This post details a draft action plan entitled ‘Creating the Conditions for Creation’ which has its genesis in a F13 (network of independent and small scale arts organisations, freelance artists and creative practitioners) workshop. This workshop asked the question: “Where do we want to be in five years time?” – as a way of talking about, and moving collectively forwards from, the collapse of Coventry City of Culture Trust.
Where do we want to be in five years’ time?
If you’ve not already read our previous post which describes the workshop, the process of coming up with these ideas and then honing them into this format, it might be worth taking a look at that before continuing to read…
As convenors of the F13 network, and (part-time and freelance) creative practitioners ourselves, Talking Birds’ believes it’s important to embark on these kinds of things democratically, transparently, collectively. That is why we’re posting this here and asking you to not only read and consider it, but also to add your thoughts and ideas into the mix (details of how to do this at the bottom of the page). We want everyone to be talking about how – actually – we can all help create the conditions for creation – because of course, if we can get it right, we will all benefit.
So how can we all work together to make Coventry a place where art, artists, culture and creativity are valued, nurtured, accessible, enjoyable, inclusive and rewarding?
Building the Commons
We believe in the idea of ‘the commons’ – spaces and ideas that are collectively created and built by everyone for everyone’s use and benefit. All the artists who have been involved in generating the contents of this post have offered their ideas in this spirit of collectivism – all working together to make Coventry a better place to live and work, for artists and others – and we’d ask you to take part in that same spirit.
Those of us who make a living from our ideas all know that there is a time and place for keeping our ideas to ourselves, and a time when – if you are the person who can offer the ‘best idea in the room’ – throwing it into the mix might just make everything better for everyone. We think this might just be one of those times.
How to read this Draft plan
The ideas have been condensed into 14 Aims for 2028 (lettered A-L) and these Aims have been grouped using thematic headings (Careers, Space, Support, Resources, Programme).
For each of the Aims, we have provided a brief ‘current situation’ round up, and then made a start on an Action Plan – looking at what might need to happen in order for us to move from the Current Situation to the 2028 described in the Aims.
- Careers in the Arts (A. Careers & Opportunities; B. Career Development; C. Information)
- Space (D. Infrastructure; E. Spaces to Make & Show Work)
- Political & Financial Support (F. Political Support; G. Value & Investment; H. Pay & Conditions; I. City Events Programme)
- Resources (J. Access to Specialist Resources; K. Shared Resources; L. Knowledge Resources)
- Possible Programme Activity (M. Artists & Academics Research; N. Artists’ UBI Action Research)
*Please note that this has been put together collectively, at speed. With time it could have been better worded and less repetitious, but it felt important to share it earlier rather than later, in order to further the conversation. In the workshop, access and inclusion were often mentioned as summing up a lot about how the sector ecology currently works (ie if it’s accessible to all, it’s better for everyone), but we’re aware that this assumed baseline might need more spelling out.
1. Careers in the Arts
This section is about joining up and solidifying the enabling infrastructure, making a creative career a real possibility for all; career pathways (from access in school to creative subjects, creative professionals and careers information – through to continuing professional development opportunities); developing and supporting increased ambition, recognising that this needs sustained support and investment, and that a degree of financial security is necessary for artists (and citizens!) to contribute meaningfully to their city and community.
A. Careers & Opportunities: By 2028 making a career and a viable living as an artist or creative practitioner in Coventry is achievable, and accessible to all. It is straightforward for graduates, new arrivals, long-term residents and those growing up here to access the help, information, advice, networks and resources they might need to establish a creative career in the city.
Current Situation: There are pockets of joined-up-ness, but the sector is so busy surviving that it is not as transparent or permeable as it might like. Parts of the small scale are pretty well-networked through F13, the clusters around Daimler Powerhouse, The Tin, Artspace, Maokwo, Fargo, the re-opened Litten Tree, Sitting Rooms of Culture – but there is work to be done.
Action Plan:
1. Format this ‘Creating the Conditions’ action plan into an accessible format and consult & circulate widely. Does this action plan meet the needs of the wider sector? (If not, how can it ensure it represents widest possible constituency?)
2. Establish an open, robust & trusting conversation/partnership/relationship with Coventry City Council, and engage with new Culture Works structure.
