The civic role of artists and arts organisations

I've been reading the report on the inquiry into the civic role of arts organisations (phase 1). It's an interesting and timely provocation with lots of good thinking. They invited responses and this is mine.

I have found the inquiry into the civic role of arts organisations a stimulating process which has gathered focus and momentum as it has progressed. Any initiative which helps foreground the useful, but often invisible work that arts organisations do, is to be welcomed and I welcome the chance to comment on the first phase report.  

Firstly three points on the report thus far. 

THE METAPHORS (Arts organisations as Colleges, Town Halls, Parks, Temples and Home)

The metaphors used to describe organisations are interesting and yes, we can relate them to our practice. However they suggest iconic buildings or physical places. Our (London Bubble’s) distribution model is less centralised. More importantly the work arts organisations do is largely ephemeral.

(Can I refer you to the Peckham Experiment, an inspirational arts and health initiative conducted between 1926 and 1950. This was a hybrid blending surgery, arts centre, sports centre and college, built on a membership model).  

BEWARE A DEFICIT LENS

At one point the report suggests “our interest is arts organisations in receipt of public funding working with local communities to co-produce problems these communities identify”. We would question the use of the work ‘problems’. It’s only one word but casts the community as problem, the arts organisation as solution and the work as ‘instrumental’. We would argue that artists and arts organisations should see themselves as part of the community, participants as well as artist-facilitators, with a useful skill set. Sometimes that can be used to solve a problem. Sometimes it can be used to co-create, even celebrate, with no set agenda. The work of Welfare State International comes to mind. Perhaps ‘problems’ could be replaced by ‘opportunities’.  

Moving forwards:

OUR CIVIC ROLE

Reading that the first civic institutions were a Victorian response to the drunkenness amongst the large number of workers who had flocked to the towns because of industrialisation made me wonder (in equally generalised terms) about the present day - what are the arts responding to now? In our work with children, young adults and elders, we are observing three, possibly related, trends. Increasing numbers of young children who struggle to communicate, increasing numbers of teenagers and young adults managing mental health issues and increasing numbers of older people who live with loneliness. Our response is to base our practice on building a sense of connection through care and creativity. Are we dealing with a sense of disconnection similar to that experienced by the dislocated Victorian worker? Is the present day problem caused by the new industrial revolution and the impact of digital communication on community? Should this define our ‘civic role’?

CAPACITY BUILDING

Bubble is a small organisation whose work is based on participation and relational practice.  The characteristics listed as principles for consultation we aspire to. (And we would argue that larger organisations sometimes adopt these, rather than truly holding them in their heart). Perhaps there is something to be learned from the Dunbar number* here. To truly foster relationships you have to value them for what they are and question any transaction which places material gain before social gain. Smaller organisation who are part of their community are more likely to foster these principles but they are also more likely to have a lower profile and smaller voice. So any initiative that helps us network, develop capacity and build stability we would welcome. 

LEADERSHIP

The report pays a number of compliments to small and medium scale arts organisations and those who work within them - particularly leaders. It suggests the leaders have developed the organisation. But I sometimes wonder if it is also the organisation that makes the leader. Arts organisations are a wonderfully developmental environment which expect leaders be creative, passionate, open and reflective - and to bring these qualities out of staff and participants/audiences. This creative environment and training ground could be cast a civic asset that reaches beyond the creative sector. 

Jonathan Petherbridge

Creative Director,

London Bubble.

*The theory of Dunbar's Number posits that 150 is the number of individuals with whom any one person can maintain stable relationships. 

Ten years ago.

It was exactly ten years ago to the day. In the parlour. The parlour at the Bubble is where ‘confidential’ conversations happen. Appraisals, resignations, announcement of happy events, tears, honesty, brilliant ideas.

November 15th 2007. Four of our Board members had been up town to meet with officers of the Arts Council. They returned and took the two co-chief executives to the parlour. I was one.

They had been informed there was to be a recommendation that funding to the London Bubble would be cut…as of March 31st 2008…in four months. This funding plus another linked grant and the box office they generated amounted to 81% of our turnover.

We were numb, in shock. The trustees were faced with closing the company. They were potentially liable for any outstanding debts. All 10 staff would be made redundant. The summer shows and projects would be no more. If I had any emotions they were a mixture of anger, fear and shame. 

The letter confirming the recommendation arrived the week before Christmas. By that time our feelings had been channelled into campaigning. In mid January the committee would meet. The festive season turned into a mustering of support.

Alliances were made with other threatened companies. Representations were made by audience members and MP’s. One young girl got into an exchange of letters with the director of the arts council. We tried to remain level headed and to allow our audience to speak for us. As a result we learned.

We didn’t reverse the recommendation. (I think if we’d gone with the idea of having our petition delivered by postmen running down the Thames in Zorb Bubble balls, it would have tipped the balance, but we didn’t).  

Fast forward ten years. Last Saturday I was able to present a position paper to our board and staff at our away day. It explained how we are delivering more theatre now than we were before the cut. How we have 5 legs to our stool rather than the one, how we attract…..

But no. That’s for another time. 

For now, let me just raise a small glass to out supporters. To those who funded us to develop our projects. To my great colleagues and the brave trustees who chose not to take the company into administration. And to my predecessors who created the Bubble and its reputation. 

Oh… and to luck. 

A letter to Hofesh Shechter

Dear Hofesh,

You don’t know me. I’m a fan of yours. I’m also a theatre director. 

I think your work is quite wonderful but I want to question your use of lighting. 

Last night I attended Grand Finale. The choreography, music and staging I found rich with purpose. The skill of the dancers I find breathtaking. The balance of anger and joy moves me - as it has done in your previous work.

