Scale matters for modelling national theatres

Andy Field’s blog in the Guardian about the National Theatre is provoking lively debate, much of it because the subbed headline Why We Should Really Demolish the National Theatre is, according to Andy, not what he means at all.  The main thrust of his argument is that a national theatre should not be chained to a concrete mass.  His desire for the National to work across England, free of buildings, is the latest expression of the current theatrical vogue for producing theatre outside of conventional spaces and for encouraging the audience to become more active players.

In fact, the National has pioneered national engagement with its work with NT Live which reaches a new and broader audience throughout Britain and overseas.  This will deliver wider and more far reaching  benefits than packing up the NT shows and touring them throughout the land.

Andy is also a fan of the new models for national theatres, in particular The National Theatre of Scotland which is not boxed in by bricks and mortar, and the National Theatre of Wales which launches this year.  But, to make an obvious point, England is not Scotland.  There is the issue of scale.  Scotland does not have the mega regional producing venues of Leeds, Manchester and the like.  At 5m, the population of Scotland is just less than that of the North West of England.

NToS was initiated by the Scottish Government at the behest of the theatre community, to work with it in partnership and not to compete with it.  And we didn’t need another building, as we have lots already.  This model is not without its problems as the very success of NToS  means that it can hoover up talent, attention and resources but the success of NToS is highly dependent on a healthy Scottish theatre sector.

Scotland is a small country where the national theatre is a crucial expression of cultural identity and is then more similar to other small nations where the national theatre,  of whatever model, has a particularly significant role as a national cultural institution.  In Ireland, the current proposals to re-house the Abbey in the GPO building rather than in a new one reflects its primary importance as a cultural institution.

The Royal National Theatre has a greater role than as a national theatre of England and it has responsibilities  as a national cultural institution.  It has a perfectly serviceable building and does a great job .  Yes theatre should take place everywhere, but sending the National out all over England when there are so many other major players cant really make sense.

 

Proposed Artistic Collaboration on The Email – will it have the Vital Spark?

New Romance by Email from Mathew Billingtons portfolio

Being a woman who is interested in the way that digital media influences the art of conversation, I am excited at the prospect of the collaboration between Scottish writer and artist Alastair Gray and Turner prize winner Douglas Gordon. They want to make The Email a 21st century documentary in homage to the classic John Grierson short The Night Mail, based on the poem by WH Auden.

Douglas Gordon has created art in digital media for years including his portrait of Zidane. But what is fascinating is Alasdair Gray’s take on this. The Times report states:

“Part of the creative challenge for Gray is to discover all he can about e-mail, a subject of which he is cheerfully ignorant. “I don’t handle it myself, I have a secretary who does it for me,” he said. “The main thing would be to discover enough about the technical process to find a kind of rhythm. Auden’s text: ‘This is the Night Mail, crossing the border/ Bringing the cheque and the postal order’ has the definite rhythm of a steam train.”

“Discovering the different clickety-click rhythm to accompany an e-mail documentary will be a matter requiring some research.”

The project is is crammed with creative powers and distinctive voices. Auden, Gordon, Gray, Greirson – what a a mash up. Its up for the Creative Scotland Vital Spark awards, created for just such projects.

Producer John Archer also has an interesting take. He says:
“We want to find examples of how people have used e-mail for the big turning points in their lives,” Archer said. “It’s easy to use e-mail to say ‘I love you’, but a lot tougher to say: ‘I’m leaving’.””

A rich seam, huh?

But is it the concept already passed its sell by date? The Iphone has superceded email for intimate conversations and the Ipad will take collobarative, intimate communication into new territory.

 

Traditional Arts need to be woven into the fabric of Scotland’s life – but also to shine

Graven Images Lampshade for Harris Tweed Hebrides

The traditional arts became increasingly uncool during the last century in Scotland, along with learning Scottish history and using Scottish words.  Largely ignored by professional arts organisations and funders, much of the song, dance and storytelling was left to a handful of individuals and membership organisations.  We nearly lost Hebridean step dancing all together and it had to be reintroduced  in some area from Cape Breton by a Swede, Mats Melin. The problem with these years of snobbery and denial is not only that, as a nation, we don’t experience and value them enough  but also that the traditional arts sector has felt marginalised and disgruntled.   These factors compounded, we run the risk of the traditional arts becoming preserved in too stiff an aspic, listed as heritage and not a vital part of contemporary Scotland.