3. Start work on fair pay (see point 3G. Pay & Conditions below).
Relevant points from Coventry’s Cultural Strategy: ‘A new major bid project invests in inter-generational learning and cultural production’; ‘Significant increase in creative/cultural industry careers choices and graduate retention in the city’.
B. Career Development: By 2028 the secure and valued arts sector gives rise to further creative ambition and Coventry artists are doing stuff they never dreamed they could do. There are clear supported pathways for artists to develop their professional practice.
Current Situation: The sector currently feels neither secure, nor valued. City of Culture has been a bruising experience for many and the collapse of The Trust still exerts a long shadow. CoC might have been expected to catalyse a stepchange, a transformative time for arts & culture in the city – but for every gain, there are at least as many losses.
Action Plan:
1. Skills development – both for young people and established practitioners. Map opportunities and gaps, draft strategy and invest in local organisations to grow consistent capacity for on-the-job skills development, which also boosts organisational capacity and grows the sector (one example would be the lighting/sound technician training which didn’t happen during CoC).
2. Devise a structured arts and cultural careers advice/promotion and work experience offer for schools (link in with Coventry Cultural Education Partnership & Art for the People Citizens’ Assembly recommendations).
Relevant points from Coventry’s Cultural Strategy: ‘The cultural workforce of the city shares and develops new skills and innovative practices.’; ‘Measurable increase in skills and acumen of cultural sector organisations’; ‘The CCEP provides access to curricular and extra-curricular cultural opportunity’; ‘A new major bid project invests in inter-generational learning and cultural production.’; ‘Significant increase in creative/cultural industry careers choices and graduate retention in the city’.
C. Information: By 2028, there is a huge wealth of creative activity happening across the city and it is straightforward to find out how to access arts, creative and cultural events as audience, participant, student or professional.
Current Situation: Information is not joined up, there is no shared what’s on/clash diary/ticketing (all hoped for within CoC following Hull research by F13). Informal systems such as Sitting Rooms of Culture facebook page and the CAN newsletter circulate info but needs financial backing as various previous systems and artist-led initiatives such as Secret Knock zine are no longer operational.
Action Plan:
1. Revisit learning from Hull – where F13 rep went up to find out about their self-sustaining system. A report was submitted to CoCT but not actioned.
2. Research/learn from what systems currently exist and which have previously worked but no longer exist (and why).
3. Would a single online system do the job? How would administration work?
2. Space
Arguably, all creative professionals really need to pursue their career is time, money and space. This section is about ‘the commons’ of spaces across the city – where work can be made and shared, and around which the sector can meet, collaborate, share ideas and network with others. It is about compiling the learning from the sector’s collective history of past (and existing) meanwhile, temporary and longer-term spaces – to inform future spaces. And it is about putting down some markers – some permanent creative spaces that encourage artists to come (or stay) and build a life and practice in Coventry, and that will provide improved facilities for the creative practitioners who come after us.
D. Infrastructure: By 2028, there is a solid, equitable, trusting & productive partnership in place between council, universities and arts sector (established, organisations and freelance practitioners). Good progress is being made on infrastructure and investment with all sectors working in partnership to make Coventry a better place to live and work. The arts sector’s analysis of successful past projects (eg Depot, LTB, Shop Front Theatre, FargoSpaceProgramme – what worked and why?) has usefully informed planning consultations (eg with Uni over IKEA building) but also negotiations with eg Council and Unis about priorities and use of future resources.
Current Situation: Schemes such as IKEA are conceived and pushed forwards without early or meaningful consultation, and ‘this will be a resource for the local sector’ has often been used to justify various previous developments – but without meaningful and early partnership this is too often an empty promise and/or is scuppered by not starting dialogue early enough or by later economic constraints. This can all lead to feelings of frustration, powerlessness and resentment at being used. No-one should second guess what the sector needs. Nothing about us without us.
Action Plan:
1. Assemble these case studies (not a huge piece of work – Depot, Shop Front Theatre, Artspace, Arcadia, Holyhead Road Studios, Glass Box, Telegraph, LTB, Daimler etc). Examining what worked, and why, can inform strategy going forwards and help sector be clear about the key do’s and don’ts/what we are working towards.
