ROOMMAN JOURNAL

The Visual Art Blueprint

2009-11-24T12:47:57Z

Creative & Cultural Skills
23 November 2009

A major workforce development plan for the visual arts sector has been launched at the new Nottingham Contemporary gallery in the East Midlands.

Developed by employers and practitioners in the visual arts sector, the Visual Arts Blueprint, published by Creative & Cultural Skills in partnership with Arts Council England, puts in place an action plan to tackle the skills needs of the visual arts sector across its 37,480-strong workforce.

The Visual Arts Blueprint calls on the sector for an increased commitment to continuing professional development and training, specifically leadership and business skills. It also highlights the urgent need to diversify a workforce which is 95% white and facing ever-increasing global competitiveness.

There is also emphasis within the Blueprint on the need to ensure that the visual arts sector interacts well with the education system, ensuring that qualifications are fit-for-purpose and that students thoroughly understand what it means to work in the industry.

The Visual Arts Blueprint was developed through extensive consultation with those in the sector, ranging from individual artists, art development agencies, and public and commercial galleries from across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The drafting of the document was overseen by an Advisory Panel made up of key representatives from the sector.

Tom Bewick, Group Chief Executive, Creative & Cultural Skills, said:

“The Visual Arts Blueprint springs directly from research and consultation with visual arts employers. It is a crucial call to action for the sector. Although the visual arts contribute £1.9billion GVA to the UK economy each year, we are in danger of losing our place as one of the world’s leading visual arts hubs unless skills needs are addressed directly. We want to make sure that everyone in the visual arts sector is aware of the full range of opportunities open to them, and is supported consistently and coherently throughout their training and professional life.”

Vivienne Bennett, Director, Visual Arts Strategy at Arts Council England, said:

“Workforce development is absolutely vital for the visual arts in the UK. Now that we have mapped out many of the potential solutions for strengthening professional resources and pathways, it is important that we can come together as a sector to deliver a range of schemes and new ways of working to improve our professional and creative lives.”

Stephen Beddoe, Programme Manager, Artquest and member of the Visual Arts Skills Advisory Panel, said:

“The Blueprint is important to practising artists and freelance practitioners in that it begins to clearly articulate the complexity and diversity of approaches that make up the sector. It is a road map allowing us to better understand (and appreciate) the fact that practice and professionalism are absolutely interlinked. It is a Blueprint that all in the sector can sign up to.”

Download the Visual Arts Blueprint.

David Cotterrell: Bridging the Gap...

2009-11-14T18:43:11Z

Bridging the Gap from David Cotterrell on Vimeo.

Having a short break from downloading information from the huge pile of Post-it notes generated at the 06 November event, and just finished watching this video from VAGA's Making the Case symposium, held at Tate Modern in September 2009.

The presenter, David Cotterrell, always insightful and articulate, does a brilliant job of 'situating' the artist.

The AIR advisory group, to which David refers, is I feel a really critical link for the Turning Point Network. If you don't know about their work do click here and find out more: http://www.a-n.co.uk/air

Click here to find out more about David: http://www.cotterrell.com

Measuring success across the Turning Point Network...

2009-11-11T10:31:50Z

One of the many questions that are emerging from the notes of last week's Turning Point Network event, is that of how we will know if the Turning Point Network has been successful: what are the indicators of success? How will we measure the impacts?

To help us to identify some answers we have commissioned Annabel Jackson Associates to develop an evaluation framework for the pilot phase, through to March 2012.

Annabel and her team will be a resource that any and all of the visual arts groups can draw on. In her words:

"The role of the evaluator will be to help regional groups and the national coordinator with conceptualising and reflection; to carry out surveys that will help to embody and share knowledge across the network; and to provide an overall judgement of the success of the network, including value for money.

Success will be defined taking account of the intangibles (development of a networks and partnerships) as well as the tangibles (delivery of projects and outcomes [within each of the groups])."

A summary of the evaluation framework is available to download now. The full framework is in development, but will require close consultation with people in each of the groups over the coming weeks.

One aspect of the framework I'm particularly interested in is the 'network analysis'. This will allow us to collect and visualise data about relationships in, across and extending out of the network.

I hope that this evaluation will help everyone involved to make an informed choice about whether they think continued commitment to the network is of value post March 2011. Please do get involved!

Over the summit...

2009-11-07T20:59:00Z

DELEGATES AT THE BALTIC, DEEP IN CONVERSATION

This post follows a really brilliant (for me certainly, but I hope for others too) few days in the North East for the first Turning Point Network event.

This is also my first post using a new mobile application, so fingers crossed it works!

Incredibly 110 people cleared space in their diaries and, in many cases, made long journies up to BALTIC, in Gateshed. Generousity and a willingness to engage really created a positive atmosphere in which a wide range of discussions were held around 11 tables.

This first event was about starting conversations that will, I hope, now find their way back into the various regional groups. Put another way, there was nothing conclusive about the day - no answers were found. Rather, the key issues facing us were discussed and debated in an attempt to 'define the moment' we find ourselves in, together.

