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Reasons to be cheerful
Susannah Silver considers the impact of the Year of the Artist and it’s legacy.
As Scanner broadcasts his final soundscape on Radio 4, appropriately entitled Endings, its time to get down to the nitty-gritty of assessing and acting upon the legacy of the Year of the Artist (YOTA). That legacy exists in the form of shared memories of actual projects, the piles of evaluation forms, feedback events, conferences and the relationships made in the course of co-ordinating projects between artists and hosts, artists and arts administrators. The beginning of the year started with high excitement, expectations and cynical predictions that woolly evaluation mechanisms would weaken the long-term impact of YOTA as a means to provide evidence of the artist's contribution to society. But let's put that behind us and work with what we've got – a wealth of data provided by the largest British social experiment in artists' working practices. We will be missing a trick if we do not milk it to lobby for practical improvements in artists' rights and to build locally upon the relationships painstakingly developed by YOTA participants. It's worth being reminded of the administrative framework of the YOTA schemes within each UK country. In England the ten regional arts boards...
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