revealing conference revolve around the notion of oppositions. Community Arts was an oppositional movement. Socially engaged art is based on the premise of anti-institutionalism, amongst other things. Institutions seem to feel that they can, given enough time and undoubtedly lots of money, change to take on the role of community artist. This move will come at the expense of the local, independent, autonomous interventions of many individual artists, collectives and smaller artist-led organisations working within communities. Community Arts is about trust and togetherness. Are large arts organisations really best placed to replace people (artists) who are driven to work in this way? Can they?
We must indeed learn from the legacy of Community Arts and STORM THE CITADELS as Owen Kelly suggested back in 1984!
Thursday 29 October 2015
THE SUN STILL RISES IN THE EAST
by Tracy Shaw, Loca Creatives Director
I'm in a reflective frame of mind as I think back to a year ago this week, when we'd just completed the 'Cornerstones' project in Oldham with the installation of a series of beautifully carved boulders and a rather lovely celebration event. At the time I blogged about feeling that the ending was really just the beginning, and I certainly remember wishing not that we could have our time with the residents of St Mary's over again (arguably we wouldn't have done anything very differently) but that we could have at least as much time again, to continue the process of relationship-building and community engagement that had begun. Thankfully others have picked up the baton, and we're able to look back on the project knowing that it helped set some valuable things in motion for residents and the people who continue to work with them.
It was in this reflective mode that I happened to be browsing Francois Matarasso's new blog, A Restless Art, where I picked up on his case study about Tyneside-based Amber Film and Photography Collective - artists who have committed to keeping their creative practice firmly rooted in place and community for the long term, not just for months or years but for decades. A few more clicks took me back to one of Francois's other writing projects, Parliament of Dreams, where a glance down his Free Downloads list led me to some of the good reads he's authored himself, books and texts by others about community arts history, and to Community Arts Unwrapped. This is a new blogging venture by Alison Jeffers and Gerri Moriarty, who are researching and writing on 'community arts, past, present and future', partly with the aim of documenting its history and partly to stimulate conversations about current and future practice.
I was struck - not for the first time - by a number of things. Firstly, the remarkable longevity and staying power of people like Francois, Alison, Gerri, Amber members and many others besides (I won't attempt a roll-call but they know who they are). These are people who were inspirational, influential and well-respected practitioners in the community arts field across the UK when I first stepped into it nearly 30 years ago as an administrator working for a regional funding body, and who are still variously doing 'community arts' (albeit continuously challenging their own practice and stretching it in new directions), teaching it, taking stock of it and writing about it with the same insight, authenticity and deeply held commitment to its underpinning values and principles. Respect to you all.
Secondly - and this is a really simplistic way of saying something that is complex and much-debated - I was struck by remembering how the work that these people pioneered in the seventies and eighties has proliferated and diversified to the extent that 'participatory art practice' is nowadays around us everywhere, yet most of it without the edginess, aesthetic riskiness and explicit socio-political motives which made the original work radical and gave it a sense of being 'a movement'. This is not judgement or criticism, just statement of fact. As Francois says in the intro to A Restless Art: "Whether you call it community art, participatory art or something else entirely, art work with people seems to be thriving....I don’t remember a time when so much was happening, despite the public spending cuts. More importantly, perhaps, I see artists working in a huge range of ways and with an equally diverse range of ideas and motives." His journey as he ponders the question 'What is participatory art and where is it going?' will be well worth watching.
And thirdly it struck me that with the permeation of community arts/participatory arts work into so many everyday settings over the past 20-30 years and with new generations of artists, funders and commissioners making it happen, it's all too easy to lose sight of its radical roots and marginal beginnings, and to forget all the passion, care, conviction and derring-do which laid the ground for what is now a field of commonplace and utterly indispensable artistic practice. Utterly indispensable? I think so. So does the person who posted a comment on Community Arts Unwrapped in reply to a question from Alison Jeffers: "Is Community Arts practice still relevant today?…..Does the sun still rise in the East?"
So with that in mind, I thought it would do no harm to flag up Francois's blogs (and the useful community arts history resources signposted there), and Alison's and Gerri's research project - I will follow and enjoy it, and you might like to too. I thought I'd add my own pointer to Amber Collective's astounding body of work, and urge you to take a look too at the former Welfare State International's website and the Jubilee Arts 1974-1994 Archive, which also has a good stash of history resources. If you're at all interested in tracing participatory arts in the UK back to its beginnings, these are good places to start. And in a moment of serendipity, here's a shout-out for Community Arts? Learning from the Legacy of Artists' Social Initiatives, an event being hosted in Liverpool this Sunday by The Black-E, another highly respected and long-serving stalwart.
There is, it seems, a lot of legacy to celebrate and a lot of talking and learning still to do.
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Photo: NASA
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I'm in a reflective frame of mind as I think back to a year ago this week, when we'd just completed the 'Cornerstones' project in Oldham with the installation of a series of beautifully carved boulders and a rather lovely celebration event. At the time I blogged about feeling that the ending was really just the beginning, and I certainly remember wishing not that we could have our time with the residents of St Mary's over again (arguably we wouldn't have done anything very differently) but that we could have at least as much time again, to continue the process of relationship-building and community engagement that had begun. Thankfully others have picked up the baton, and we're able to look back on the project knowing that it helped set some valuable things in motion for residents and the people who continue to work with them.
It was in this reflective mode that I happened to be browsing Francois Matarasso's new blog, A Restless Art, where I picked up on his case study about Tyneside-based Amber Film and Photography Collective - artists who have committed to keeping their creative practice firmly rooted in place and community for the long term, not just for months or years but for decades. A few more clicks took me back to one of Francois's other writing projects, Parliament of Dreams, where a glance down his Free Downloads list led me to some of the good reads he's authored himself, books and texts by others about community arts history, and to Community Arts Unwrapped. This is a new blogging venture by Alison Jeffers and Gerri Moriarty, who are researching and writing on 'community arts, past, present and future', partly with the aim of documenting its history and partly to stimulate conversations about current and future practice.