(Also Artists’ Spaces Nestival of Ideas podcast has more useful wider-than-Coventry info and opinions on this).
Relevant points from Coventry’s Cultural Strategy: ‘New investment model established to enhance and co-ordinate longer term funding for the city’s cultural sector and infrastructure to deliver city outcomes’.
E. Spaces to make & show work: By 2028 there is a mosaic of affordable, available and accessible spaces across the city – both purpose-built and adapted – which include long-term lets, short-term spaces and meanwhile spaces. Spaces for trying things out, through to well-equipped high-quality spaces for presenting professional work. Studio spaces, collaborative spaces, making spaces, recording spaces, exhibition/event/performance presenting spaces and everything in between. These are known about/easy to find, inclusive, accessible and affordable – and there are various progression routes so that spaces can become established but not stagnate.
Current Situation: There is a drastic shortage of affordable space in the city. Artists make good use of meanwhile spaces, as they always have, but there is a desperate need for more, and better, spaces with better access, longer-term viability and security. Although we have gained spaces recently (eg Daimler Powerhouse), we have also lost spaces – and different kinds of spaces (eg; Glass Box Gallery and Shop Front Theatre already lost, with LTB and Arcadia closing in November 2023). Subsidising spaces would be an easy way to invest in artists. Artists who feel less precarious are an asset to the city.
Action Plan:
1. Make a survey of available spaces (this info to feed into K. & L. Resources, below) and draw up specs for the kinds of spaces that are missing (to be done by practitioners in full knowledge that this will be a wishlist, that capital funding will not be readily available, and that requirements change with time).
2. Revisit and update the Void Spaces Strategy (how arts & culture can use and animate empty spaces).
3. Prepare the ground for the grassroots ‘say yes’ spaces, which will be the successor(s) to the LTB. Keep the DIY, grassroots vibe, but value and invest in it.
4. Ensure that sector representatives collaborate in the development of the space(s) at IKEA as early as possible.
5. CCC-sanctioned ‘stepped’ development of space – ‘meanwhile space’ experiments can establish what the space is ‘good for’ and how it works best (eg exploring the potential of the Priory Visitor Centre and other empty spaces); these experiments then establish an evidence base for accessing capital resources (partnership between CCC and sector). Where a space is no good, we can let it go.
Relevant points from Coventry’s Cultural Strategy: ‘Significant increase in creative/cultural industry careers choices and graduate retention in the city’; ‘Measurable increase in skills and acumen of cultural sector organisations’; ‘Community-led production and programming increases cultural participation and activism’; ‘Coventry’s innovative and diverse cultural life and infrastructure, increases local, national and international tourism to the region’; ‘New investment model established to enhance and co-ordinate longer term funding for the city’s cultural sector and infrastructure to deliver city outcomes’; ‘Cultural production and programming are environmentally responsible and promote environmental awareness’.
3. POLITICAL & FINANCIAL SUPPORT
Arts and culture is more central politically in Coventry than it has been since (arguably) the 1950/60s when the city supported the building of a new civic theatre and a penny on income tax to establish the innovative Theatre in Education service. But the feeling in the sector – in the long and combined shadow of the pandemic, a difficult City of Culture experience, the cost of living crisis and the climate crisis – is a precarious fragility. This is both debilitating and infantilising, and this action plan seeks to articulate meaningful support structures which will allow the sector to stabilise and thrive. Artists and creative practitioners need to feel valued and supported in order to utilise our particular skills as part of the city’s much needed (and ongoing) community building and resilience work.
F. Political Support: By 2028 Politicians and Council Officers representing all areas of the city have a real, embedded understanding of the value of the arts and creativity to the city, and work across all departments to support and develop it. There is an active commitment to the upkeep/maintenance of public art and cultural spaces to a high standard across Coventry, and an understanding of the way this relatively small investment impacts on place-making, perceived value, social cohesion and civic pride. The arts ecology has a positive and active relationship with the City Council, with a straightforward clear/transparent system for gaining permissions/approvals for projects/events/spaces and a deep understanding of how such things are mutually beneficial.
