For the next guest post in the Portfolio NW artists talking blog, Curator Richard Parry gives his perspective on critical writing and blogging in the North West:
Having recently relocated to the North West from London I was flattered but also a little surprised to be asked to contribute a text reflecting my thoughts on critical writing in the region. The truth was that this was unfamiliar terrain: I didn’t know any writers in the area and consequently nor did I feel ideally placed to offer such an insight. Furthermore as I began to consider the task in more depth I realised that the very idea of regional writing was hitherto something of an anathema. Until that point, I had not thought about critical writing as tethered to place. Furthermore, as I began to ruminate on this question the more I began to feel that writing was about individuals and how they connected with discourses taking place amidst a larger, borderless ether of readership.
With these thoughts still coursing through my cranium I was invited along to a meeting hosted by The Double Negative, and with additional presentations by Corridor 8 and Creative Tourist. I began to see how the internet provided a bind by which individuals might be part of a writing community (or perhaps set of communities), and how the geography of the region was an important agent in forming those writing fraternities.
In London, one often got the sense of different artistic interest groups being heterogeneous – art people go to art openings, design people go to design openings, film people go to film premieres (one imagines this is what happens in film anyway) and so on. I’m painting this with a broad brush, but you get the idea. It’s a big city where nobody has much time for anything other than what they’re working on, except on rare occasions or the happenchance of personal friendships. What I encountered at The Double Negative was a core of writers with ranging specialisms, operating across the creative industries (to slip into governmental parlance). What I began to appreciate is how the geography of the region presents ideal conditions for the proliferation of the blogger.
The North West, with its cluster of interconnected metropolises, is perfect for the internet scribe. Despite the fact that the cities of the region are relatively close together, there are still fair distances in between. Individuals are never far away from a sizeable number of other individuals, but just far enough to make it a journey. The web offers the possibility to collapse those distances. It’s also cheap (if not free) and open to anyone with the will to write and access to a PC.
So how would I characterise writing in the North West right now? The truth is that I am excited to watch this space, and to continue to learn more about it. I get the impression that we are at a moment of expansion as more and more individuals are starting to commit pen to paper, (or rather fingers to keyboard) amidst the freedom offered by the ‘net. It feels that what once might have been explored in a zine is now an online zine.
A blog is a great place to learn a craft, to discover and nurture a voice – especially during an economic downturn. The key question will be to what extent the writing and production contributes to a wider critical discourse that is more international now than at any previous moment.
Richard Parry is the Curator at Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool.
