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Why Should We Care About Creativity in the West Midlands?

Typed as the talk happened, so excuse the lack of context, accuracy and typos. My comments in (brackets)

Chair: Robert Yates
Speakers: Soweto Kinch - musician
Stuart Murphy - TV executive, Twofour
Matt Price - writer and editor / curator
Gavin Wade - artist/curator, Eastside Projects

Gavin

Art is an essential public good. Has benefit for society. Considering the unpredictable. How to manage art in the public sphere.

Is art not made for the public, but made by someone as a member of the public?
How art supports culture, how the government supports culture.

Think of Birmingham as no different to anywhere else. Mostly the same but small differences create context. Can put too much focus on making scene and expressing what that scene is. Better to get on with it and hope for best or be more sly - shout in different ways.

Gvt supports culture through intervention. Economic scenario. Arts Council England is an intervention. Another expression of being “the public”. Issue is where subsidies become merely investment - can lose reason why you do art in the first place.

Art as public good. A resource that anyone can draw on. May not be incentive in free market to make something that’s available to everybody. Art gets squeezed out of equation.

Project in 2002: Strike.

Rolls off lots of huge numbers of what would be missing if we had no art. Art has legislative place in society.

Vonnegut: Artist is canary in the coal mine. But being Vonnegut he thinks this is rubbish.

Artist run space is an essential public good. Should be liquid and fit into every crevice. Offering something else.

Eastside Projects open 23rd May. 86 Heath Mill Lane.

Need to examine crevices before filling them.

The process by which we act should be an artwork.

Soweto Kinch

Last album, B19, set in Hockley.

High art or street art? Perceived conflict between two artforms.

Relevance depends on definition of what art is.

early 20th C notion of art for arts sense. Jars with African / Jamaican approach to art.

He sees art doing both. Art that isn’t elitist but can still stand on its own.

Urban art in galleries, etc is a new phenomena.

Art is happening continually. Gleaning art and stories from the mundane. Comedy a powerful asset.

How successful is art is bridging social gaps. Art often inflammatory. Difficult challenge to confront issues that get under audiences skin.

Idea of “white middle class ghetto” where there isn’t any street art.

Art emerges from the ground up. The minute you look at things geographically you miss the point. Look towards people already doing things and validate them.

Matt Price

Why should we care? We have no choice.

We have tiny cultural industries and little turnover compared to what we should have.

Not pessimistic. Much in place for development. Strong public infrastructure in place.

Lot of festivals, strong or moving in right direction.

Need galleries, culture of arts journalism and criticism.

Develop commercially and see increase in creativity.

Not motivated by Bham becoming international phenomenon. But developing economy that relates to international context.

Need to activate region. Support artistic community. Put more resources into those getting success. Need to foster culture of prof development for those producing quality work.

Bigger budgets for regional promotional orgs.

Should be a progression - artists produce works in group shows -> individual shows -> catalogues and journalism -> (something else) -> Artists reps grow -> international context.

We too often fail to make these connections.

Local orgs need budgets to buy works. Tap into international collectors markets.

Social networks, artists networks, commercial networks, public and private networks.

All parts moving together. Awareness, engagement and investment.

Stuart Murphy

(Not really talking about Birmingham ;) )

(Okay, here we go…)

Felt creative pull towards London as kid. That annoyed him.

Clear there are massive regional, cultural and age differences.

Some sweeping generalizations about who likes what TV shows. Hmm…

Less nervousness about the word “local”. Used to mean “crap”.

The middle bit feels anodyne. Universal and local is good.

(I’m not really getting his point, but then he’s from TV and I don’t really get TV.)

Questions from Robert

Gavin: For music, Radio 1 and copyright are a state public good.
Gavin: Art doesn’t have to be a niche. It connects into most aspects of what we do.
Gavin: Need space to do useless things. People don’t intend to do useless things - it’s a function of being human.
Matt: Not try to emulate London but learn from it. Better systems for getting our artists to industry.
Soweto: Fact that he stayed and what he did in Brum made him original and unusual.
Gavin: Artists in Manchester / Glasgow had a passion to stay there and not go to London. Need that passion in Birmingham. Not strategic - the “want” to be there.
Stuart: Value in BBC moving to regions? People in regions were more blinkered, self censoring, etc than in London. BBC can kickstart this.

Question from audience

Audience: How would panel use Gas Hall and Waterhall for touring exhibitions?
Matt: Don’t have budgets.
Gavin: Lovely spaces but need to rip out systems and be more gutsy. Want and deserve more than that.
Matt: Good example was “British Art Show” in surrounding galleries.
Gavin: Need two good things to draw people in. (More is different?)
Audience: Don’t forget Walsall, Wolverhampton etc. Other stuff going on.
Helga Henry: Capital infrastructure investment. Symphony Hall, etc. Build big buildings and big companies came. Midscale investment is missing. Photographic archive. Get reputation for culture by building cultural spaces. Or is scene more vibrant because have to work around that.
Matt: Need $1m a year for collections rather than $1 over five years for three institutions.
Soweto: Draws parallels between lack of small quirky shops in Brum thanks to monumental shops with lack of small quirky arts and large institutions.
Lara Ratnaraja: Is is modesty that stops us going outside?
Gavin: Put a call out for arrogant people. (I need to talk to him about that!)
Audience: In relation to Artsfest, what does Big actually mean? Artsfest as double edged sword.
Matt: Artsfest fantastic family festival but not about promoting nationally or developing cutting edge practices.
Gavin: Don’t know what Artsfest is, which says something. Don’t think Birmingham should do big city wide thing right now. Investment in programs and constant goings on. Then be ready to let loose and do a big project without it looking dodgy.
Jonny Turpie: Birmingham not on radar. Not centre of excellence. Could be centre of excellence in digital. C4 investment.

Robert: Lesson is need to be more arrogant!