I was struck - not for the first time - by a number of things. Firstly, the remarkable longevity and staying power of people like Francois, Alison, Gerri, Amber members and many others besides (I won't attempt a roll-call but they know who they are). These are people who were inspirational, influential and well-respected practitioners in the community arts field across the UK when I first stepped into it nearly 30 years ago as an administrator working for a regional funding body, and who are still variously doing 'community arts' (albeit continuously challenging their own practice and stretching it in new directions), teaching it, taking stock of it and writing about it with the same insight, authenticity and deeply held commitment to its underpinning values and principles. Respect to you all.
Secondly - and this is a really simplistic way of saying something that is complex and much-debated - I was struck by remembering how the work that these people pioneered in the seventies and eighties has proliferated and diversified to the extent that 'participatory art practice' is nowadays around us everywhere, yet most of it without the edginess, aesthetic riskiness and explicit socio-political motives which made the original work radical and gave it a sense of being 'a movement'. This is not judgement or criticism, just statement of fact. As Francois says in the intro to A Restless Art: "Whether you call it community art, participatory art or something else entirely, art work with people seems to be thriving....I don’t remember a time when so much was happening, despite the public spending cuts. More importantly, perhaps, I see artists working in a huge range of ways and with an equally diverse range of ideas and motives." His journey as he ponders the question 'What is participatory art and where is it going?' will be well worth watching.
And thirdly it struck me that with the permeation of community arts/participatory arts work into so many everyday settings over the past 20-30 years and with new generations of artists, funders and commissioners making it happen, it's all too easy to lose sight of its radical roots and marginal beginnings, and to forget all the passion, care, conviction and derring-do which laid the ground for what is now a field of commonplace and utterly indispensable artistic practice. Utterly indispensable? I think so. So does the person who posted a comment on Community Arts Unwrapped in reply to a question from Alison Jeffers: "Is Community Arts practice still relevant today?…..Does the sun still rise in the East?"
So with that in mind, I thought it would do no harm to flag up Francois's blogs (and the useful community arts history resources signposted there), and Alison's and Gerri's research project - I will follow and enjoy it, and you might like to too. I thought I'd add my own pointer to Amber Collective's astounding body of work, and urge you to take a look too at the former Welfare State International's website and the Jubilee Arts 1974-1994 Archive, which also has a good stash of history resources. If you're at all interested in tracing participatory arts in the UK back to its beginnings, these are good places to start. And in a moment of serendipity, here's a shout-out for Community Arts? Learning from the Legacy of Artists' Social Initiatives, an event being hosted in Liverpool this Sunday by The Black-E, another highly respected and long-serving stalwart.
There is, it seems, a lot of legacy to celebrate and a lot of talking and learning still to do.
Friday 25 September 2015
A POEM ABOUT MEN SINGING
Our good friend Phil Russell recently stepped out of his CEO role with the very marvellous Hoot Creative Arts after 15 years at the forefront in the Arts & Mental Health field - work which over the last couple of years has extended into prison settings. Alongside cycling, gardening, music-making and grand-parenting he's taken to spending time in his attic exploring new and slower ways of being creative. The man has clearly had poetry locked away inside him which is now finding the space to spill out, inspired by topics as diverse as Jeremy Corbyn and owls. Always on the look-out for guest blog posts which connect with themes in our own work (do feel free to get in touch), we spotted Man Sing and felt a strong urge to share it. Thanks Phil (presumably you would like it noted that enticing offers of freelance work will be considered with interest?).
Man Sing
In the hope that they would finally find their voice
We offered them the secrets of the universe
But found them quite unready to rejoice.
A slight celestial hum would turn to rhapsody
A harmony would prickle the neck hair
A tribal chant would unleash something primitive
But they were mostly interested in a chair
With wheels so they could wander the perimeter
Or spin around and run over your shoes
It seems that we had underestimated
The power of office furniture to amuse
We let the rugged bastards have their heads
And slow the lure of furniture subsided
Then they were free to play with us instead
They offered us a comprehensive repertoire
Of how to make damn sure things turn to shit
Aided and abetted by a system
That says one thing, but means it not one bit.
Pale faced, deathly, ragged, argumentative
Sulky, clever, stupid, comatose
A spectacular assembly of behaviours
Guaranteed to get right up your nose
Or sung a lullaby and held you tight
If no one made up tales to send you off to sleep
Or frightened off the demons in the night
And if that early fracturing went on and on
And the broken parts would never seem to mend
And bad things led to bad things like an avalanche
And you wished that you could die so it would end
You might struggle too, to make an offering
To be in here, to look me in the eye
To open up your gob and let the shit pour out
And to do it without really knowing why.
And found some kind of flickering of hope
That let them open up their strangled throats again
And send into the air a tiny note
That grew and grew and faltered and then grew again
Still they found the courage to return
‘Til the tiny note became a lion’s roar
And in their hearts a fragile ember burned
Not much, perhaps, to get a bunch of blokes to sing
To hold the same refrain and be as one
But I tell you that this took a greater courage
Than all the villainous deeds that they had done
September 2015
Friday 28 August 2015
FRAGMENTS OF HUMAN TRAGEDY
by Tracy Shaw, Loca Creatives Director
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Mar negro (Black sea) detail
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I've travelled out and back through Calais ferry port this month, past the new fence and the sprawling encampment, so a chance viewing of Mar negro at MACBA (Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art) has been resonating strongly. Part of the current Desires and Necessities exhibition, Carlos Aires' huge multi-coloured artwork is sited on the floor of MACBA's vast white and glass atrium. It's the first exhibit you encounter on entering the building, providing a striking and poignant welcome.
The work and accompanying film were made in 2012. MACBA's text reads:
"Mar negro by Carlos Aires has been made with fragments of wood from old boats and frail immigrants' vessels that have ended up in a ship graveyard in Cadiz. Constructed to resemble parquet in a herringbone pattern, although far from being a purely geometrical combination, this wooden 'floor' brings to mind the remains of illegal vessels bearing people from Africa who have tried, successfully or otherwise, to fulfil their dream of entering European territory. An accompanying video shows images of the wood being removed from the boats and the process of making the floor. Carlos Aires has recovered material remains of a great human tragedy that is now occurring in the Mediterranean in order to transform them into an object of great formal and conceptual effect."