So a Traditional Arts Working Group was set up to ‘consider  the future support arrangements for Scotland’s traditional arts’  and now it has reported.

Its major beef is the lack of esteem in which some traditional arts are held in Scotland. Only some, because literature, some music, visual arts and crafts have avoided this, largely through creating products for which there is a market.  So we are mostly talking about traditional dance forms and some traditional ‘folk’ music.    And storytelling, which has been preserved, refreshed and re-energised  by the leadership, focus and activities of the Scottish Storytelling Centre.

The Working Group seeks ‘parity of esteem’ for the traditional arts with the contemporary culture which it sees valued by holders of the public purse strings.  Some of the gulf stems from old divisions of class and  the ancient highlands/lowlands divide.  Most people in the Highlands and Islands would not recognise the bleak picture painted in the report – with a vibrant culture which includes and often majors on the traditional and the huge success of the feisan.

The report makes comprehensive recommendations for interventions to improve esteem, information and conservation, teaching and learning and performance and contains some good ideas.

Take the suggestion for mentoring  – great – and thats more than for the traditional arts.  What we need throughout the cultural life of Scotland is a system whereby members of the community with expertise and, more importantly, the passion for theatre, dance, photography, step dancing or singing can inspire and mentor the young, through going to their local schools.  This happens in primary schools in small communities but we need to open up the system in the bigger anonymous towns where skills and passions lay undetected and unsolicited.  Likewise, we need to encourage volunteers out of school and extend the skills and expertise of accredited dance teachers.

This is a better recommendation than the suggestion that every child should have access to education in the traditional arts, provided in the traditional ways of the Scottish public sector – more demands on teachers and/or more money for blanket programmes like the Youth Music Initiative, costing some £10m a year.  The country can’t afford it and such initiatives are never sustained.

As is so often the case with working groups where collegiate working rules, with a need to involve everyone and without an independent strategist, the report is all inclusive and also gets tangled up in structures.  It is keen to recommend that the traditional arts of all cultures which make up a modern Scotland should be included.  Its recommendations are for the Government, Historic Scotland, Creative Scotland, local authorities, Learning and Teaching Scotland and Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all.

There is a suggestion of both a new national performance company and an independent trust which gives out grants, while Creative Scotland, the Government and others will deliver on strategy, research and coordination, while preserving and strengthening the existing agencies in dance and music.   The structures suggested are convoluted and there is a much simpler solution, lighter touch, single agency approach which is easier to see from the outside when you don’t have to worry about ruffling feathers, breaking eggs or in any other ways challenging the status quo.  What’s needed is a small single agency which shines a spotlight on Traditional Arts against a tapestry of integrated support, which advocates, partners and delivers high profile traditional arts events.

The Working Group follows the well trodden path of other groups and commissions including the Cultural Commission, which had some very good ideas but got tangled up in structures and universality.  The Scottish Executive took a hatchet to it and embarked upon a streamlined Cultural Strategy leading to either a castration or a simplified version of the 121 recommendations of that report, depending on who you listen to, and Creative Scotland.

So over to the Government to respond to the report and to cherry pick or distill.

We have got to get beyond the snobbery we inherited from decades of denial of Scottish culture, language and history.  We need to preserve the traditions of the past.  But then we need to move on.  The traditional value and craft of Harris Tweed is being re-energised  through contemporary culture. Storytelling is growing as a medium of today.  For our traditional arts to be relevant today, they need to be more than preserved.  Recognising their value and safeguarding them is the first step towards   celebrating them  and developing them in a focussed way relevant to today’s, and tomorrow’s culture.

 

Out of the Box: 21st century theatres in Dublin and Dallas

Daniel Liebeskind's Grand Canal Theatre: from Pallotron's Flickr photostream

From different angles, two new theatres in Dublin and Dallas are opening up  new possibilities for artistic and commercial theatrical success.  After three centuries of boxed theatre, from  chocolate boxes to black boxes,  and a focus on preservation and conservation, its time to lift the lid for exploration and collaboration.