I've collected over 100 post-it notes, each home to an idea, thought, provocation or point of action raised on the day. My job over the next few days (half way through now) will be to distill these down into something coherent that can be shared with everyone.

Once we've gathered some feedback on that first piece of work, Julia Bell and I hope to commission some pieces of writing that will extend thinking in key areas.

Thanks to the Archive team at BALTIC we have some bits of video footage from the day, which I will be uploading soon.

If you would like to be notified when the videos are ready, the best thing to do it subscribe to my blog now... hint, hint.

Programme announced for the first national #turningpointnetwork event

2009-10-24T11:54:58Z

The final programme has been announced for the first meeting of people from across the various visual arts strategy groups, that make up the Turning Point Network.

Hosted by BALTIC and Turning Point North East, this event will bring together over 100 leading figures from across the visual arts in England.

It will be a day of discussion and debate that attempts to 'define the moment', and explore how co-operation through the Turning Point Network might contribute to a stronger visual arts.

More information about the programme can be found here, on the roomman website.

For anyone not attending and who wants to follow the conversation online, I (and other attendees too, I hope) will be making regular posts to Twitter, using the #turningpointnetwork tag.

Thanks to support from the Archive team at BALTIC, we will be posting vox-pops collected throughout the day on the Turning Point North East website (currently in development).

A second national event is also now in planning. It will be hosted by Turning Point South East during Spring 2010, at a venue to be confirmed. This second event will invite into the conversation many people who, although not working through one of the visual arts groups, are critical to the full realisation of this emerging national network.

If you have any questions about this event please do contact Simon Zimmerman via the contact page.

For more information about the genesis of this first event, and to learn more about who was invited to attend, please click here now.

The Centre of Attention on the Isle of Bute?

2009-09-21T08:13:03Z

STILL FROM DARLING | Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive

I know we have an agreement about shameless self-publicity but I just can’t resist…

Little did I know that when I visited Mount Stuart on the Isle of Bute - while having a break with family in Argyll this year - I’d end up "starring" in the Centre of Attention’s shot-for-shot remake of the 1965 film Darling, which shot a young Julie Christie to stardom.

Entitled Action Diana this guerilla film project is the inaugural art exhibition at the newly opened Art & Design Academy at Liverpool John Moores University designed by Rick Mather Architects, and is being presented as part of Abandon Normal Devices.

It’s amazing where art finds you, and it’s shocking how easily I’m persuaded to get involved in some hammy "acting". Watch-out for me on the big screen if you’re in the North West during September. I'm pretty sure I won't be repeating Christie's success at the 1966 Oscars!

MOUNT STUART | Photograph: Rex Features

If you get chance to visit Bute before summer ends, there is a Katjya Stuntz exhibition in the gallery and gardens until the end of September.

The first Turning Point Network Summit

2009-09-14T15:51:36Z

A date has been set for the first national Turning Point Network event.

Hosted by BALTIC and Turning Point North East on 06 November 2009 this will be the first opportunity for the wide range of people involved in the various Turning Point groups to come together. It will be a day of provocation and debate, and of informal discussion and networking. It will also be a key opportunity to share learning across the groups, and to agree solutions to some practical issues like how we make the most of our resources to create the online tools the groups need.

For this first event we will bring together representatives of Steering Groups and Working Parties from all the groups, which include artists, independents and leaders of all types and scales of organisation. We anticipate around 8 people will attend from each group.

I’ve already been asked a few times why we are not extending this to include representatives from national agencies. It’s a good question, and indeed Turning Point South East are already planning an event for 2010 that will invite people from all national organisations, representative bodies and the other arts councils too. However, we (the other coordinators and I) feel that a chance to meet, for those who are leading the development of these groups now, is needed to consolidate what we have. Like any network, Turning Point needs to build capacity / bandwidth in stages. It will be stronger for all in the long-term as a result.

The archive team at BALTIC will be recording everything on the day, and as ever I’ll be posting links to the material once it’s live.

Big is not big enough

2009-09-14T10:13:14Z

I’m just back from a month of: travel to places with limited network; experiences that needed time for reflection before committing them to words; and a rather large recruitment for a Turning Point evaluator (more to follow). As a result it’s been a while since I last posted an entry, and I’m about to post several in short succession. For both these things, I am sorry…

Written 18th July 2009:

Yesterday’s meeting of people from right across the visual arts sector in the Yorkshire region was undoubtedly a big moment for the people who have been helping to drive the development of a Turning Point Yorkshire & Humberside.

The context of the conversation was an idea that first emerged at a meeting of more than 50 people working across the visual arts, at the arts council’s Dewsbury office, in late 2008: The Yorkshire Project. This would be a programme driven by collaborations between visual artists, organisations, independents and audiences right across the region. The first Turning Point Yorkshire and Humber ‘Sector Forum Event’ was then the ideal place to pose a challenge to the sector to dream up ideas for what a ‘big’ project for Yorkshire might constitute and why.