What I wonder is if the same amount of thought has gone into the decision process surrounding the lighting. The lighting is in a way skilful - quite spare, hardly any colour. It is almost entirely back, top and side light. Hardly any light is thrown from the vantage point of the audience. This means we aren’t allowed to see the dancers faces. There is also much use of black out - not just to change the set or tempo, but to discomfort us (I think).

The outcome of all of this is twofold. Firstly the audience cannot connect with the dancers as humans. They are shapes, we see no facial expression. Secondly the lighting makes the performance seem beautiful.

I question if this is how you intend your work to land.

Everything else about your work melds rage with skill. It is often emotionally ambiguous. Why then dress the piece so beautifully?  

I think you believe in what I might shorthand as ‘community’. On your website you describe your company as a ‘tribe’ of dancers. Why not allow the audience to see how your tribe are working? Why not  let the audience see the front of the performers and connect as fellow humans to  their rage and grace?  

Last night I remembered times when I, as a director had lit shows and made them ‘beautiful’. At that point the process presents a technological opportunity to frame what we have made and we get carried away with what is possible. This morning I watched some footage on your website of the rehearsals of Grand Finale - naturally lit, or lit quite brightly for filming, and I preferred it. 

I sat there last night wondering how the piece would have impacted on us if it had been staged in working light. I do wonder if it actually would have been more powerful.

Best wishes, and keep up the good work,

Jonathan Petherbridge. 

PRIMARY 11 - Sensory Interviews

By Georgia Clark

The project is at an exciting stage now as we look to gather more material which will grow into a performance later this year. With a couple more sessions to go before Easter, after which we will meet every week until we break for summer, we turned our attention this week to the process of ‘foraging’, or gathering material through interviews and research.

To prepare for the session’s main activity, where we would consider the role of the senses in triggering and finding out about memories and experiences, we warmed up our eyes by focusing on things distant and close, we wrinkled our noses and smelt our skin, we explored the sounds within our bodies when we closed off our ears, we traced our finger tips over our wrists and clothes, and we rolled our tongues in mouths and discerned its edges, sensitising ourselves to the delicate differences in sight, touch, smell, sound and taste.

On five tables around the room lay invitations to explore each sense; the table for Taste held bowls of sweets and snacks, Hearing played waves crashing and a baby bawling, Sight displayed images such as those of a fire burning and electricity sparking, Smell offered the scent of disinfectant and ink and Touch invited our hands to explore an feathers and bark.

In groups of 3 we moved from table to table and contemplated the objects, images and sounds, sampling sweets and handling and smelling old books and scented candles. We did this as an individual exercise, to tune into our own associations and ideas, and then shared some thoughts in our group, before coming back to the big group.

It seemed that there were some commonalities – many people associated the colour yellow with the flying saucer sweets, and were transported to a library by the musty books or the nurses room by the disinfectant – and there were also detailed trains of thought and stories which were particular to individuals.

Smells took people to ‘Covent Garden, an unopened drawer, Nan’s spare room, Chip shop, Garden, kitchen, care home, doctors’, and someone travelled to Indonesia through the picture of rain on a window pane.

‘1p sweets bought from the shop on the walk home from Hummersknott’

‘movement of unsticking it from your teeth’

‘ the ding of the door to the sweetshop’

‘candle: old bathrooms. Toilet roll dolls’

The exercise was designed to explore our thinking about harnessing a more sensual approach to the subject, and how we might use the senses as a way of tapping into deeper and wider memories and experiences when interviewing. The further away from our memories of Primary school that we travel in time, perhaps the more they are encoded in places, smells, patterns and objects. We talked about how smell and memory are close together in the brain, which is why smell can be such a strong trigger for an emotion without our full comprehension as to where the smell came from.

Warmed up by this exercise, we experimented using ‘trigger objects’ – objects chosen specifically because their sensual quality might trigger a story or memory about Primary school. In pairs we used these objects –a piece of chalk (which a younger member of the group commented as being marvellous ‘because it was a whole piece, and whole pieces never survived long at school’), a marker pen, Dettol, show polish, ‘Refresher’ sweets and a pot of ink – as stimulus for questions.

My partner examined a tin of shoe polish and took in its strong turpentine smell. She talked about her memories of her primary shoes being polished, usually by her dad, how it marked a routine, and a conscientiousness around being ‘tidy’ at school. Using the link to school shoes, I asked her if she liked the shoes that she wore to primary school, and she replied that she didn’t dislike them but all the same she was never satisfied with them, they were never quite nice enough.

One person recounted how the ink reminded their partner of “ink pots and dirty fingers” and “a teacher criticising your handwriting because you were left-handed and because of stains. Messy business. You see, the class was not like today. The tables were in rows gazing at the blackboard.” For another, the ink pot marked a transition from primary to secondary school, having nice handwriting and a memory of sitting in a garden to write a story, which was read out in assembly. We considered whether some of these fragments would have been accessed without the physical stimuli, and how it felt to handle an object at the same time as being interviewed. 

We moved on to consider a different object in our pairs and swapped roles; the interviewee became the interviewer. We were reminded that the project isn’t just about looking back, retrospectively, at our memories; it’s about imagination and opinion as well as experience. This time we were asked to create a story in response to the object, venturing questions to the other such as ‘where are you?’, and encouraging a story to slowly emerge. 

These stories were presented back to the group as a freeze frame which was ‘switched on’ at a certain moment and the story teller narrated what was happening; children hiding eating sweets under their bed; pupils deciding between each other whose house they would go to after school; a wound being cleaned up in the nurse’s room. We wondered at the end how much of these stories came from our imagination and how much was related to or adapted from experience, and whether or not there is a difference.