In Dublin, the opening in March of Daniel Liebeskind’s iconic Grand Canal Theatre will open up a much wider set of programming possibilities for the city and may begin to establish a more sustainable ecology.  The Grand Canal Theatre, which opens in Dublin’s Docklands in March is part of the major Dublin Docklands development  which you can get to by crossing the Liffey over the latest in the great artist bridges  the Samuel Becket bridge. With 2100 seats, the theatre is state of the art technically and architecturally, taking all the know-how of theatre engineers, acousticians and designers to create a great theatre space.   The possibilities it opens up are enormous, not only in programming international dance, opera, musicals and theatre but also by creating the space for development of a greater commercial sector in Ireland.   The theatre community is suffering from the prospect of further cuts in public expenditure.  But the skills and talents of theatre companies and individual producers have produced commercial success on Broadway and elsewhere and they will have their eye on the potential of this new space.

In Dallas, Joshua-Prince Ramus has turned the whole process of theatre architecture on its head,  The fly-tower in the new Wyly Theatre is a tower which flies,  with not only the roof raising but the walls too, literally opening up the theatre.  The potential for artistic invention and community collaboration is enormous and blows away the conventions of the last century, putting the artistic inventor in the lead with the architecture following. As Ramus says, “you can watch Becket against the Dallas skyline”.

Both of these developments were enabled by corporate philanthropy and interventions.  In Dublin,  the developer Harry Crosbie and the Docklands Corporation and in Dallas AT& T and the Wylys created an environment where such risks could be taken.

Here in the UK Leicester’s Curve may be our last example of innovatory theatre architecture for some time.  Now we are boxed in. Our theatres are all built and refurbished with public money in a climate which has become increasingly resistant to risk of any sort.  The Arts Lottery funded some great new buildings and some refurbishments but often on the basis on minimising risk, ensuring that every pound of public expenditure would lever the ‘best value’ return.   

 For those buildings not refurbished during the Lottery largesse there are residual problems.  The Kings in Edinburgh presents world class theatre particularly during the Edinburgh Festival, in a building which is woeful in its conditions.  The City Council will not fund a major refurbishment so the theatre will need to struggle on.

 As we batten down the hatches, we need  to keep an eye on possibilities for opening up theatres and not being a slave to the old buildings.  Some of our chocolate box theatres, like Frank Matcham’s must be preserved as our national heritage and ideally animated as local live performance spaces.   But we need to move on and free theatre from the restrictions of old buildings. And look for ways to raise the roof and open the walls.

 

The vexed question of supporting Scottish creative talent in Britain

Matthew Paris’ map of Great Britain. St Albans, c.1250 British Library Cotton MS Claudius D.vi, f.12v Copyright © The British Library Board

At the State of the Arts Conference last week, a last minute switch led me to being part of the panel discussing Has Britain Got Any Talent for Talent? instead of a session on the public and the arts. Thinking about it, I realised that I was being asked to consider two concepts which were largely fuzzy.  One was the notion of ‘talent’ itself, given its current diverse use to mean anything to young performers, staff in a corporate organisation, contestants in a talent show and to anyone who works in the screen industries;  and as applied to the individual gift each of us has in life. And its overuse in the public sector applied to skills and employment as in Creative Britain: new Talents for the New Economy.  Which brings me to the other fuzzy concept, that of ‘Britain’.  ‘Britain’ is properly neither the UK, which is Great Britain and Northern Ireland, nor Great Britain, which is England Wales and Scotland, not the British Isles which includes the whole of Ireland.

Britain includes nations where cultural policy is devolved and, in Scotland, so are many other powers including education, but neither fiscal policy nor tax raising powers.  So, within the broad canvas of Britain and Talent, some areas are less British and more Scottish.  The importance of supporting, celebrating and rewarding artistic talent as an expression of cultural identity is less and less of a British issue and more of a national one for the devolved nations, particularly in Scotland.

Many Scottish creatives and artists now identify as Scottish and /or Scottish British as opposed to British. They compete, exhibit, perform and trade on international platforms and the best are awarded British and international prizes, like Richard Wright and Carol Ann Duffy.

The symbiotic relationship between artists and cultural identity is enshrined in many international policies and the recognition and support of a nation’s artistic and creative talent has a higher value to small and emergent nations.

And, for those artists who may not be commercially successful – the poet, the painter – the greatest recognition can come from the state.

In 1969 Charles Haughey, the then Taisoch of Ireland, closely advised by the writer Antony Cronin, made changes to state policy which signalled to the world the importance of artists to the independent state of Ireland, through the introduction of three things:

1 the exemption from income tax from creative content and products – paintings, composition, books, etc .This was later capped and is now under threat again as Ireland fights severe economic crisis.

