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This is a space where I can advocate for change. As a director of an arts organisation and a campaign convenor, who has worked in the arts for 4 decades since being a young guitar player in a punk band, this space allows me to voice my own thoughts and ideas.
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Back in 1999 when the thing that people feared the most was the Millennium Bug which only was thought to affect our computers (but of course was seen as a doomsday scenario) who could’ve thought that 21 years later the whole world would have been so convulsed in such turmoil through a global coronavirus pandemic. When we think of those heady innocent millennial days when Martin Lynch had the clear sightedness to develop a community arts initiative that would link communities right across Belfast in fundamentally creative ways. Now, 21 years later, Community Arts Partnership is not so much celebrating its birthday as recognising the resilience of the artists and communities we serve, for whom these 2 decades have been far from easy. And today, we pay tribute to hundreds of thousands of people across our towns and cities, our villages and townlands, who are struggling against this massive upheaval and coping with pain, loss, loneliness and fear.
Everyone in our community has suffered in different ways; many have heard the plea from the arts sector but the community sector and indeed the organisations and populations that it supports, has been equally devastated. Of course, many industries have been decimated and many lives have been changed forever. Many friendships have struggled to be maintained against the divisive backdrop of coronavirus and the restrictions to contain it. And old divisions have surfaced, with anger and intolerance. But we have seen the Black Lives Matter movement address one of those fault lines in our world and we all hope for better days, beyond racism and sectarianism and fear. It was never acceptable for sectarianism, racism, sexism and hate to become so casual and pervasive. Just a few weeks ago, in a public forum, I experienced the casual sexism of others for the first time in this sector. A leader of another organisation threw a brickbat charged with sexist language without any remorse or apology. If this society is to grow, move on and build, especially in the difficult centenary year of 2021, then such causal dismissals of our neighbours need to stop. We need to focus on the real enemy in our midst – poverty, injustice and inequality and not waste our energy on the careless and the spiteful.
For now though, our thoughts are with the present struggles.
If life is to get back to normal and we all hope that this vaccine allows something like normality at least for a little while (before the next winter of COVID19 arrives) then we must re-dedicate ourselves to healing the divisions in our society: not just those between the two main traditions here but also the wide gulf between the powerful and the weak; between the wealthy and the impoverished; between the physically able and the disabled; between the young and the old. A vaccine will not change those determinedly entrenched difficulties in our society that have only been made worse through the pandemic but it will give us a platform to go out and re-engage and to actively address the problems that face our society and hopeful correct the course of our shared journey.
And of course there is no better way for our communities to repair, to respond, recover and renew themselves than through the expressive ability of the arts. Whether it’s coming up with a new plan for an area; reopening a community centre or a nursing home to visitors; a school that has been decimated through absence and sickness or a community that has seen too much loss over this past nine months, our ability to creatively build back and solves problems will see us through.
I would like to thank all those people who have been careful, sensitive, supportive and indeed perhaps even angry about just what is going on around Covid19 and its management here. We will need to question why certain things were done and what wasn’t but for now we can take some measure of consolation at Christmas, even though for many it will be an isolated, lonely time. Still, we know who our friends and family are and we are thankful that at least, we can talk to each other and see each other, albeit electronically.
21 years of New Belfast/Community Arts Partnership – 2021 also heralds the 36th anniversary of Community Arts Forum as well. I really want to thank the CAP team, Gordon and Steven who are taking turns to be in the office and keep information services and access open, our board of trustees too (Happy Birthday Carole) who have met via zoom or conference call and kept the governance of the organisation going; all the project coordinators: Sally, Heather, Tracey, Shelley who have kept the wheels turning on the creativity bus and Josh Schultz for his enthusiasm and energy in securing opportunities for the organisation.
I especially want to thank all those community groups and schools that are working as hard as they can developing creatively their skills and imaginations as we conclude 2020 and look forward to a happier, healthier 2021
I also want to thank the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Belfast City Council, the Department for Communities, Social Enterprise Northern Ireland the Enkalon Foundation Northern Ireland for their consistent generosity and determination to support our mission and this sector through its darkest times. And I wish every artists and arts worker applying to the second round of the Emergency Funding for Individuals every success in securing some monies that might just soften the blow of a years lost earnings.