"Mar negro by Carlos Aires has been made with fragments of wood from old boats and frail immigrants' vessels that have ended up in a ship graveyard in Cadiz. Constructed to resemble parquet in a herringbone pattern, although far from being a purely geometrical combination, this wooden 'floor' brings to mind the remains of illegal vessels bearing people from Africa who have tried, successfully or otherwise, to fulfil their dream of entering European territory. An accompanying video shows images of the wood being removed from the boats and the process of making the floor. Carlos Aires has recovered material remains of a great human tragedy that is now occurring in the Mediterranean in order to transform them into an object of great formal and conceptual effect."
Socially engaged art of a most contemporary kind.
Friday 31 July 2015
THE PLEASURE OF GIFTING
by Tracy Shaw, Loca Creatives Director
The past few days have seen me beavering away on two entirely distinct tasks - the writing up of recent projects in four Wakefield primary schools carried out under the banner of the Council's 'Risk and Resilience' programme, and the making of a personalised wedding gift for friends. No prizes for guessing which has been most pleasurable, but you may well wonder why the latter even merits a mention, or what the connection between the two tasks could possibly be. I hadn't spotted it either, until it struck me while pondering my next task - how to construct a pithy July blog piece which would capture, without simply rattling off a list, the many positive results that have emerged from sifting through the mountain of data generated by the projects. (By way of context, the Risk and Resilience framework is competence-based, and the work we were commissioned to do with targeted groups of 'vulnerable' children was focused on achieving demonstrable outcomes in four specific areas of competency - Loving Myself, Expressing Myself, Living Together and Knowing Where I Am Going. It therefore followed that all the fantastic material collected from children, artists and school staff had to be carefully scrutinised through those four particular lenses in order to come up with the required evidence of impact. You take the money, you do the spadework...).
The connection is Gifting - or more specifically the pleasure of it. Now, this wasn't necessarily a theme we explicitly planned into the projects at the outset. What we planned, and delivered in abundance, were a set of intertwined focuses on developing 'Luggage for Life' skills that would equip children for transition from Year 6 to high school, and indeed life in general: positive self-identity, self-esteem and appreciation of own uniqueness; self-expression, ability to talk about feelings and worries, understanding the connection between feelings and behaviour; empathy, tolerance, and respect of difference; understanding (and practising) the ingredients of good friendship; contributing to and enjoying teamwork; ability to set goals, identify strategies for getting there and ask for help when needed; confidence, self-belief and aspiration. All essential ingredients - I'm sure I don't need to spell this out - for being 'resilient' and managing 'risk' in the context of journeying from the safe, nurturing environment of primary school into the unknown, daunting and more exposing environment of secondary school (and of course adolescence). In other words, the skills and qualities necessary for young people's thriving and flourishing.
The idea of Gifting emerged in the later stages of two of the projects, and I have no doubt that it was able to do so because the building blocks (see above) had been so skilfully put in place by our Lead Artist, Mary Robson. It came initially through an activity designed to shift the focus of children's thinking from self (identity, feelings, behaviour, goals, aspirations...) to others and their positive qualities (empathy, respect, friendship...). It involved writing an Acrostic Poem to another person, with the first letter of each line being the letters of the person's name and the poem being an ode to the person's skills and positive qualities. The concept of Unconditional Positive Regard (or "The Golden Thread", as it became known by one group) was established as the starting point. The results were tear-jerking and heart-warming in equal measure. The children's delight at putting their poems into origami-folded cards and passing them on to the appreciative recipients was manifest - such excitement, pride and pleasure from something so simple. The reflective conversations which then followed - about how it had felt to be the giver, and how the making and giving of similar hand-made cards and booklets could be used in other situations to convey thanks, appreciations, messages of support etc. - were an important extension of the learning.
And from there it took off, for one of the groups in a big way. Putting decision-making into the children's hands, Mary invited the group to decide what they would like to focus on in their final couple of sessions - and thus the Unconditional Positive Regard Experiment was born. The group really went for it. They hatched a plan to 'spread the positivity' by writing 'UPR statements' for every other child in their Year 6 class, distribute them anonymously as folded notes (to be left on everyone's chairs during break for them to come back and find), and then question the bemused/surprised/delighted recipients about how it had felt to receive such a personalised, positive testimony out of the blue from a mystery giver. Then they came back together with Mary to reflect on the experience of their 'gifting activism' and research their findings. It was a great example in itself of the unexpected and powerful things that can happen when you let children get their hands on an idea. What happened next was even more so. Year 6 willingly took up the 'spreading the positivity' baton, eager to know how to make the folded notes - so our project group obliged, enjoying the opportunity to pass on the knowledge, and off went 'the chain reaction'. Year 6 passed on the UPR gift in notes to Year 5. Year 5 followed suit, on to Year 4, and so on, right down to Year 1. The last we heard, Year 1 was in the process of sending a collective letter of thanks back up to Year 2. Who knows where it would have gone next, had it not been the end of term?
I chose to tell this story partly because I spotted a good hook for a piece of writing - I'm in the middle of making a gift the creation and giving of which will undoubtedly give me ten times the amount of pleasure derived by the recipients, something that was a huge Luggage for Life learning point for our children and one that we couldn't possibly have planned, certainly not with the same meaning. I chose to tell it partly because it's a good one - children in the driving seat, enthusiastically taking the lead in a way that unexpectedly touches the life of the whole school, and choosing to turn 'what can we take for transition?' into 'what can we give'? And I wanted to tell it because - with the grown-up world currently awash with policies, guidance, toolkits and training encouraging schools to give priority to wellbeing and mental health - it's perhaps worth remembering that wellbeing can come from the simplest of things, and be nurtured in the simplest of ways. You just need to lay the ground, and maybe till the soil a little too.