2. tax incentives for investors in the Irish film industry, in a move which has had long term economic impact

3. the establishment of Aosdana, the academy of recognised artists, where being a member confers recognition and reward

Not only have these measures contributed towards Ireland’s international artistic success and reputation but they have engendered a respect for artists as leaders. In the bloody fighting in Ireland over the funds in a decimated public purse, the arts sector has fought and won through a brilliant campaign. Using  hard evidence about the sector’s economic contribution of €11.8 billion or 7.6% of GDP was one weapon which saved the Film Board, Culture Ireland and 94 per cent of the arts budget.  Another was the impassioned influence of artists who campaigned publicly or who gave evidence to political committees, including Sebastian Barry, Joseph O’Connor, Colm McCann, Colm Tobain to Brendan Gleeson, given prime place in the Dail and the media as respected leaders, confident, assured and celebrated.

While other countries have made some tax concessions for artists, no other country has made such a major statement about the importance of artistic talent to its cultural identity.

For Scotland, recognising, celebrating and supporting its artistic talent is a key component of cultural policy, a devolved power. As a small country, recognising the talent may be relatively easy.  But the powers to support that Scottish talent is limited by  Westminster.  The current minority SNP administration is committed in principle to tax exemptions for artists but does not have the fiscal autonomy to do this.   Our world leading talent for interactive games in Dundee has watched its competitive position weaken as France, Canada and now Ireland offer tax incentives.

The Scottish Government is bringing forward the Referendum Bill to support greater devolution of such matters. Fiona Hyslop, the Culture Minister, said yesterday

“Artists and creators often hold up a mirror to society, reflecting back the experience of belonging; nowhere more so than in Scotland, where our distinctive cultural life is known the world over.

“I firmly believe that a Scotland with more control over its own affairs – a Scotland more confident in itself – would see fresh creativity shine through as a result. In turn, a more confident nation leads to an even more creative one – a virtuous circle of increasing confidence and creativity.

“There is a hard edge to this, of course, as Scotland trades on the international recognition of its culture and heritage. It is a major attraction for visitors and showcases our country as a diverse and exciting place to live and work; so increased confidence and creativity can only be good for business.

Artists in Scotland have an important role to play in the success of the nation as well as in the UK – sorry – Britain,  and internationally.  And political recognition with visible backing is essential.

 

Culture Secretaries who want to win hearts and minds and stay seated

Yesterday’s inaugural State of The Arts Conference was framed by curtain-raiser and curtain-closer performances from the Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw and the Conservative Shadow Jeremy Hunt.Both men have a high level of fluency in the lingo of culture with all its complexities and nuances.  Both demonstrate a commitment, passion and understanding of  the arts’ intrinsic value as well as their crucial value to the creative economy.  Both are fully-signed up to the essential need to subsidise the arts to achieve excellence and engagement.

And both are imagining the future in the context of the impact of the recession and reduced public expenditure overall. This will inevitably mean less funding for the arts whether routed through the Lottery, annual expenditure through DCMS or through arts funding through local authorities, or from private investment.

How different will the manifestos be? That will largely depend on the party politics and election strategy.  The time honoured themes of interest to the arts community are funding and policy.

Jeremy Hunt promised that, under his leadership in a conservative government,there would be a ‘golden age for the arts’. He laid out commitments yesterday to return lottery funds to the arts and to create a more philanthropic culture for private investment. He set out targets to reduce administrative costs in ACE and to encourage the building up of endowments in cultural institutions. He also indicated that he would look to take a firmer hold of cultural policy were he to be in charge at DCMS and to stop what he called ‘sub-contracting of policy’ to bodies such as Ofcom and ACE.

But manifestos and Culture Secretaries are not the only indicators of a political party’s commitment to the arts.  The arts community certainly took note of Shadow Chancellor George Osborne’s speech at the Tate in November last year when he pledged support for culture not just for its economic impacts, but because “art matters for art’s sake”.

The arts community is also influenced by the likely performance of the Culture Secretary both as an effective Champion for Culture within government and as a leader who can deliver sustained improvement – and this means being in the job long enough.  As Hunt and Bradshaw have developed a deeper and broader understanding of the arts and relationships with its many key players, they understand the need to stay in the Culture Chair for a decent length of time. Hunt pledged his avowed commitment to retain the role of Culture Secretary and that of Ed Vaizey as Arts Minister, should they get in. As Bradshaw apologised for the fact that there has been a bit too much change before him, he likewise expressed his desire stay in the job for some time.  None of them can guarantee this of course but its to be hoped that we avoid the musical chairs which so often unseat good ministers.

