The first Turning Point Network Summit

MAKING CONNECTIONS | Image by Johnny Magee © 2007

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.

Thinking Digital

Everyone's been talking about Digital Britain for a week or so now. Sadly, after a day in the arts council office with no sound, slow network connection, a browser that runs on steam etc... I arrived home feeling a little down on digital.

I'm happy to report, however, that elsewhere in the world the discussions about how to maximize digital opportunities offer hope! Take the video above from the Turning Point South East wiki (http://tpse.org), which outlines some of the emerging thinking about how the visual arts sector in the South East can make the most of online technologies. This is one of a number of conversations, hitting on this topic, happening across the Turning Point Network. I'm currently working with Julia Bell (Manager of the North East group) to coordinate a meeting in September 2009 bringing people together from all the regional groups so we can connect these conversations up, nationally.

The video above was edited together by Saul Albert and The People Speak who helped to structure the first meeting of the emerging online 'working party', on 18 May 2009 - Talkaoke is an experience!

I should also say, in fairness to my poor office computer, that Adrian Friedli, Director of Visual Arts and Literature at Arts Council England, Yorkshire was telling me yesterday about future plans for the organisations technological infrastructure. The signals are strong and positive, and definitely not steam powered!