The connection is Gifting - or more specifically the pleasure of it. Now, this wasn't necessarily a theme we explicitly planned into the projects at the outset. What we planned, and delivered in abundance, were a set of intertwined focuses on developing 'Luggage for Life' skills that would equip children for transition from Year 6 to high school, and indeed life in general: positive self-identity, self-esteem and appreciation of own uniqueness; self-expression, ability to talk about feelings and worries, understanding the connection between feelings and behaviour; empathy, tolerance, and respect of difference; understanding (and practising) the ingredients of good friendship; contributing to and enjoying teamwork; ability to set goals, identify strategies for getting there and ask for help when needed; confidence, self-belief and aspiration. All essential ingredients - I'm sure I don't need to spell this out - for being 'resilient' and managing 'risk' in the context of journeying from the safe, nurturing environment of primary school into the unknown, daunting and more exposing environment of secondary school (and of course adolescence). In other words, the skills and qualities necessary for young people's thriving and flourishing.
The idea of Gifting emerged in the later stages of two of the projects, and I have no doubt that it was able to do so because the building blocks (see above) had been so skilfully put in place by our Lead Artist, Mary Robson. It came initially through an activity designed to shift the focus of children's thinking from self (identity, feelings, behaviour, goals, aspirations...) to others and their positive qualities (empathy, respect, friendship...). It involved writing an Acrostic Poem to another person, with the first letter of each line being the letters of the person's name and the poem being an ode to the person's skills and positive qualities. The concept of Unconditional Positive Regard (or "The Golden Thread", as it became known by one group) was established as the starting point. The results were tear-jerking and heart-warming in equal measure. The children's delight at putting their poems into origami-folded cards and passing them on to the appreciative recipients was manifest - such excitement, pride and pleasure from something so simple. The reflective conversations which then followed - about how it had felt to be the giver, and how the making and giving of similar hand-made cards and booklets could be used in other situations to convey thanks, appreciations, messages of support etc. - were an important extension of the learning.
And from there it took off, for one of the groups in a big way. Putting decision-making into the children's hands, Mary invited the group to decide what they would like to focus on in their final couple of sessions - and thus the Unconditional Positive Regard Experiment was born. The group really went for it. They hatched a plan to 'spread the positivity' by writing 'UPR statements' for every other child in their Year 6 class, distribute them anonymously as folded notes (to be left on everyone's chairs during break for them to come back and find), and then question the bemused/surprised/delighted recipients about how it had felt to receive such a personalised, positive testimony out of the blue from a mystery giver. Then they came back together with Mary to reflect on the experience of their 'gifting activism' and research their findings. It was a great example in itself of the unexpected and powerful things that can happen when you let children get their hands on an idea. What happened next was even more so. Year 6 willingly took up the 'spreading the positivity' baton, eager to know how to make the folded notes - so our project group obliged, enjoying the opportunity to pass on the knowledge, and off went 'the chain reaction'. Year 6 passed on the UPR gift in notes to Year 5. Year 5 followed suit, on to Year 4, and so on, right down to Year 1. The last we heard, Year 1 was in the process of sending a collective letter of thanks back up to Year 2. Who knows where it would have gone next, had it not been the end of term?
I chose to tell this story partly because I spotted a good hook for a piece of writing - I'm in the middle of making a gift the creation and giving of which will undoubtedly give me ten times the amount of pleasure derived by the recipients, something that was a huge Luggage for Life learning point for our children and one that we couldn't possibly have planned, certainly not with the same meaning. I chose to tell it partly because it's a good one - children in the driving seat, enthusiastically taking the lead in a way that unexpectedly touches the life of the whole school, and choosing to turn 'what can we take for transition?' into 'what can we give'? And I wanted to tell it because - with the grown-up world currently awash with policies, guidance, toolkits and training encouraging schools to give priority to wellbeing and mental health - it's perhaps worth remembering that wellbeing can come from the simplest of things, and be nurtured in the simplest of ways. You just need to lay the ground, and maybe till the soil a little too.
Monday 29 June 2015
CELEBRATING CHANGE
Delighted to announce the opening of Change 2015 - an exhibition of artwork inspired by science explorations and the theme of 'change' by young people from 12 Batley schools working with artists Fabric Lenny (Collaborative Mark-Making), Fiona Goodwin (Mixed Media) and Shelley Burgoyne (Printmaking).
Batley Art Gallery WF17 5DA until 5th September
See our April blog post and the project website for the full story.
It's pure magic, and we're proud to be part of it.
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Exploring light through collaborative mark-making - Batley Girls' High with Fabric Lenny
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Delighted to announce the opening of Change 2015 - an exhibition of artwork inspired by science explorations and the theme of 'change' by young people from 12 Batley schools working with artists Fabric Lenny (Collaborative Mark-Making), Fiona Goodwin (Mixed Media) and Shelley Burgoyne (Printmaking).
Batley Art Gallery WF17 5DA until 5th September
See our April blog post and the project website for the full story.
It's pure magic, and we're proud to be part of it.
Friday 29 May 2015
FROM KERALA TO STOKE
While away on her travels last year our Associate Lesley Fallais sent a couple of great guest posts from Norway and Denmark. Having hopped continents for warmer climes over the winter - but still soaking up opportunities for invigorating cultural experiences - Lesley was inspired by a visit to the Art Biennale in Kochi to write a piece for her own blog (many more gorgeous photos to be seen there) and kindly shared it with us.
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CSI Bungalow Photo: Lesley Fallais
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I arrived back from southern India in April, head filled with glorious images and experiences of a country which already had a special place in my heart, having travelled in India once before, 23 years ago. With that original trip as my reference point, my recent trip was full of comparisons and thoughts on transformation, culture, creativity, history and the changing face of modern India.