Current Situation: The sector recognises that there is support and goodwill within the City Council but – with sector fragility exacerbated by the CoC collapse – it needs this goodwill to translate into infrastructural support and investment quickly. Each part of the city’s arts ecology needs to understand and explore how it can own, partner, deliver and benefit from the city’s Cultural Strategy. Council & Universities also would benefit from understanding how the paternalistic optics of announcements like ‘Culture Works’ are received by the sector.
Action Plan:
1. As part of the wider partnership conversation, build in regular, consistent, communication with council officers/cultural strategy leaders locally. (This may be via F13 reps on Culture Works?)
2. Clarity on lines of communication – who is first port of call?
3. Update/formalise/simplify mechanism for artists to access void spaces on meanwhile lets.
Relevant points from Coventry’s Cultural Strategy: ‘Culture Change Coventry provides a platform for major arts and culture related funding bids, and develops strategic relationships with national/local government, businesses, cultural sector, and major funders’.
G. Value & Investment: By 2028 the value that the city and its communities place on artists, arts, culture and creative activity is clearly visible, and increasing year on year. The city (via Culture Works?) accesses large scale funding awards which it draws down and distributes to facilitate meaningful support for arts/creative/cultural projects at a variety of different scales. The city invests financially in organisations and individual artists – both to enable them to develop their own creative practice and to create projects for the city and its communities – which will feel the benefits derived in terms of innovation, animating spaces, creating joy, togetherness, community and shared experience, provoking thought/action/behaviour change, increasing health and wellbeing and more.
Current Situation: Many artists and organisations face an uncertain future in the aftermath of CoC, with many being financially worse off than they were before. Much of this fragile sector has been battered by the combination of Covid, cost of living and the pressures and disappointments of City of Culture, with many now in a pretty perilous position. A long period of austerity, cuts in funding, the cost of living crisis and the state of the rentals sector means that it is really hard for artists to find suitable affordable living accommodation in the city, let alone affordable studio space.
Action Plan:
1. Conversations about how best to structure applications and grant-giving from CCC, Unis and other funders (light touch, accessible etc) to get investment to the sector fast.
2. External larger pots – Culture Works’ new post – fundraising capacity needs to be included in this (D1) as ways of bringing non-arts-ringfenced funding to the table.
3. A consistent, funded Arts Development post/dept at CCC.
3. Support those who are eg doing informal funding support surgeries – it takes time.
Relevant points from Coventry’s Cultural Strategy: ‘The cultural sector positively contributes to and shapes cultural and other civic ambitions and outcomes for the city’; ‘A ‘One Coventry’ streamlined partnership and place-based model maximises cultural and culture-related funding bids’; ‘The cultural sector activity makes a significant contribution to the social, health and wellbeing targets for the city’.
H. Pay & Conditions: By 2028 there is an agreed & transparent set of principles that work to ensure fair pay for artists across the city. This might not include an advertised rate, but is a city-wide commitment to pay fairly and promptly for artists’ time, including for meetings, consultations and travel (recognising that these take up considerable time out of freelancers’ days).
Current Situation: Artists’ rates of pay have not increased or even stabilised despite work done by CoCT, and many artists and organisations are currently worse off than they were in 2017. Large organisations (both arts and non-arts) are especially poor at understanding the mechanics of a freelance existence – prompt, or even better front-loaded, payment schedules would help. Artists and small organisations should not have to cashflow larger organisations.
Action Plan:
1. Unearth the work done by CoCT & their artist advisory group on ‘Fair Pay Manifesto’ as a starting point.
2. Contact/join national network of arts networks currently working on fair pay.
3. Principles include guidelines detailing benefits (and ‘how to’) of hiring from within the city (instead of bringing “talent” in from outside for a very short period of time).
I. City Events Programme: By 2028 popular creative community projects (such as Window Wanderland, Bring Your Own Beamer, Random String Canal Trail, Procession) are established annual events, having been supported to grow and receive citywide & strategic support.
Current Situation: Relatively little investment would be needed to get these projects back on their feet. They are all popular projects (with artists and public) and investing in these would be ‘easy wins’ that help the city rehabilitate the CoC legacy.
Action Plan:
1. There is a conversation with the Council and relevant organisations about how best to hold and support these initiatives going forward as markers in the city calendar.
