Live Art Kitchen Chat 18th June 2015 Patrick Studios

Synopsis

Invited Contributors:

Annie Lloyd- Compass Live Art

Renny O’Shea and Richard Gregory- Artistic Directors of Quarantine

David Hoyle- Performer and Artist

Karen Watson- Artistic Director of East Street Arts and Chair of Compass Live Art Board

Lydia Catterall- Artist and East Street Arts

Adam Young- Live Art Bistro and East Street Arts

Matt Allen- Artist and Live Art Bistro

Grace Surman- Artist working across performance/live art, theatre and choreography

Ellie Harrison- Artist and performance maker

Christie Hill- Producer with Unlimited Theatre and Food for Thought

Ben Mills- Performance Artist

Why are we doing this?

A string of one to ones with live artistsbrought up the same difficulties, barriers and questions. It made sense tojoin the conversations up and share strategies and experiences; long-standing practitioners and early career artists together.

Sustainability

- You’ve had an Arts Council grant and some profile; how do you then build on it and establish yourself?

- How do I sustain myself if I don’t become an NPO?

- If you do want to be regularly funded, how do you transition from being a self-initiating artist to someone who can tackle the forms?

- How do you maintain a practice despite the pressures of study, work, children and funding?

- Whatever we choose to do, there should be a way of thriving and surviving in the wider culture

  • Is part of that being able to influence the people with resources?
  • Is part of that having a part time job and keeping practice separate?
  • Having different ‘hats’?

- National Review of Live Art- A‘social club’ for international live artists- closed after 30 years

  • What’s the ‘thing’ to aspire to now?
  • Do we have to re-emerge every time there’s a change in situation?

- Incredibly uneven economy and ecology; moving from one context to another will mean varied experiences and income.

- DIY culture: festivals, one off projects and projects in responses to communities are the current opportunities are- Sustainable?

- A lack of producers in Leeds

  • Not enough support and training but a massive demand.
  • Understanding the difference between working for different artists Eg. Festival, NPO and personal projects
  • Some artists need to understand the role of the producer in their work- relatively new addition from film

- Making work to be repeated 50 times over vs Making one off work and moving on: How do you sell either of those?

- Succession development

  • New graduates go through it all again, get to know the sector and new artists come through in the meantime…
  • Inheriting a sector that has a false/rose tinted memory of it being easier/better not so long ago.

- A strength Leeds is the range of artists at different career stages and the support they offer each other: ‘It would be great solidify that’

Funding

- Catalyst- Alternative method of funding, particularly focussed on philanthropy. Working towards an American model.

  • A totally new approach to the marketplaceneeds to be embedded in arts education in Britain
  • Organisations supporting new graduates are used to a different culture
  • How do we solve the disconnect? We’re being asked to respond to a culture that doesn’t currently exist

- Community investment Eg. Detroit Soup. Public pay £10 for dinner. 5 artists pitch an idea in need of funding and the audience vote for who should receive the evening’s profits. General public become investors.

- A lot of time is spent ‘servicing’ the demands of what having public funding means

  • Constant justification. Counting numbers. Engagment.
  • “We are about a third as productive as we were before we received public funding, but we have a staff team of 9 people” (We should be talking with funders about this!)
  • Difficult to resist institutionalisation when it allows progression eg. Becoming an organisation
  • “We didn’t set out to be an organisation; we just set out to make the work we wanted to make.”“At 52, I want a salary!”

- Private, trust or festival related funding feels a little more open

-There was a proposal for an arts admin structure that would allow collective and/or a collection of groups supported by Arts Council to receive money in a central hub - This proposal became PANDA

  • The gap still exists- often the answer is to move away or stop

- It seems that funding will reduce significantly further and there is a feeling that larger, major venues and institutions will take more control of the funds remaining. If this is likely to be the situation, something attitudinally and structurally has to change.

- Over the last 10 years, there seems to be pressure on venues to host a new, different, refreshed programme of work.

  • Positive and negative impact- It forces venues to host work they don’t understand
  • How do artists help institutions host a great, varied programme of work, rather than put up with them doing a bad job?

- Small, quickly available amounts get projects off the ground are often the most useful. Eg. LAB £200 grants to artist associates

  • Acceptance, endorsements, confidence- as much value as cash

If the organisations funding artists in a freer way are publically funded, they have to explain to THEIR funders why they’re funding in the way they do.

  • Trusting artists to be artists.

- ‘Value for money’:‘Does this piece of work look worth £5000?!’

Institutions

- Artists feeling insignificant in an institutional context- How ridiculous!

- Curation/presentation/support- Art is often the ‘least’ thing on the agenda. It becomes ‘a business’. Why do it if you don’t love the art?

- Big venues might not think twice about spending 250k on a project, but approach them as an individual artist and ask for a commission and it gets difficult! There is a gap in understanding of what’s needed.

- There is an assumption that larger institutions know the bredth of the form(including an independent, DIY scene) and have made a conscious decision ‘it’s not for us’, but actually they don’t really know or understand it.

- Taking risks and aiming for a different aesthetic has worth in its own right: Artist-led projects as they are rather than a means to an end.

- Ghent National theatre takes on radical theatre makers and gives them a season, resources, audience- Why don’t we do that in Britain?

  • Open, adventurous, supportive- More of that would require bigger, cultural change
  • Europe has examples of people operating completely differently to us with great results

- Does bringing work that ‘exists on the fringe’into a venue make it something else? Do artists reject spaces for this reason?

- View of culture: Still seen as the preserve of a narrow group and institutional structures are embedded in that dynamic.

Venues

- Finding the right venue

  • Desire to host the work and audiences isn’t always matched by capacity
  • Falling between: Too visual art for the theatres and to performance-y for the galleries
  • Hosting this kind of work is reliant on the programmer being progressive and open minded
  • Why do programmers programme this kind of work? Artists know why they’re making it

- The touring circuit is diminishing and festivals are replacing them as the go-to sharing mechanism.

- Club circuit and informal spaces have been central for David Hoyle - “You can experiment and truly improvise”

- Lots of venues try to replicate the success or mimic ‘social space’

- Booking a venue, doing own marketing, staging, technical, production: What does the venue do beyond taking a risk?

- Reaching new audience- Where are the venues that allow for other audiences? Where are the venues to develop works with outside influences?

Relationships

- It’s all about relationships and how we work with each other

- Caring about the work from the artist and participants’ perspectives equally = A better relationship with venues.=

- Quarantine pathway- key venues, people and points

  • A tiny handful of really strong relationships and taking a long time to get to know people really well
  • Commissions and bookings sometimes come years later
  • Critical dialogue and ongoing conversation with peers
  • In amongst that, there are ephemeral, short term, ‘get job done’ relationships

- David Hoyle has linked up with a team; form filling, venue booking, young influences/influencers eg. Cambridge PhD Student

- Festivals come with parameters/briefs/structure- Difficult. You’re already making something and you have to find a brief that fits you at the time. Doesn’t suit work with a short lifespan.

- Longevity of relationships- When the right opportunity/fit crops up, the relationship will already exist.