Let us accept, for a moment, that the idea of a title like City of Culture, that passes from city to city and gives permission for the title-holder to freely play and experiment – to find out what it can achieve through a concentrated period of arts and cultural activity – is a good one.
And let us also accept that the title brings with it a welcome, but sudden, influx of investment which needs to be distributed to artists, creative practitioners, cultural institutions and community groups. And that, because this investment (and its distribution) is additional to the wealth of activity already happening in the place, a delivery vehicle has to be constructed from scratch, to deliver a year-long festival or programme in under 4 years. What effect might such a rapid change have on the existing ecosystem?
Each iteration of City of Culture builds on, and learns from, the last, and – of course – each city brings something new to the formula. Hopefully Bradford will nail it and prove me wrong, but my experience in Coventry (which I think mirrors Hull’s) was certainly that ‘going big’ with the sudden introduction of a very large-scale new player (largely made up of people unfamiliar with the city) in the cultural landscape weirdly skewed the dynamic of a long-term, embedded and organically-evolving city ecosystem.
Thanks to it’s resources, human and fundraising capacity, high status and time-limited structure, the City of Culture Trust naturally attracted and consumed a huge amount of regionally and nationally available funding, and was actually – although probably unintentionally – in direct competition for many of those funding streams with existing Coventry artists. City artists seemed to find it more difficult than before to raise project funds, as many trusts and foundations had funded the City of Culture Trust instead.
Good, meaningful, impactful work (of any kind, not just cultural) is relational. It is built on relationships and networks of people working together, and these relationships and networks need, and take, time to develop and nurture – for trust to be built. They need space. Spaciousness. The very opposite of the pressure cooker of a four year City of Culture turnaround.
I think these kinds of pressurised timescales – this short-termism – which we encounter all the time in all walks of life, from funding streams to government terms of office, hamper our ability as humans to do long term, meaningful work (look up Roman Krznaric on cathedral thinking and how to be a good ancestor for more on this) as well as being incredibly damaging to the health and wellbeing of those rushing to deliver.
Short timescale funding turnarounds unhelpfully focus on immediately measurable results, and this inevitably narrows the definitions of value or success. If all investment has to be justified by short-term results, surely project design and delivery, plus what kinds of data is collected, becomes dictated by shallower metrics and what can be proven quickly? High footfall often scores better than narrower, deeper, more meaningful engagement because – of course, rightly – the value to taxpayers needs to be demonstrated. But we all know that the truly affecting stories are the ones we are only able to collect by accident – often years after a project is ended and the report written – of the ways deep and meaningful engagement with an arts experience have proved affecting or life-changing in a way that could not have been predicted or easily/immediately measured/captured.
My experience tells me that creating space – and spaciousness – in our work (and life) is really important, in unpredictable ways. It tells me that slowing down and making space is what allows the imagination to stretch and grow. That in taking time to cultivate trust and relationships, to listen and learn from each other, we can make really meaningful things happen. That true collaboration is a beautifully unpredictable and fulfilling thing. That cultivating humanity’s collective imagination might be the solution to – well – pretty much everything…
So I’ve been thinking again about spaciousness. About how to cultivate it. About how artists can devise projects which have spaciousness built in – for people to discover, enjoy, create, share and protect arts and culture.
What would it mean if, instead of ‘going big’ and setting up huge structures, programmes and expectations, the conferring of the title of City of Culture meant nurturing and investing in grassroots arts and cultural activity across a city (‘going home’)? Material investment in the commons, in what already exists (or what would exist if there was investment available), and in the capacity of those individuals that make up the ecosystem of a place. No-one knows better than a city’s artists where the gaps are in provision and representation, or has (or can devise) better solutions for achieving it – given the time, trust, resources and spaciousness.
What if there was investment to expand and grow distributed networks, encouraging these mycelial connections to grow, spread and deepen; to offer open opportunities that expand the ecosystem organically; to include, nurture and amplify under-represented or marginalised voices; to benefit from the richness that comes when you truly involve everyone?
If there was spaciousness to explore, discover, and collaborate: how long would we need for meaningful arts and cultural activity to touch every person in the city? How long would it take before every citizen truly felt they had the capability to (in the words of the 2020 Rome Treaty) discover, enjoy, create, share and protect (their) arts and culture?
Imagine what might (have) happen(ed) if the investment model for City of Culture took the form of a Universal Basic Income for that city’s artists for the four years? How might the infrastructure(s) diversify, expand and strengthen if there were no ‘gate-keepers’? What projects might emerge? What might a grassroots-led, place-based, distributed City of Culture year look like? And what effect might it have on the city, it’s humanity and it’s residents’ future?
And, actually, what might the word ‘legacy’ mean then?
(Posted by Co-AD Janet , April 14th 2023)
See also: History is made by those who write the stories.
Words from the Birds 