One memorable highlight was the Kochi-Muziris International Art Biennale in Fort Kochi, Kerala, which opened in December 2014 and had its closing ceremony in March 2015. This creative project ticked all my boxes - contemporary art, a local narrative, community involvement, diversity, education - but what made it really engaging for me, and a model that I feel has unique appeal, is that this wide ranging creative programme was set within several redundant, culturally significant and historic spaces. Temporary and improvised exhibition spaces had been created to present site-specific, locally thematic work. There was a clear synergy between the architecture and the artwork which reinforced the story of each element in the mix. Thus inspired, I bought the programme and the stylishly folded route map to all of the stunning, sometimes crumbling, venues and started walking.
‘Whorled Explorations’ - the theme of this second Kochi-Muziris Biennale, to which the artists made personal responses - is rooted in the notion of ‘Genius Loci’ (roughly translated as the spirit or atmosphere of place). Kochi was a protagonist in the emerging global narrative in the 1500’s, at the same time that the Kerala School of Astronomy and Mathematics was making ground-breaking suggestions about where humans were located in the cosmos. The 85km area of present-day Kochi is home to fifty-four diverse communities and thirteen different languages. Once, nearly five hundred years ago, this diversity was compressed within the 5km Fort Kochi area, "a magnet for mendacious spice traders, sailors, soldiers of fortune, savants, scholars, carpetbaggers, mendicants and priests from the farthest corners of the world: Portugal, Holland, England, China and Rome. Echoes of their presence remain in everyday life around Kochi - in its architecture, its food, its monuments and culture. Myths, memory, history, fact, factoid, past and present continually collide."
Kochi was a deliberate, considered choice as a site for the Biennale. According to an article by Sunil Mehra for the Biennale magazine, from which the text above and below in quotation marks is directly lifted, Kochi provided the opportunity to "place ‘cosmopolitanism’ in the terrain of history" and "the chance to examine the ‘poetics of human imprint’ on nature, history, ecology and world politics through the prism of the Kochi experience”.
The Biennale was co-founded by Bose Krishnamachari and Riyas Komu, and the Artistic Director for 2014-15 was Jitish Kallat. It involved 94 artist from 30 countries exhibiting for 108 days across 8 locations including Aspinwall House, Vasco da Gama Square, Pepper House, Durbar Hall and CSI Bungalow, each loaded with memory, meaning, metaphor and history.
“The 315-year-old residency of the Dutch Army Commander, today known as the CSI Bungalow, is just off the southern tip of the Parade Ground. Its acreage overrun by bramble and weeds, towering trees and flowering bushes, it exudes a melancholic air of rundown gentility. The 20-foot ceiling, imposing entrance doors and stately windows bear mute testimony to a grander, more spacious time. A Sylvia Plath line plays like a drumbeat in my head….empty, I echo to the last footfall…”.
The programme included: the Students Biennale (35 institutions, 120 young artists, 15 young curators); an Artists Cinema; a Children’s Biennale; a History Now talks and seminars programme; a cultural programme featuring traditional artforms of Kerala and including contemporary theatre events, movement arts performances and music concerts; Arts and Medicine projects; the Pepper House Residency programme - an international residency opportunity for artists from all disciplines to work and collaborate within a studio space; and Collateral - an exhibition programme involving international contemporary artists, young emerging Indian artists and the public.
Seeing the Kochi-Muziris Biennale reminded me of feelings evoked by a visit to the British Ceramics Biennial in Stoke-on-Trent in 2013. I had loved seeing contemporary ceramics displayed amongst the often ruined spaces of the redundant Spode Factory. Architectural salvage had become part of the exhibitions, old doors were used as display tables, artists had responding to the surroundings and created new work including temporary installations inspired by the history of the industry and the historic fabric of the buildings.
The Spode pottery once employed over 1000 workers. The first Biennial in 2009 was apparently the first time that many workers had returned to the site since its closure the previous year. The project is forward thinking - £10,000 is awarded to a participating artist to develop their contemporary practice. The 2013 programme included: the ‘Award’ Exhibition of Contemporary British Ceramics; ‘Fresh’, showing the work of recent graduates; a community engagement programme creating opportunities for visitors to explore and experience clay; a Film Room; and Exploring Spode, a series of site-specific commissions/ installations and a related residency programme.
Both of these inspiring and exciting projects, one in India and one in the UK, are closely connected in my mind and noteworthy for me as they both celebrate and draw on cultural heritage while using this as a catalyst for new, innovative work which in turn is amplified by being shown in an historic setting.
Wednesday 29 April 2015
EXPERIMENTS IN ART
by Tracy Shaw, Loca Creatives Director
If you're reading in Surrey Heath, don't forget - vote Bob!
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Photo: Fiona Goodwin
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This month, a simple shout-out for a small but sweet project which we've had the privilege of coordinating again over the past few months, for the fourth consecutive year. And if it adds weight to Bob & Roberta Smith's election campaign in Surrey Heath, so much the better.
You can read all about the Change project in Batley here, so there's no need to repeat the detail. But what is worth flagging up is the success with which a brand new dimension has been incorporated for the 2015 round - the aim of using artist-led workshops in schools to support Science teaching and learning. In its first two years, Change set out with no greater ambition than to take high-quality, hands-on visual arts learning experiences into schools that were keen to supplement what they could offer themselves, and bring the resulting artworks together in a public exhibition, using the very versatile and multi-faceted theme of 'change' as the inspiration for all the work. In year three, recognising that schools increasingly need to be able to show cross-curricular benefits in order to justify their investment in arts projects, the artists were tasked with devising creative activities that would explicitly support Literacy and Numeracy skills. With the introduction of the Science angle this year the project took another leap forward - so effectively that we're going to retain it for at least another year.