Relevant points from Coventry’s Cultural Strategy: ‘Coventry’s innovative and diverse cultural life and infrastructure, increases local, national and international tourism to the region’; ‘A culture-led BID enhances and profits from the city centre visitor experience’.
4. Resources
These are actions that could be characterised as a network or commons of resources – which can create a stepchange in what artists and creative practitioners are able to achieve, and the impact we can make. As with the provision of spaces, there is a far larger gain than might be expected from these relatively simple interventions in the underlying infrastructure. We think that opening up and sharing access to resources in this way is very likely to bring far wider reaching benefits to the city than these modest interventions might suggest.
J. Access to Specialist Resources: By 2028 independent Coventry artists have reduced rate access to selected university resources (such as printing facilities, 3D fabrication, digital library access etc), through a membership scheme (perhaps through F13 and/ or Coventry Artspace). Coventry University and the University of Warwick demonstrate a genuine commitment to supporting the city’s independent artists (not only recent graduates) through resource-sharing, recognising the mutual benefits of this for the city’s cultural ecology.
Current Situation: Access is based on personal relationships and is therefore very uneven/patchy.
Action Plan:
1. Open a partnership conversation with city (poss via Culture Works) that looks to establish a CityArtCard of some kind, that grants artist-members access to ‘x’ resources to enhance our ability to do ‘y’. Priorities include access to library, equipment such as the former Reel Store projectors, space eg IKEA/LTB type open access ‘yes’ space, partnerships with researchers on projects (funded by non-arts-money) etc.
Relevant points from Coventry’s Cultural Strategy: ‘Culture Change Coventry provides a platform for major arts and culture related funding bids, and develops strategic relationships with national/local government, businesses, cultural sector, and major funders’; ‘Measurable increase in skills and acumen of cultural sector organisations’; ‘Coventry’s innovative and diverse cultural life and infrastructure, increases local, national and international tourism to the region’; ‘New investment model established to enhance and co-ordinate longer term funding for the city’s cultural sector and infrastructure to deliver city outcomes’; ‘The city makes and develops creative, cultural and civic uses of 5G and immersive technology’; ‘Arts and culture motivate positive behavioural change to protect and celebrate the environment’.
K. Shared Resources Bank: By 2028 there are transparent and well-signposted resources/knowledge shared/freely available across the sector/city. These include physical resources such as picture frames or equipment, and information resources such as signposting which organisation houses/looks after which equipment/resources and how artists may borrow it, plus a database of spaces/hire details/costs for eg exhibition, workshop, performance, gigs etc
Current Situation: Artspace Exchange; F13 biogs list; Ludic Rooms’ kit; low availability of affordable quality AV kit regionally now.
Action Plan:
1. Collate existing resources – unearth CoCT/CCC versions/maps of crowdsourced venues etc; who is hiring kit etc
2. Make this info available via an open website resource (could Culture Works support this, we’d also need to think about admin?)
3. What do people have that they are happy to be the custodian of/share with the sector? And how can we make this work (and make it available to a wider range of artists) without adding to anyone’s workload? (This is for items that are available free/mates’ rates)
4. For those that hold higher end kit/equipment that could be hired out further afield in order to provide an income, explore feasibility of shared hire platform. Is there an existing model (research – where already does this well?). Is there a way to take the admin burden from small orgs/support them to hire and benefit from hire fees but without additional admin?
5. Gaps – does there need to be a shared kit bank (new kit) established? (IKEA???)
Relevant points from Coventry’s Cultural Strategy: ‘The city makes and develops creative, cultural and civic uses of 5G and immersive technology’; ‘New investment model established to enhance and co-ordinate longer term funding for the city’s cultural sector and infrastructure to deliver city outcomes’; ‘Measurable increase in skills and acumen of cultural sector organisations’.
L. Knowledge Resources: By 2028 there are good support services funded and easily accessible to help with eg creative careers advice, funding applications and skills development.
Current Situation: Much expertise is held within the sector and collectively shared, but capacity is a major issue; huge variance in requirements for funding applications; playing field is uneven.
Action Plan:
1. Flag up to F13 members that The White Pube is a strong resource for successful bid apps; also Christina Poulton twitter; and that on Artspace Exchange there are consultants who perhaps may offer bid writing support.
