“Arts after the pandemic may need to be rawer, more basic, more plugged into their communities than ever”. Strike A Light have a plan
Photo by Antonino Visalli on Unsplash
The arts sector has recently been given some degree of financial support from the UK Government, to tide them through the pandemic. But arts and perfomance is also one of the most interesting sectors thinking about how COVID is a profound opportunity to change their model and ethos.
We saw a tweet (left) from that powerhouse of sustainable arts Lucy Neal, commening on a proposal from the Gloucster-based arts organisation Strike A Light.
We went to dig into their proposals - and found both a route-map to thinking about a “new normal” for the arts, and a very concrete proposal.
This (undated) blog sets out Strike A Lights’ vision:
We want to see a world where EVERYONE can access high quality cultural events that are relevant and enriching to them. A world where the systems are fair, adventurous andopen to everyone.
Maybe this pandemic and its aftermath will force all of our hands to do things differently – but maybe that doesn’t need to be a bad thing?
Currently, many artists are underpaid, under-heard and under-supported. We have been inspired by the words of David Jubb in his blog. His vision and suggestions of how wealth and funding could be distributed chime strongly with our thinking. It’s well worth a read.
We want to use this moment, where there is no business-as-usual, to think about bigger changes like this. We’re not sure that getting ‘back to normal’ is what should happen – and we’re not the only ones:
“There has been a lot of reflection during the pandemic, not all of it concluding that the arts should pick up exactly where they left off. This may be the moment for structural change. The British arts after the pandemic may need to be rawer, more basic, more plugged into their communities than ever. And that might not be a bad thing.”
With all of this in mind, we – hopefully along with others – want to build a new normal:
where the arts truly is for everyone
where there are no barriers to access
where artists are supported well
where doors are open and the arts are rooted in our communities and not always in buildings that can, for many, feel like the home of privilege and wealth
So perhaps wondering what to do with any investment they receive as a consequence of Covid, what’s their plan? It’s titled “Let Artists Be Artists”:
We need to value artists in the way we do administrators, producers and general managers. Why not employ them?
That’s why, this summer, we’re contracting 3 artists to work with no ‘targets’, no pre-defined outcome and no pressure for 4 months with 3 different communities in Gloucester. Their brief is simply to work with the community to make people’s lives better through the arts.
The experiment
We want to rapidly extend this idea of longer-term, deeper-rooted employment for artists to work in and with local communities. So we are reallocating some of our programming budget for 2021. We want to employ artists, full-time, for a year and need other organisations to collaborate with us to make this happen.
We want to run this as a national experiment, to see what difference it would make if more arts organisations were to adopt this model – for it to be part of their ‘new normal’… meaning cultural events with artists and communities at their heart.
They cite organisatons who are already working to similar models - Co-Creating Change Network, companies like Slung Low, and Commonwealth.
It might be useful to look to Glasgow, whose new city administration a few years ago committed to a resident artist operating in every council ward of the city. The 30 min video below profiles some of these artist/council collaborations. It’s a rich document of the social-cohering possibilities of a locality-engaged art practice.