Post #1: Background Info

It’s been a rocky five years for many of us. It’s definitely been a rocky five years for the arts. And if you are an artist based in Coventry, it’s been a right rocky rollercoaster of a five – well actually probably more like ten – years.

In case you haven’t heard, in December 2017, Coventry – the city that is perpetually poised on the edge of greatness – won the title of UK City of Culture 2021, and those of us in the arts in Cov thought we had finally tipped over the edge into actual greatness. However, if you’ve been following the events of the last few years you might know that it didn’t quite all go to plan. First the pandemic affected the timetabling, programme and visitor numbers and then, after a few wobbles, the City of Culture Trust completely collapsed, taking a promising-looking 3 year legacy programme with it, and leaving a black hole in the programmes and finances of a large handful of the city’s arts (and other) organisations.

As far as the national media was concerned, the story was that Coventry as a city had failed and – as artists and people living and working here – even though we knew it was an organisation rather than the city that had failed, the negative press coverage was still a depressing body blow – the city seemed to internalise a narrative of Cov getting its comeuppance for having dared to dream of achieving greatness.

Talking Birds convenes a network (or flow) of small arts organisations, freelance artists and creative practitioners, called F13 (or Friday 13th, after the day we first met). It is a space of support, information sharing, joy – and a determined belief in the power and activism of the collective voice. As advocates of the right of small organisations to demonstrate strategic leadership, we realised that we couldn’t (and shouldn’t) wait for anyone to fix the situation. And so we stepped into the vacuum – in order to channel all that disappointment, anger and hurt into something productive, beautiful and healing. Something future-facing. Something to rally around. Something hopeful.

To begin with, we ran an open workshop and invited all 299 people on the F13 email list to come and contribute their answers to the question: “Where do we want to be in five years time?” Some people didn’t want to come – they couldn’t, it was too raw. Others were too angry – they felt like they’d been ignored for four years and (understandably) they didn’t want to even hear the words ‘City of Culture’ again. Some people were suspicious of what might happen to the ideas they brought. Some couldn’t afford the time off work, life or caring responsibilities. But a large group of people did come.

We aired our grievances, hopes, fears and dreams. We jotted down our thoughts on post-it notes and added them to a huge piece of brown paper. We left (mainly) energised and hopeful. It had been cathartic – but it would take a lot of work to collate all the ideas into an action plan that could be shared and moved forwards (and we tried not to think too hard about the fact that so many of the ideas were the same as those shared in 2016 – those which we’d hoped would be resolved through being City of Culture…)

A small working party (made up of a mix of those who had been at, and had not been at, the original workshop) was assembled and, over a period of weeks, this working party has met in person and also worked online to pull the ideas together for sharing. To begin with, we want to share them with other artists and creative practitioners who live, or make work, in Coventry whether or not they are already a part of the F13 mailing list (because we know there are a lot more than those 299 artists and creative practitioners in this city). We want everyone to have an opportunity to comment on where we have got to, and add in your thoughts and ideas – so that we can be confident (when we go and start having conversations with the Council, Universities, Funders and others) that we are representing as many of the independent/freelance/small scale/emerging/mid-career/established/artists/designers/actors/dancers/filmmakers/musicians/writers (and so on) who live and/or work in the city as we possibly can.

Post #2: Creating the Conditions for Creation (the draft)

A new post – containing the draft Action Plan – is now online and you can find it here. The draft is open for comments/additions/changes because we now need to know what everyone thinks – what is right? What needs changing? What is missing? Where do you want the arts sector in Coventry to be in 2028? Does this draft action plan represent you and your views?

Please do take the time to read and comment because – before we invite the people who have the wherewithal to collaborate to move these things on to come together to work out how the city will make this happen – we need to be confident that we have properly incorporated and represented people’s ideas, and that we truly have the backing of the sector.

A huge THANK YOU in advance from the F13 working party (aka Adele, Angela, Duncan, Janet, Joshua, Kim & Mary).

Further Reading

• The draft action plan Creating the Conditions for Creation.
• The survey where you can feed back on ‘Creating the Conditions…’ (the F13 ‘Five Years On’ action plan).
• A report on Co-Making Futures at Herbert Art Gallery & Museum (with interesting examples of different cities’ approaches to developing democratic and creative collaborations).
• Arts Covolution (Thoughts on how you can’t value something you don’t know about).
• Does it have to be ‘Go Big or Go Home’? (on City of Culture, localism, different models, long and short-term-ism and the dream of a Universal Basic Income).
• History is made by those who write the stories (on the failure of Coventry City of Culture Trust and why that is not the only story that needs to be told).
• Scrutinising the Fall (notes from the City Council Scrutiny meeting, discussing the collapse of City of Culture Trust).
• We belong to the city and it belongs to us (a post from 2017 in support of Coventry’s bid to be UK City of Culture 2021 and why the bid process might be as important as winning)
• Peruse all our posts in the City of Culture category.

The F13 ‘Five Years On’ working party: Janet, Kim, Joshua, Mary, Duncan, Adele and Angela.