ARTISTS TALKING

# 7 [25 April 2008]

Aren’t Artists Busy!!

The CN4M project is gathering pace and interest. After Hafsah Naib’s attendence at the Cultural Partnership this week, there is a buzz gathering around the activity. Also the artists are emerging from (for some) their culture shock – in coming to terms with what exactly this is all about – with new observations and strategies as work develops.
After our meeting last night with everyone I am excited about the project - the passion it is inspiring, the complex ideas coming up and the interconnections between and variety of approaches.

Joe Richardson has been delving into “the diagram” that tries to define networks - and tracing a route through the structure by using me as a starting point and then following up contacts that I recommended and then following contacts that they recommended and so on, to try to understand whether CN4M can really achieve its aims. Can CN4M’s structure communicate with the loose groupings of small organisations and really have much impact on the great twisting organism that is the local decision making process within local Government, as they also try to keep up with shifting policies, central directives and funding priorities. What other models for this are there in other NRF targeted cities – and I wonder what part does local democracy play?
Jil Moore, meanwhile gets on a bus, with Bill the Transport Pool coordinator on “one of the most problematic school run routes” and finds that on that day the “youth” are actually very considerate and polite (if lively) and it’s the bus driver who is creating danger by trying to race through before any children embark. She hears about some small but significant victories that Bill has helped bring about on bus routes.
Andrew has ditched his notion of hi tech “social capital mapping” – discovering that the “personal networks” between organisations are just that and not so easy to reveal. So he’s returned to something much more clunky, a board game, and instead of soical theories has begun to interact with a disability arts project and basic materials to point at the need for something like CN4M when the connections run dry.
Hafsah Naib attended the Cultural Partnership – the meeting that brings together the big players in Culture in Manchester - and hears that they want to “understand the visual arts market” They understand what Dance is and Theatre but how can they get to grips with the Visual Arts? At our own recent meeting, Hafsah was wrestling with the internal and the external in the experience of culture and the symbiotic nature of the exchange. She takes the symbol of the large oval table around which everyone sits, with its doughnut-like hole in the middle – a void – the space inside, and begins to work this into her plans.
to be ctd

# 6 [21 March 2008]

At the risk of sending everyone to sleep with the details of the project I thought I would just add - aren't artists busy these days? I like the project about CN4M cos its trying to allow artists time and space to think and experiment, and yet its set in arena(CN4M) that is all about dull but neccassary meetings and unwieldy structures.
But aren't artists busy? Time flies by and we are all juggling projects, budgets and making work - then promoting it, writing blogs, evaluating, teaching, feeding back......and then there's a living to earn..

# 5 [21 March 2008]

The first meeting was good. All but one artist could make it. Everyone outlined their initial ideas, their interaction so far with CN4M and how ideas were developing. The artists ranged in their approach from the very precise to the relatively loose. Almost everyone was tentative at the time of the meeting, but it felt like a healthy place to be in the process. With no cast iron deadlines, there is time for ideas to gestate and for experiment and play to take place. Focusing and then re-focusing. Apart from anything else its been a time of testing some of the initial proposals – and rethinking in some cases.
By the end of the meeting, the feedback was very positive. Hearing each other had been inspirational, supportive and re-motivated everyone.

For the benefit of the reader, here I re-cap on CN4M, and the purpose of the project: there is a lot of this redefining and reassessing going on. CN4M was set up in as a mechanism by which  community, voluntary organisations and individuals could contribute to decision making in the city. It is organised into thematic pools, which shadow the Manchester Partnership (council and statutory agencies) and geographic areas and communities of interest – see www.cn4m.net for more information.

Each of the artists has opted to work with one or more of the themes / areas of CN4M and in some cases across all of them. It’s an artist research project, instigated by me, through the Culture Pool. My idea was that artists were more likely to engage with CN4M through art, than through meetings and long beauraucratic processes, and that their findings might be useful or interesting to CN4M itself and its members.

# 4 [21 March 2008]

I met all the artists individually, during December and January. I've also been researching to determine ultimate exhibition venues.
The initial idea I had was to exhibit the work at community based venues: community centres, libraries etc, where grass roots community organisations might see the work, and then to culminate in a central Manchester exhibition space, where interested parties in CN4M and the art audience would come together.
 
I sent out a request to all the geographic pool co-ordinators of CN4M to get back to me with suggestions. This hasn't worked. I had a response from only one and he's going to take me on a tour of North Manchester next week.

