NAN

In 2007, Noemi Lakmaier and Joy Stanley were granted a NAN New Collaboration bursary to fund research and development for Final Intervention, a project responding to the lack of opportunities for early-career installation artists to make and show new work. It aimed to organise collaborative projects/exhibitions within buildings about to be pulled down.

In 2008 Artists’ Networks Coordinator Emilia Telese talked to the artists about the bursary and its impact on their future projects:

ET: tell us about your project.

NL/JS: Our New Collaborations bursary project was to enable us to meet regularly to work together to set up and develop the artist initiative Final Intervention. This initiative strives to create opportunities for early career installation artists, to make and show new work within buildings about to be demolished.

On the one hand the activity was aiming to establish Final Intervention as an initiative/organisation and on the other hand to work towards a first project. Our activity involved promoting the concept of Final Intervention in order to identify collaborators among artists as well as among local councils and development companies. We launched a website www.finalintervention.org.uk and an associated email address info@finalintervention.org.uk as a first point of contact with Final Intervention. After initial meetings we are now regularly communicating and sharing ideas with around 35 artists as well as the building and development company the Rydon Group.

Additionally we have been meeting with a fundraising consultant to help us identify possible funding streams for future Final Intervention projects.

ET: What did you want to achieve through your NAN bursary?

NL/JS:The purpose of our New Collaborations project was to develop Final Intervention as an artist-lead initiative responding to the lack of opportunities for early-career installation artists to make and show new work. It aims to organise projects/exhibitions within buildings about to be pulled down to mark the buildings' transition between domestic/commercial use and final demolition.

Once a building has been identified artists will be selected through an open call based on a demonstrable track record of creating exciting site-specific interventions and a sensitivity to the building's particular context.

Artists will visit the building and engage with the local community to inform their response to the building once it has been vacated. Involvement of the local community is essential to the concept of Final Intervention.

Once buildings are demolished the work is gone forever. To document it, it is anticipated that there will be a small print or online publication with each project/exhibition.

The New Collaborations bursary enabled us to do the necessary research and development to establish Final Intervention and to work towards being able to organise its first project. It also enabled us to meet new collaborators; we have now got around 35 artists collaborating on Final Intervention. We have also had meetings between ourselves to discuss the progress of Final Intervention and how to move it forward.

We had the idea for Final Intervention some years before we were awarded the New Collaborations bursary. The purpose of this project was to solidify this idea through research and collaboration and to set up Final Intervention to run successful projects in buildings to be demolished in the future.

ET: What have you achieved through the project?

NL/JS: The idea of Final Intervention has become the reality of a small collaborative artist initiative, about which word has been spreading fast over the past year. We have been talking to people in the building industry and people working for development companies; an area that is essential for the success of Final Intervention, but one which we had lacked any detailed knowledge of at the beginning of the project. Now we have gained some vital understanding about this industry and have been able to forge some important links.  Both of us have greatly increased our arts management skills through working and leading on this project. Final intervention has been contacted by over 500 people to date to enquire about it or to express their excitement about the project and its potential.

ET: What do you think will be the effect of your NAN bursary for your group in the long term?

NL/JS:Over the next 5 years we aim to grow Final Intervention into a small but sustainable arts organisation that will fund itself primarily through project income and only secondarily though arts funding. Through our research and work with developers we have learned about the 106 agreement, a pot of money which exists in most medium to large scale urban developments that is legally tied to be spent on activity that will benefit the wider community. Developers will be able to fund Final Intervention projects through their 106 agreements.   In this way we are hoping Final Intervention will eventually be able to run 2-3 projects a year.

The work on the project of developing Final Intervention - made possible though this NAN bursary has been a very exciting experience. It has been disappointing to learn how dependent Final Intervention is on the slow and convoluted processes of the building industry. However, the prospect of progressing and growing Final Intervention further in collaboration with the Rydon Group and other developers is a very exciting and challenging prospect for us.

Without this bursary Final Intervention would still only be an idea. Thank you NAN!

2010 update: Noemi Lakmaier and Joy Stanley's work has gone from strength to strength, and one of the deriving projects has been POST Artists, a large artist-led initiative working with site-specific interventions in urban spaces. See NAN's POST Artists' in-depth focus for May 2010 on www.a-n.co.uk/nan/article/630330

First published: a-n.co.uk May 2010