A browse around the three types of projects - Mark-making, Printmaking and Mixed Media - will give a flavour of how the artists, collaboratively with staff at their allotted schools, planned twelve individual change-themed projects with clear Science-related learning objectives in mind. Light, States of Matter, Forces, Evolution, Animal Habitats, the organs of the human body... A really rich mix of project focuses emerged (promising an equally rich and vibrant exhibition when it opens at Batley Art Gallery in June), and the individual project pages tell great tales of children's engagement, enjoyment and learning. What isn't in evidence yet (because it's still being collated) is the fantastic feedback that testifies to the power of artist-led work in school settings when it's planned and executed with care, flair, expertise and imagination. Teachers tell us that:
- children's understanding of and engagement with the chosen Science topic has been enhanced, and their Science vocabulary has expanded
- children have been motivated - to do extra work outside of class, to do homework, to carry on using the skills and techniques they have learnt in other contexts
- children have gained a more positive attitude towards their artistic skills and now think positively rather than negatively about the skills they have
- children who have difficulties academically have been able to thrive and excel in a different way
- children's cooperation and group/teamwork skills have improved
- children experienced awe and wonder
- staff have learnt new creative skills, gained confidence with arts techniques, and picked up ideas for their own art teaching
- staff have been inspired by seeing Science taught in a different way and are thinking about how to apply this in other areas of the Science curriculum, and more broadly
Not bad in three short sessions, eh? and, we hope, a small but useful addition to all the amassing evidence in support of the value of arts engagement for children's learning, attainment, progression and future flourishing (a helpful overview of which can be found here, courtesy of Engage).
If you're reading in Surrey Heath, don't forget - vote Bob!
Tuesday 31 March 2015
SKILLS FOR LIFE
by Tracy Shaw, Loca Creatives Director
I might also use this compelling piece of data from a separate EiF report. "Local and national government in England and Wales is spending annually nearly £17 billion on picking up the pieces from damaging social issues affecting young people, such as child abuse and neglect, unemployment and youth crime. This £17 billion is spent only on the short-run direct fiscal cost of acute, statutory and essential services and benefits that are required when children and young people experience severe difficulties in life... It does not capture the longer-term impact or the wider social and economic costs. There are also inter-generational consequences of these outcomes and of the issues that underpin them. This means that the £17 billion is only a small part of the costs of failure to achieve successful transitions to adulthood." A classic case of 'ask not what are the costs of doing, but what are the costs of not doing.'
And there's more music for your ears, if like us you're involved in championing the importance of nurturing children's emotional wellbeing as well as developing their social and emotional skills. "The evidence also suggests the importance of emotional well-being in childhood. Emotional health in childhood matters for mental well-being as an adult." No real surprises there perhaps, but it's good to have it in black and white in a weighty research document backed not only by the EIF but by the Cabinet Office and the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission too.
The recent publication by the Early Intervention Foundation (EIF) of Social and Emotional Learning: Skills for Life and Work gives us a handy prompt to fly the flag for our Social & Emotional Health work in schools. With a stroke of good timing we've just produced a set of 'storyboards' capturing some of the best of our recent projects and covering some different angles in the work - coping with transition, building good friendships, dealing with loss, strengthening family relationships, and so on. Take a look - the quotes are great and the impacts speak for themselves.
The EIF review brings together three individual reports, each with a different focus and together setting out to define what social and emotional skills are, how important they are, and what can be done to improve these skills in children and young people in the UK. The review "bolsters the evidence on the strong links between social and emotional skills in children and how they fare as adults", so it should be a helpful reference point when we're promoting our own specialist practice to people working at policy and strategy levels in the education and public health spheres. Next time I'm talking to someone with their hands on some purse-strings, the phrase 'it's a no-brainer' may well spring to mind.
I might also use this compelling piece of data from a separate EiF report. "Local and national government in England and Wales is spending annually nearly £17 billion on picking up the pieces from damaging social issues affecting young people, such as child abuse and neglect, unemployment and youth crime. This £17 billion is spent only on the short-run direct fiscal cost of acute, statutory and essential services and benefits that are required when children and young people experience severe difficulties in life... It does not capture the longer-term impact or the wider social and economic costs. There are also inter-generational consequences of these outcomes and of the issues that underpin them. This means that the £17 billion is only a small part of the costs of failure to achieve successful transitions to adulthood." A classic case of 'ask not what are the costs of doing, but what are the costs of not doing.'
As the Social and Emotional Learning: Skills for Life and Work overview document explains, "early intervention, by contrast, is about taking action as soon as possible to tackle the root causes of social problems, ensuring that everyone is able to realise their full potential by developing the range of skills we all need to thrive." Early intervention is where Loca Creatives' own schools-based Social & Emotional Health work sits - targeted, small group projects with selected children who have been identified by schools as showing 'signs of struggle' with their social and emotional development and emotional wellbeing, and who need support beyond what the normal classroom environment (or even, in some cases, dedicated work through school nurture groups and similar) can provide.
For us, one very helpful feature of the review is that it defines five key aspects of social and emotional capability in childhood - skills that don't come as a fixed social and emotional skill set but that can be learnt and improved - and then looks at the relationships between those five skills areas and the kinds of outcomes that make for thriving adults with good health and mental wellbeing. For two of the five areas - Motivation and Resilience - hard evidence is apparently lacking, which may simply be because these skills are as yet under-researched rather than because they are unimportant for adult outcomes (I bet we can all muster cogent arguments for how important they are, even if the hard data doesn't come readily to hand). In three areas, though, there seems to have been plenty of evidence gathered for the role that childhood social and emotional skills play in adult life.
- Self-control/self-regulation (greater impulse control and fewer behavioural problems) is strongly associated in adulthood with mental wellbeing; good physical health and health behaviours; and socio-economic and labour market outcomes.
- Self-perceptions, self-awareness and self-direction (including self-esteem and the belief that one’s own actions can make a difference) matter in adulthood "for mental well-being; good physical health and health behaviours; and socio-economic and labour market outcomes."
- Social skills related to peer relationships, social functioning and sociability in childhood are for example important, the overview document says, for mental wellbeing and having a family. Thinking about some of the relevant emphases in our own work - emotional literacy, emotional vocabulary, trust, empathy, tolerance - I think we'd go further and say that such skills are vital for healthy, successful, rewarding relationships in any one-to-one or communal context (and therefore, it follows, for good mental health).
And there's more music for your ears, if like us you're involved in championing the importance of nurturing children's emotional wellbeing as well as developing their social and emotional skills. "The evidence also suggests the importance of emotional well-being in childhood. Emotional health in childhood matters for mental well-being as an adult." No real surprises there perhaps, but it's good to have it in black and white in a weighty research document backed not only by the EIF but by the Cabinet Office and the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission too.