In the meantime I've been thinking about showing the work in different sites - but not all together. This was reinforced by Kwong Lee, curator at Castlefield Gallery, who agreed to host the first meeting of all the artists, at the beginning of March. The logistics of showing all the artists, together, in up to 6 venues, might over-show the work - by the time we arrive in the final venue, the audience might be exhausted. And so would I!!
 

# 3 [20 February 2008]

Selecting
How do you go about selecting artists from all the applications you get? Putting yourself in the shoes of the selector, as opposed to the applicant (we’ve all had the dreaded thin rejection envelope after all) is an interesting exercise. For one, you get to see how other people present themselves and their ideas, which is very enlightening in itself – and also you can test your own subjective reactions to things like font choices, illustration on the sides of home designed letter heads, handwriting, cds that wont open on your computer, no phone number supplied etc etc. Presentation is obviously very important, however one person's good presentation is another persons over frilliness or poor design! Sometimes the commitment and enthusiasm shine through in a simple hand written postcard - so I guess there are no hard and fast rules I can offer except be honest.

I tried to get beyond such trivial style judgements and concentrate of the idea that was being put forward, looking for original and honest statements of intention and projects that had room for growth and change - ideas that had the spark of intelligence and took an unusual approach. I was  also looking for something that tells me that this person is capable of delivering what they say they can deliver. So track record and experience count to an extent. Having said that, the projects that I’ve worked on over the years have always given opportunities to people with less experience as well as more established artists.

Eventaully, after much deliberation, and with the help of some of the CN4M coordinators, we made our final selection from a submission of around 30 applications.
The artists taking part are: Andrew Wilson, Hafsah Naib, Jo Lewington, Simon Grennan & Christopher Sperrandio, Joe Richardson, Jil Moore, and William Titley.

Since the selection process, I have met with each artist once, mainly to meet up and get to know everyone and offer what information I could about CN4M.

# 2 [28 September 2007]

My main contact with CN4M is the culture pool coordinator, Sue. We set a deadline for all the applications of 15th October and everything is being delivered at her desk as I write this. I may not get to see everything until 17th. Unfortunately Sue is going away today, and has still not managed to get a meeting together with all the pool coordinators, for us to talk with them about the project in more detail. I will try in the meantime to set some individual meeting times with each pool.In addition the pools coordinator seems to have changed jobs and may not be able to get involved any more..

Oh yes - what is a pool? The CN4M is a network of networks of community and voluntary organisations. The networks fall into thematic and geographic groups - many of which overlap, obviously, because for example health inequalities is affected by employment and economy. Sustainable neighbourhood pool may well have links with transport etc etc - and as for culture.... 

It seems that CN4M is about to undergo a review! It does this every year, but the difference this time is that CN4M has become a limited company.  Obviously all the different pool coordinators will be taking part in the review during October and may not feel best disposed to deal with artists at this moment in time. On the other hand perhaps this is just the time to ask artists to examine what happens...

# 1 [6 September 2007]

I am an artist / curator who works with places and people.

A few years ago (2003-4) I was lucky enough to be instigating, organising, fundraising and then helping select and develop the vision for an exhibition from a national open submission of expressions of interest. The work took place in the derelict swimming "palace" Victoria Baths in Manchester. I continue to work on the arts programme there as well as collaborating on other projects.

Around the same time, I got involved with Community Network For Manchester (CN4M.NET) I sit on the culture pool which represents artists and arts organisations working at the grass roots level (it also includes larger organisation's education departments for example). The idea is that Culture Pool feeds back the needs and ideas of the 'community' of cultural practitioners and artists involved with artsnet (network of artists) at the city council's cultural partnership (council/galleries etc) in Manchester.The culture pool also discuss and responds to the council's cultural partnership meetings. Artsnet and culture pool works alongside the other 6 other networks and pools such as environment and health inequalities.

My initial response when I got involved was what on earth can we do? small, disparate organisations, often in competition for funding and with so many varied projects and artist agendas. How can a few individuals represent all that? And really, will anyone really listen? Also the whole process seemed like lots of meetings and how would freelance artists find time to really engage with the process? - you know how we all love long meetings.....perhaps we could exhibit the doodles everyone does...

Despite the success of Artsnet as a busy e.mail network keeping locally based artists in touch with opportunities,exhibitions, concerts, community projects etc, the culture pool itself is not particularly dynamic. I got the feeling that maybe people don't know much about it, despite the good efforts of the volunteers and the one part time worker who runs artsnet / culture pool.

My response was to suggest that we try to get artists to work within the networks and respond to the work of CN4M - its a like research project really and hopefully some innovative and interesting responses will come about.

The applications have started to pop into the inbox now and already people are raising questions about the concept - which is good, its making me think too; the start of the process.