Providing some inspiration were three speakers involved in unquestionably big things:

Paul Domela from Liverpool Biennial talked about the benefits of big (visibility, diversity and the ability to make structural change), but also highlighted the challenges (resource heavy and difficult to balance stakeholder agendas). He described the need to build up from a series of small stabs, where both people and trust are critical to success. Paul ended his presentation with a provocation – “big is not big enough” – and offered the following pieces of advice to the Yorkshire contingent:

It’s important to have a dream that’s bigger than the big project.
Start with your local assets.
Make sure you are adding value to local assets.
Make sure you have people.
Communicate.

Jean Cameron from Glasgow International Festival of Visual Arts (GI) talked about the idea of the festival, of each occurrence of the festival, as a moment in a continuum. Jean highlighted the importance of the distribution of roles between people across Glasgow, speaking to and of its participants: this way of working had built attendances by 50% for all those involved in GI. She explained that collective buy-in was critical to success, and that successful big projects can secure support from outside of the sector. Civic, Economic and Tourist policies are all important to GI, but navigation is complex, and the speed of taking a funder on a journey to understand other kinds of economic drives can be frustrating. Jean offered the following pieces of advice to help thinking around the Yorkshire Project idea:

It’s important to remember the need to make good art – and not get sidetracked by agendas.
Managing expectations is key.
Maintain relevance, visibility and dynamism, between festivals is hard but critical.
Profile raising goes hand in hand with strengthening: a continuum.
Ambassadors play a vital role.

Peter Jenkinson an independent Cultural Broker who was a key player in Channel 4’s Big Art project, discussed the idea of possibility.

“Where you look and see nothing, it’s not nothing at all. It’s possibility.”

He discussed the idea of Yorkshire as a Death Valley of possibility, and the “absolutely fabulous and totally odious, totally hideous” biennial culture (which is ‘totally ironic’ given that I just spotted him at Istanbul 2009 - added September 09). He discussed the ideas of an opening out, of spectacular ambition and impossible ambition, of being unapologetic, and of collaboration, co-creation, sharing and inclusiveness that is purposeful. He discussed the idea of bringing “community of all kinds into collision”. He made reference to Charles Ledbeater’s Art of With essay and announced the “death of the audience”, going on to describe an experience culture that supported big ideas like The Big Lunch, and provided the possibility of a “total 360 degrees between people living in a city or region.” Finally, he challenged those in attendance to be “impossibly optimistic” in their approach.

The session continued with a short presentation from a representative of Wakefield council about the West Yorkshire Sculpture Initiative, followed by a series of group discussions about the possibilities for a region wide project. As one might expect, there were an extremely wide range of ideas and opinions. In general people seemed to question the feasibility of one big project across such a huge geography, favouring a strategy that creates synthesis between a range of initiatives to create a whole that is bigger than the sum of it’s parts: this was described by one group as a rhizome – a complex, and mutually dependent network of roots existing below the surface, whose collective efforts give life to the visible things above.

Video and notes from the day will be available on a new webspace for TPYH in the coming weeks. I will, of course, post a link here. If you’re not subscribed to the blog, do it now!

North x North West and being lost in the Lakes

2009-08-31T19:00:00Z

IMAGE BY TREVOR BROWN | I'm pretty sure I'm in the photo. I'm the guy stood on one leg trying to get the GPS signal?

I was invited over to Ulverston - in the far reaches of the North West - today for a meeting with Lindsay Taylor from the Harris Museum and Art Gallery, and Hayley Skipper, Arts Development Officer for the Forestry Commission based at Grizedale.

Lindsay and Hayley are sharing responsibility for the development of the "North x North West" Turning Point group, which will draw together representatives from right across the north of the North West region. This is a large rural area, with a constellation of small organisations (in terms of their capacity), working at anything but close proximity. Whilst this presents a number of challenges for developing a Turning Point group, the opportunities here are the high levels of motivation and ambition, and a sense of a shared culture despite the distance between.

A few initial meetings have been held to-date, and a ‘visioning day’ is in the planning to help draw focus from the thinking that has emerged. In addition I have been invited to meet the group so I can share what is happening across the network, and to reassure the group that others are at a similar stage of development.

I left with the feeling that something really dynamic is going to develop in that part of the world, especially with Linsday and Hayley doing the navigating.

On navigation, I left Ulverston and headed for Penrith for a weekend away with friends. Sadly I forgot to turn my ‘Sat Nav’ of walking mode, so instead of a 45-minute trot up the M6 I spent 3 hours lost in the wilds of the Lake District. It was amazing! My encounter with a family of goats reminded me of Dutton and Swindells’ description of their encounters with animals during their residency in Seoul. This paper by them was recently published in the Journal of Writing in Creative Practice. If you can find a copy of the journal it is well worth a read.

Testing, testing...

2009-07-21T13:39:21Z

Sorry everyone, I'm just testing the new Feed Burner email subscription tool that's been built into the roomman Blog.

Please feel free to ignore this message, or heed the covert message and head to the Blog now to subscribe for email updates if good old Simple Syndication isn't working for you.