2. As an ‘Artists Advice Bureau’ was part of the recommendations from the Citizens’ Assembly, join up there, and perhaps this can also be built into CCC conversations?
3. Results from surveys in ‘2E: Spaces to Make & Show Work‘ – share info on spaces.
4. Small Arts Grants – look at and learn from best practice in less onerous and more accessible form-writing/processes. (remove barriers)
5. Investigate how ACE’s Access assistance with application writing works – how do people get approved to provide assistance? How do people find out who is approved and local?
5. POSSIBLE F13-GENERATED PROGRAMME ACTIVITY
This is a slightly different category to those that have come before. We are interested in the uses and benefits of arts activity being practically woven through all areas of life and be funded by other sources (not only specific arts funding). One area was University Research and these ideas are specific to that.
M. Artists & Academics Research: By 2028, F13 and partners have begun a UKRI-funded action research project to explore and quantify the benefits to research outcomes of involving artists from the start of the project; and to develop equal-status best practice for artist-academic collaborations for Research, Engagement, Impact and other purposes.
Current Situation: There are good and bad examples of practice in the city at present, and there is a need to redress the power imbalance between academics and artists: to explore what an equitable relationship might look like and the benefits it might bring to both parties. There is a general lack of awareness/understanding of the precarity of freelancing, or working for a small organisation, and it is lonely and exploitative when you are the only person in the room who is not being paid to be there. Artists should not have to subsidise a project or organisation to take part.
1. University partnership – seed funding to jointly explore how this research might be structured.
2. Fundraising capacity – accessing non-arts-specific funding to achieve non-arts specific aims (as universities often access arts funding when employing artists, but there is a danger that this reduces the pot available to artists, since there are limited funds to which we can apply).
N: Artists UBI Action Research: By 2028 a research project around a Universal Basic Income (UBI) for artists is up and running.
Artists and creative practitioners are, of course, also citizens/residents/parents/community members/etc and – like everyone else – we have a vested interest in making our city a better place to live and work. When citizens are freed from the pressures that life throws at them, they are able to apply themselves to thinking about ways to improve theirs, and their community’s, quality of life. The only difference is that the particular skillsets of artists are more likely than the average population to include community engagement, event organising, creative thinking, communication and problem-solving, and being well networked and inventive in their access to resources. These could be useful skills to invest in – imagine what might be achieved.
Models trialling Universal Basic Income for artists do exist! One example is Let Artists Be Artists in Gloucestershire. Ireland are also trialling an artists’ UBI – and there’s also a relevant blogpost from TB here imagining UBI as an alternative City of Culture investment model.
There are also an increasing number of different residency models across the UK that tread similar territory/part-achieve this investment in artists’ time and ideas without fixed outcome targets (a local example being Nest Residencies which, as the results of the 2022 programme showed, with additional investment/longer time periods could make a huge difference citywide).
What do you think?
If this Action Plan is to be used as the basis of conversations between the sector and funders, decision makers and so on, we have to be confident that this represents the widest range of artists and creative practitioners possible. So, having read through all this, what do you think? Are these the right priorities for us to pursue as a sector?
PLEASE REGISTER YOUR THOUGHTS AND RESPONSES via the form below (if you would prefer to open the form in a different window, click here). As a gesture in recognition of the time you will spend reading and responding to the draft Action Plan Talking Birds will offer £5 to the first 50 people that complete this survey.
And if you want to refer to the current Coventry City Cultural Strategy Refresh, you can find that here.
QUICK linkS
- Careers in the Arts (A. Careers & Opportunities; B. Career Development; C. Information)
- Space (D. Infrastructure; E. Spaces to Make & Show Work)
- Political & Financial Support (F. Political Support; G. Value & Investment; H. Pay & Conditions; I. City Events Programme)
- Resources (J. Access to Specialist Resources; K. Shared Resources; L. Knowledge Resources)
- Possible Programme Activity (M. Artists & Academics Research; N. Artists’ UBI Action Research)
Words from the Birds 
The colorfield performance is in Elst in Holland, email ‘thecolorfieldperformance@gmail.com’ it would be great if it could come to Coventry in the future. Artists paint in the park, to make a free exhibition in the park.