So, happy birthday New Belfast Community Arts Initiative and CAP and may I wish all our readers, participants, artists and volunteers, a safe and healthy holiday season and the happiest New Year that we can make it. Here’s to our future.
Take care
Stay safe
Get Creative.
If anyone has ever looked at Munch's painting or a print of The Scream, they will understand that it communicates so much. The image conveys the depth of fear and anxiety and sheer incomprehension that the strange almost skeletal figure struggles with, while with standing starkly and forlornly in the foreground, on a platform jutting out from land, alone, bar two people with their back towards him. It is a picture that resonates with the immediacy of a threat, the anguish of the moment and the inadequacy of understanding how to respond to it. For a great many people at this minute, in this crisis, we are screaming!
The arts community for so long has suffered an existential anxiety ("will we even survive?") but nothing at this level created by COVID-19 and the consequent necessity to close doors and shut up shop. But of course, exactly the same goes for the community that we serve. Not only the public, nor audiences, nor artists and workers, but the great bulk of small, local organisations, groups and schools that the arts, and in particular community arts, strive to support in creative and expressive ways year after year. We are all experiencing a whole range of challenging circumstances and indeed ongoing anxiety and uncertainty.
Much is consistently said about the resilience of the arts sector. Of course that's because for decades we have toiled without adequate investment and worked in a perilously underfunded area of the creative industries. That insecurity has impacted on many within the sector, but today, that anxiety is amplified to deafening levels, across so many organisations and their staff and freelance workers. This cannot be sustainable either on a personal nor indeed, organisational nor strategic level. And we have still have a long way to go before any optimistic notion of normality, never mind "new normal" emerges.
This is an emergency – not only for the arts but for our society as a whole. In terms of financial support, we have all understood that we have had an ongoing crisis in the arts, due to historical under-investment, but Covid 19 has further undermined our collective viability. Much has been made of how resilient the sector is but it has to be said again and again, that resilience comes from being exposed to challenges that are not overwhelming but with which we can actually cope. However, for a great many within our corner of the sector, the additional burdens and challenges related to the multi-layered impacts of Covid 19 pandemic may mean that this period of upheaval may overwhelm us all.
In my opinion, the abject failure of an enterprise culture within the arts, predicated on growth and outputs, with only narrow notions of outcomes-focused research and output-focused accounting, has meant we are less able to meet the contemporary challenges of the impact of this pandemic. This has been remarkable and devastating. In the Republic of Ireland, a value for money argument is/was applied to paying artists during the pandemic, even though they could/can not actually carry out the work contracted for. It's understood that maintaining arts workers' incomes is strategically and structurally so important to the notion of 'national good' that it was mandated by funders, principally the southern Arts Council. In the North, I've heard such interventions written off immediately as 'welfare', insinuating that approach as wholly inappropriate to the prevailing government funding model. But what could be more appropriate than recognising the welfare of our arts community and its ability, if maintained, to continue to serve the public good?
We need a new, radical focus for the narrative around the work that we do; ditching the old assumptions of competition, productivity and endless growth as currently (and perhaps always) bankrupt and instead focus on the production of development, health and wellbeing and mutual interdependence. This approach would allow us to embrace environmental and ecological benefit, see care as a positive feature of our economy, and recognise voluntarism as a powerful and valuable resource. For example, many feminist economists argue economics should be focused less on mechanisms like income and neo-liberal policies that constantly look to extract wealth and resource, and instead look to more emphasis on wellbeing and a multidimensional concept embracing income, health, education, empowerment and social status. Indeed, the arts do try (and should be encouraged further) to actively explore the direction of cultural, social and material dynamics of well-being much more deeply, amplifying the benefit of active participation in the arts (whether as a creative or participant) and more the more passive benefits of audiences. Government still doesn't get it. That has to change. Perhaps this is the moment?