In Scotland, where we have had 9 culture ministers in 10 years, we should take note.

 

Aberdeen needs some Arbitration, Conciliation and Negotiation to create a winning 21st century civic and cultural centre

The row over the future of Aberdeen’s Union Terrace gardens intensified today with the launch of the public consultation over City Square from Aberdeen City and Shire Economic Future (ACSEF).

On the surface, it looks like leaders in Aberdeen are consulting the public about a vision for regeneration of the city which could combine contemporary art and culture, green space, markets and community and social celebration.  The plans to create a civic square which sympathetically integrated arts and culture as well as the natural beauty and heritage of the site sounds, in the same superficial way, like a good idea.

Respondents to the public survey on the plans to create a civic square in or on Aberdeen’s Union Gardens today are asked to rate their desire for public art, a contemporary arts centre and performing arts.

But ACSEF’s plans will at worst scupper completely the firmly developed and largely funded plans of Peacock Arts to create a contemporary arts centre. Peacock and masses of supporters have campaigned against ACSEF’s development (with 4400 signatures to the petition and  a Facebook Group), as have a third group protesting against the loss of the green heritage.  Peacock Arts’ frustrations are exacerbated by an apparent lack of collaboration between ACSEF and Peacock.

In masterplanning terms, a development on Aberdeen’s Union Gardens could create a new heart to the city and could create a cultural quarter linking His Majesty’s Theatre to the Music Hall through the proposed city square, containing a contemporary arts facility. This could be an economic, social and cultural winner which is likely to need some compromise all round.

Education, Damnation and Salvation are the three imposing granite civic buildings – the Central Library, St Mark’s Church and His Majesty’s Theatre on Rosemount Viaduct which border the gardens.

So surely its time to bring some Arbitration, Conciliation and Negotiation to the process.

 

Cultural constitutions for the 21st century – the Edinburgh Fringe journey

You can take a horse to water....from Therapist's Flickr photo stream

Today’s reports on the results of the survey on the future governance arrangements for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society show that the the majority of the 2000 or so respondents want fundamental change.  And that change is not rocket science.  Its more simply a recognition that the Fringe would benefit from complying with standard good practice in its governance and in particular in making sure that the right skills are on the board.

The fact that the Fringe Society had to wait for a crisis before undertaking a review of governance is symptomatic of a kind of inertia in the subsidised arts sector, which tends to wait for management and governance arrangements to be broken before they are fixed.   The trouble is, that while there is lots of good advice available to the boards of charities, the boards of voluntary organisations and arts boards, many chose not to take the advice.   Good practice guides overwhelmingly recommend:

• limited terms of service for all board members, usually 2 terms of 3 years or maximum 4 years
• a diversity of board members based on skills

Good guidance is provided by the Scottish Arts Council in its publication, Care Diligence and Skill

If the constitution does not provide for retirement of board members after a maximum period of six years, consideration should be given to altering this or to introducing a standing order which has this effect.If members of organisations fail to apply these tests when electing or re-electing new board members, they have only themselves to blame if the organisation begins to falter,fail or be less vital.

You can take a horse to water but you cant make it drink.

Public bodies are governed by clear regulations including a restriction on the length of service; private companies are accountable to their shareholders which keeps the paid executive board members on their toes and charities generally are accountable to all their members.  But arts boards are bespoke organisations which can chose to maintain ancient constitutions and forms which keep them as closed shops or ruled by a self-perpetuating oligarchy.  Many started in different times, as membership  clubs or artists cooperatives or, like the Fringe, as membership societies, when these structures made sense.  But whilst many arts organisations have reformed their constitutions, some have hung to the comfort of the old and so some board members and Chairs, who may be excellent, assume it best to stay in the job rather than allow refreshment and renewal.

A more fundamental issue arising from the Fringe consultation is the question of who really constitutes the community of ownership of the Fringe . The Festival Fringe Society has currently a cap of  100 members under its current constitution, drawn up in 1969.  One proposal is to allow membership to be open to everyone.  The key will be to ensure that the Fringe really is accountable to its community, a challenge that besets all arts organisations where subsidy is involved.   That will mean more than a change to the length of service of board members, and could even mean a more radical reform of the corporate structure.  A Community Interest Company might be more fit for purpose, offering a more transparent and accountable structure which also supports entrepreneurship.