All in all, the review findings "provide a robust case for increased local and national commitment to supporting the social and emotional development of children and young people." Three cheers for that. And hurrah too, from our own point of view, for the findings of the international team who did the research towards the second of the three reports. It looks at the current evidence on the effectiveness of programmes in the UK aimed at children and young people aged 4-20 years. "The review found strong and consistent support for the impact of social and emotional skills programmes implemented in the school setting. Well-evaluated programmes in primary and secondary schools which sought to improve the skills of all students, including self-esteem, social skills, problem solving and coping skills, led to benefits for students’ social and emotional competencies and educational outcomes."
Here's another useful quote to end with: "These three reports make clear that social and emotional skills play a fundamental role in shaping life chances of children and young people and the nature of their adult lives. They are important both for individuals, for society and in influencing intergenerational patterns of inequality and disadvantage."
Enjoy our storyboards.
Wednesday 25 February 2015
FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW
by Tracy Shaw, Loca Creatives Director
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Words by Jennie Lee et al, Cloud by WordItOut
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Debate about the value of arts and culture and the importance of creativity in our lives, and for Britain, seems hotter this month than I can ever remember it being. February has seen the publication of the Warwick Commission report on Cultural Value, the launch of BBC's Get Creative campaign with stirring words from Deborah Bull on why creativity matters, a Radio 4 Front Row special on whether artists are owed a living, a report on the relationship between arts engagement and health from Manchester Metropolitan University, and Ed Miliband's Arts for All speech courtesy of the new Creative Industries Federation. A multitude of voices have been championing the vital role of arts in education ever more loudly, with artist Bob & Roberta Smith going all out to make it an election issue in Surrey Heath (and all power to him). Talking of the election, Fin Kennedy is doing his bit with Operation Mobilise and urging us to do ours - and we really should. I pledge that I will, here and now.
It's inspiring, thought-provoking, uplifting, validating stuff - but still, despite the discussion being hard to avoid over the past few weeks, I've had a nagging question. Is there really a public debate going on, or is it one that's just confined to the few (those who work in the arts, teach them passionately in schools, read long reports, follow Twitter conversations, listen to Radio 4...)? Which is why, for me, one thing has stood out above all the noise - the call from Devoted and Disgruntled and Stella Duffy for us all to do something very public and attention-grabbing today - the 50th Anniversary of Jennie Lee's A Policy for the Arts White Paper (the only arts policy White Paper there's been, so I gather). Coincidentally, it's 70 days to the election too.
In Stella's words: "sing, dance, declaim, rant, rave, pout, protest, applaud, evoke, annoy, effect, affect, acknowledge the dreams of fifty years ago. And how much is still to do to make real the possibilities of fifty years ago. The hopes of arts for all, arts funding beyond London, arts in all schools, arts as a human need...Get the country together to demand a government that cares about ALL people having access to ALL arts."
It's a call to really make a noise out there, to make a fuss and make the debate truly public - one engaged with by the many, not just the few - wherever you're working and whoever you're working with. Do it, if not today then one day soon. Let's face it, if those of us teaching in the arts, working in the 'participatory arts' (or whatever label you like to choose) and performing in front of audiences can't get people talking about the value of arts and creativity in their lives, who the heck can?
So here are the tools, generously provided through the efforts of a small bunch of smart-thinking, committed and discontented people. There's a link to a document here - extracts from the original White Paper interspersed with contemporary facts, quotes and views which Devoted and Disgruntled are inviting us to use as a score, script or other basis for doing something - without limitations. Plus links to a Facebook group and googledoc where you can shout about what you've done, and a Twitter hashtag #ArtsPolicy50.
We'll be looking for ways of doing our bit, with thanks to D&D and Stella (and everyone else who's provoking debate and taking action) for the inspiration. How about you?
Friday 30 January 2015
IT TAKES TWO TO TANDEM
Just about a year ago we had a guest post from Phil Wood following his stint as provocateur at a Rotterdam gathering of community artists as part of TANDEM. TANDEM is an exchange
programme matching cultural organisations, and the people who work for them,
with others across Europe and the World in order to build long-lasting
international partnerships. Now Millie Watkins of NYMAZ - delighted to have been shortlisted for a more recent round of TANDEM and eager to share the experience - writes from a participant's perspective. Big thanks to NYMAZ for letting us publish Millie's piece.
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Photo: Guido Bosua/tandemexchange.eu
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The First Date
I was invited to participate in a Partner Forum, a five-day event in Rotterdam that was just the start of a wider scheme called Tandem Community & Participation. The programme aims to nurture partnerships between pairs of “cultural managers” from the Netherlands and its three neighbouring countries. I would be representing NYMAZ, among 31 other managers from the community and voluntary arts sectors. By the end of the five days, most of us would be in pairs coming up with collaborative project proposals in order to apply to the main phase of the programme – with the chance of making our projects reality. Here's what happened next...
We were asked to prepare a ‘Pecha Kucha’ presentation – five slides, with one image and only 30 seconds to speak per slide. This was one way we could all immediately get to know a little about each other. It was a tough task - not only to condense my own story into two-and-a-half minutes, but to take everybody else’s in! Each individual had so much passion and pride in their work, but after twenty-or-so short bursts of inspiration, and two hours in, it was hard to keep track of how many times I’d thought to myself “I’d love to find out more about that…”
Where Do You Stand?
One of the most interesting things about the experience for me was the heated discussions taking place around every corner, and the TANDEM team had no doubt programmed the event in such a way as to encourage this. Is your community arts practice ‘digestive’ (concerned with enhancing social integration and cohesion)? Or auto-relational (ultimately serving the purpose of the artist)? People I spoke to identified with a number of different points on this ‘map’ of community arts, the above points being two of many.
What does ‘community arts’ even mean? I met somebody who felt that community arts was a “cute, safe” kind of community engagement that does not add to nor take away from society, but is a way for the state to keep the people happy. Others saw community arts as having the potential to amplify the voice of the people. Some thought community arts was no place for professional artists, whereas I felt passionate that quality arts practice must be at its heart.