And of course, much has been made of the eco-system of the arts here. Seen positively the creative ecology model does move away from industrial, discipline- centred understandings of the work of artists and arts organisations and instead places focus on the system of relationships and interdependent need present within and across the widest community. Such ecological thinking is currently being applied in many sectors as part of the search for more effective ways of analysing and responding to a context of rapid change and disruption, such as our current global pandemic.
And as such, an ecological response (or emergency measures) cannot be Darwinian, instead should focus on nurture and sensitive management, relating to the interconnectedness of our fragile eco-system in the arts. Ecology particularly seeks to learn about and understand the symbiosis within natural systems, as a mutual exchange of benefits that draws nutrients and energy from the environment while at the same time helping to sustain it in the process. Therefore creative ecology should be understood as an emerging concept in cultural policy that places the arts and creativity within a more including, holistic worldview and reveals interdependencies with economic, social, cultural and environmental systems, where society as a whole then benefits. Whatever quantum of emergency support the Assembly grants us, we should recognise this creative ecology as an active collective concept, not just a descriptor of people and organisations all working in a similar "field". If we are to build back better, we must understand and celebrate the different approaches, not just say our need is greater because we have lost more money!
I know many thoughtful people in the arts may well share these positive convictions, but we still work within a constrained template that has hardly altered in decades. This is not the fault of funders, far from it, but of our government's failure to understand us and support research and development in the arts to inform and embrace change. In a risk-averse policy culture, as we toil within here, the creativity of the arts can therefore undoubtedly be stifled. The bean counting culture misses the depth and breadth of what we do and how we do it.
In the midst of this pandemic, it is clear that we all must adjust and improvise to survive. It is also abundantly clear that the losses incurred by shutting down our operational capacity to work has created a huge economic and cultural deficit that cannot be allowed to continue. That's why the emergency funding of £33m is so crucial - not just to plug the losses, but to give all of us a necessary platform to renew our range of practice and enable our community during this hour of need.
Of course, many, many arts organisations have leapt to digital solutions which offer some modicum of contact and can be used to present a range of work but it's just not the same. The restrictions of social distancing may seem at odds sometimes for theatres compared to bars and restaurants or private clubs. If the government has shut down so many sections of the arts, the government must protect them as result. As other industries have seen furloughs etc, but many artistic processes and performances shut down first and are still closed down and desperately need support.
And we may not return to any normality for some time as we hope for a vaccine to be developed and if successful, to be widely available. When will that happen? The reports say not until at least halfway through 2021 by which time many organisations would be faced with redundancies, layoffs and potential closure if they do not receive the life-blood of sufficient emergency support to stay alive. Bear in mind that 7,000 livelihoods are at stake, with thousands of households depending on those jobs.
So, in our conversations, we have identified a range of immediate and longer terms needs. We also have a range of proposals and propositions that enable a more collaborative sector to emerge from this crisis – whenever that may be.
In the immediate term, we need financial support for our operational capacity, just to keep our organisations working and our core missions to support the communities we serve, alive. For a great many organisations, this means maintaining staff levels, enabling freelance artist/facilitators to survive this crisis, and develop the capacity of organisations, personnel and communities to access different ways of working and creating collectively for now and the future.
We also need financial assurance that we can build back from this crisis in the years ahead and to this end, there is a widespread necessity for additional funds and support in 21/22 and indeed beyond.
If we are to build back better, providing access, supporting participation, enhancing innovation, origination, authorship and creativity and ultimately ensuring the ownership by participants and the public of their creative and cultural choices and their impacts, then greater support for community arts and socially-engaged practice is essential, along with funds to ensure that all sectors of the arts survive this chaos of closed doors and financial ruin. A proactive strategy to see the £33million investment realised and to then support its on-going and necessary development and implementation is crucial to both the sector’s survival but also the necessary participation that is so unquestionably craved by communities across our region.
By the way, the artist Munch was 32 when he created 'The Scream". In his head he clearly thought he was a goner, incapable of dealing with the fear and death all around him. In fact he would live until 1944, when he turned 81.
Long live art!