 

Synchronised support for the arts, culture and creative industries -without too much splashing

synchonised swimming bejing 2008

Those of us in the arts and cultural community are in the vanguard of change as we tip over from the noughties into the next decade. The climactic changes of the first decade of the new millennium swept us up, sucked us in and tossed us about in tempests, new waves and whirlwinds creating massive new opportunities. The internet and technological advances in communication have changed fundamentally our engagement in creative experiences and our ability to collaborate. New platforms and interactivity have unleashed more multifaceted creative experiences and enterprises. Against this,  the collapse of the holy cow of ‘financial services’ and the sudden shrinkage of our economy has not only severely reduced the cash in public coffers for years to come but has forced a fundamental reappraisal of the value of  the arts, culture and creativity by the politicians whom we elected to lead us.

And this has led inexorably to tuggings of the rugs underneath the arts and cultural edifices which we have built up over the last 50 years.  Some of the tugs on the rugs have been gentle, with a raft of discretionary projects across the British Isles where major cultural institutions sit round the table and look at sharing services.  Some have been full frontal assaults, like the Irish  An Bord Snip report targeting Culture Ireland and the Irish Film Board.  This, along with other cuts to the arts was seen off by a brilliantly mobilised National Campaign for the Arts which, unlike the UK permanent organisation, was a collaborative campaign involving artists speaking from the heart and armed by evidence of economic impact, politicians and Facebook .   But more attacks are to come.  With political power in the balance, politicians are vying to be the toughest on the public sector, on a competitive crusade to ’simplify’ the public sector, reduce the number of quangos, cut any pay and benefits seen to be excessive in the current climes and to make sure that our cash gets into front line services.

As we head into 2010, we may expect a Conservative government in the UK which is likely, according to Ed Vaizey, to target the Arts Council of England for at the very least a further reduction in its costs. ACE has already begun to dismantle its substantial regional machinery and the BFI and UK Film Council are already looking to merge in order to achieve the ‘efficiencies’ sought by the current government.  More than that, strategists recognise that its time to use the opportunities of web collaboration, and to reduce the costs and size of complex machinery and streamline support to artists, creative enterprises and participants and consumers. This could mean smaller cross – sectoral agencies, like Creative Scotland.  And in England it could mean a drastic reduction or even dismantling of regional intermediaries.

At the turn of the century the  English regional cultural machinery was at its peak, with regional screen agencies, regional arts councils, multiple local authorities, regional development agencies as well as audience development agencies and the like, all populated by public servants and paid for by the public purse.  And often working together through regional cultural consortia, also staffed by public servants, and the like. Those were in the past days of plenty and before the internet was harnessed for collaboration.  So its logical that  collaboration across the arts, culture and creative industries might be supported more effectively -cheaper on administration and more on the arts – this decade.  Its all a bit uncomfortable for those who could change things as they are the public servants with public sector terms and conditions who have the most to lose.

But things have changed big time over the last 30 years.  30 years ago the arts were thought of narrowly, as traditional, top down even elitist activities for the few.  Three decades of investment in activity, infrastructure and research and advocacy work have changed not only the perception but the reality. State support for the arts, culture and creativity is understood by all political parties in the British Isles as being an essential investment in our cultural identity, creative lives, community cohesion and in our global competitiveness.

State support for the arts, culture and creativity is understood by all political parties in the British Isles as being an essential investment in our cultural identity, creative lives, community cohesion and in our global competitiveness. So its time to stop splashing and take  serious action to best to support art, artists and creative experiences in this internet age.

Perhaps its about more effective agencies – a single screen agency, a smaller arts council. Intermediaries between government policy and the sector are required to make judgements, administer funds, champion the sector and research, develop and innovate.

In Scotland, the new agency Creative Scotland has the potential to be fit for purpose for 2010 and beyond with a remit across the arts, culture and creative industries, a broker, advisor, champion and investor, leaner than its two antecedent agencies Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen.  Its had a long gestation and the benefit of many influencing its final form as  governments, culture ministers, boards, civil servants and directors have changed.  Assuming a safe passage through the Scottish Parliament, a board and CEO can be appointed at last and then change can begin.