Each debate that I took part in brought me closer to understanding my own motivations, and these were the moments that made the TANDEM experience not just about international partnerships, but about personal development, too.
Tying the Knot
Ultimately, the purpose of the Partner Forum was for each of us to find a Tandem partner. The whole event was chock-a-block with opportunities to discover common ground and forge ties. Speed dating, a grown-up musical chairs where two minutes per person was just long enough to gather a job title, a main art form and a wacky idea. A cookery lesson and a number of (delicious) dinners cooked for us, allowing us the space to think and talk about our interests and ambitions. 'Appreciative questioning and witnessing’, encouraging us to open up to listening ears, reflect on what we do well, and be inspired by each other’s success stories. All of these activities provided opportunities for us to make connections, which might later become Tandems.
There was a small catch. Some of the group, including myself, had found a partner before even arriving. I’d been in touch with Anouk Diepenbroek, the Head of Education at a contemporary concert venue in Amsterdam called Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ, and we’d already thrown some ideas around for a joint project involving their unique education project, the ‘Sound Playground’ installations, and some of the accessible tools used by NYMAZ’s partners with young people with special educational needs and disabilities. We both felt that our organisations could learn from each other’s different strengths. And by the fourth day we announced our engagement, ‘tied the knot’, and we were a Tandem.
Side Effects
After nearly a week of deep thought and ambitious planning, we were all knackered. We’d seen so much, heard so much, connected so much that our brains were hurting! But we’d made it to the end with plans to move forward, and I don’t think at the outset many of the Tandems could have predicted the collaborative project idea they would be running with by the end.
Our project proposal, a Music Leader Exchange for community musicians in North Yorkshire and Amsterdam, was not one of the final seven to make it through to the main phase of the Tandem Community & Participation programme. But we won’t forget that one of the recurring themes of the week was ‘side effects’, or unexpected outcomes. Our Tandem partners were not the only new connections we made during the five days, nor were our final project proposals the only ambitious ideas conceived that week, and the whole TANDEM concept has opened up NYMAZ's horizons to the potential of international collaboration. But sometimes, the best ideas come when you’re least expecting them.
I was invited to participate in a Partner Forum, a five-day event in Rotterdam that was just the start of a wider scheme called Tandem Community & Participation. The programme aims to nurture partnerships between pairs of “cultural managers” from the Netherlands and its three neighbouring countries. I would be representing NYMAZ, among 31 other managers from the community and voluntary arts sectors. By the end of the five days, most of us would be in pairs coming up with collaborative project proposals in order to apply to the main phase of the programme – with the chance of making our projects reality. Here's what happened next...
We were asked to prepare a ‘Pecha Kucha’ presentation – five slides, with one image and only 30 seconds to speak per slide. This was one way we could all immediately get to know a little about each other. It was a tough task - not only to condense my own story into two-and-a-half minutes, but to take everybody else’s in! Each individual had so much passion and pride in their work, but after twenty-or-so short bursts of inspiration, and two hours in, it was hard to keep track of how many times I’d thought to myself “I’d love to find out more about that…”
Where Do You Stand?
One of the most interesting things about the experience for me was the heated discussions taking place around every corner, and the TANDEM team had no doubt programmed the event in such a way as to encourage this. Is your community arts practice ‘digestive’ (concerned with enhancing social integration and cohesion)? Or auto-relational (ultimately serving the purpose of the artist)? People I spoke to identified with a number of different points on this ‘map’ of community arts, the above points being two of many.
What does ‘community arts’ even mean? I met somebody who felt that community arts was a “cute, safe” kind of community engagement that does not add to nor take away from society, but is a way for the state to keep the people happy. Others saw community arts as having the potential to amplify the voice of the people. Some thought community arts was no place for professional artists, whereas I felt passionate that quality arts practice must be at its heart.
Each debate that I took part in brought me closer to understanding my own motivations, and these were the moments that made the TANDEM experience not just about international partnerships, but about personal development, too.
Tying the Knot
Ultimately, the purpose of the Partner Forum was for each of us to find a Tandem partner. The whole event was chock-a-block with opportunities to discover common ground and forge ties. Speed dating, a grown-up musical chairs where two minutes per person was just long enough to gather a job title, a main art form and a wacky idea. A cookery lesson and a number of (delicious) dinners cooked for us, allowing us the space to think and talk about our interests and ambitions. 'Appreciative questioning and witnessing’, encouraging us to open up to listening ears, reflect on what we do well, and be inspired by each other’s success stories. All of these activities provided opportunities for us to make connections, which might later become Tandems.
There was a small catch. Some of the group, including myself, had found a partner before even arriving. I’d been in touch with Anouk Diepenbroek, the Head of Education at a contemporary concert venue in Amsterdam called Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ, and we’d already thrown some ideas around for a joint project involving their unique education project, the ‘Sound Playground’ installations, and some of the accessible tools used by NYMAZ’s partners with young people with special educational needs and disabilities. We both felt that our organisations could learn from each other’s different strengths. And by the fourth day we announced our engagement, ‘tied the knot’, and we were a Tandem.
Side Effects
After nearly a week of deep thought and ambitious planning, we were all knackered. We’d seen so much, heard so much, connected so much that our brains were hurting! But we’d made it to the end with plans to move forward, and I don’t think at the outset many of the Tandems could have predicted the collaborative project idea they would be running with by the end.
Our project proposal, a Music Leader Exchange for community musicians in North Yorkshire and Amsterdam, was not one of the final seven to make it through to the main phase of the Tandem Community & Participation programme. But we won’t forget that one of the recurring themes of the week was ‘side effects’, or unexpected outcomes. Our Tandem partners were not the only new connections we made during the five days, nor were our final project proposals the only ambitious ideas conceived that week, and the whole TANDEM concept has opened up NYMAZ's horizons to the potential of international collaboration. But sometimes, the best ideas come when you’re least expecting them.
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