Creative Scotland, arts councils and other cultural intermediaries are all faced with similar challenges and opportunities, to get more support to the sector at less cost, to be more strategic and fleeter of foot and to collaborate continuously with other partners – and all in the context of politicians determined to reduce the cost of the public sector.  So why not make our cultural intermediaries even leaner and contract out more and more to the independent sector or regional or local agencies, creative organisations or social enterprises?  Like Channel 4 commissioning programmes or like the licence to Creative and Cultural Skills to provide strategic leadership and support in their sector?

That  would mean even less of us with final salary pensions and other benefits, but more transparency and accountability,  better value for  tax payers and more in tune with the majority of arts, culture and creative workers out there.

 

Culture Ministers need to speak the lingo to have legitimacy

Melina Mercouri

To lose one culture minister may be regarded as a misfortune.  To lose nine in ten years looks like carelessness.  In the latest round of musical chairs, we have lost a minister who was in command of the culture brief and have reverted to what looks like the latest in a round of temporary incumbents who no sooner begin to understand culture before they are moved on.  Successive First Ministers from Jack McConnell in his St Andrew’s Day Speech in 2003 to Alex Salmond now have been passionate about the vital importance of the arts, culture and creative industries to our success as a nation. If the latest change is not to be regarded as a lack of commitment to culture then it signals a lack of understanding about the pivotal importance as to how the role is discharged.

Mike Russell was the best culture minister we have had, with a firm grasp not only of the issues in his portfolio but with a fluency in the language of the arts and creativity without which no culture minister can expect to engage with and lead the sector.  That fluency comes both from his own experience in the arts, as a writer and filmmaker and through long term relationships with people in the arts community.  These are characteristics of successful culture ministers across the world. They are not things that can be achieved during one of the cursory tours of duty undertaken by other ministers.   The cultural community doesn’t fit neatly into the public sector boxes which characterise the landscape of most ministerial portfolios, like education, health and justice.  The powerful voices  – those who command respect locally, nationally and internationally – include independent and freelance artists, games designers, architects,  writers, broadcasters, performers, composers, entrepreneurs and volunteers as well as the more orderly national cultural institutions. Russell built up trust with the sector -  a trust that is not easily transferable to a new Culture Minister perceived to have been demoted.  The cultural community will of course welcome Fiona Hyslop, induct her into their world and explain their agendas in what might be seen as a further diversion from getting on with generating great art and creative experiences.   And as a seasoned politician and theatre attender, there is no reason why she should not be good at the job   - until the next reshuffle.

Successful culture ministers must have both legitimacy and authority.  What previous Culture Minister would have had the clout demonstrated by Mike Russell as he quashed in one fell swoop years of arguing by firmly stating to the cultural community that  “Creative Scotland must put behind it the old and false dichotomy of culture and the economy as both are essential” ? None.

If he is serious about Scotland’s success as one of the world’s most creative nations, the First Minister must appoint a credible leader for a reasonable tenure. That person should have legitimacy – so perhaps should be an artist or creative entrepreneur.  That is certainly what other, culturally confident, nations have done.

The culture minister with most credibility internationally now is perhaps Australia’s Peter Garrett, former member of the band Midnight Oil,  renowned for  its protest shows, notably the anti- Exxon performance on a truck top in New York.

Nicolas Sarkozy, recognising the need for cultural cred, has appointed Frédéric Mitterand, TV showman, writer, film producer and gay activist.   Mitterand has already created controversy not least because of a colourful personal life.  He follows in the tradition of the film goddess Melina Mercouri, who ruffled British feathers with her impassioned demands for the return of the Elgin marbles during her tenure as Greek Culture Minister.  Jack Lang, theatre and festival director, during his tenure as Culture Minister, created the Lang Law, fixing the price of books.  The Brazilian musician and activist Gilberto Gil, as Culture Minister, pioneered programmes to increase access through technology and music.

Of course the Culture Minister should not be the only champion and leader of  the arts, culture and creative industries in Scotland  This is a role for Creative Scotland but the timing is such that the Chair of the statutory body cannot be appointed until the Public Services Reform Bill is passed by Parliament, and neither has the first  CEO been appointed. These vacancies only exacerbate the void left by Russell.

What Scotland needs now is a Cultural Leader in the Scottish Government who will be in it for the long term, speak the language, maintain the relationships – and then be bold.  When artists take the helm it might not be plain sailing –but they may stay the course.