“We want to show there are as many ways to serve up and enjoy the arts as there are to eat a meal.” This is the guiding principle behind Stoke’s Appetite programme, and the food analogies and puns come thick and fast. There is a weekly Pick ‘n’ Mix music programme at the hospital, and in 2013 there was a Taster Menu to give residents an introduction to different artforms, featuring amongst others NoFit State circus and Wired Aerial Theatre.
Several communities in Stoke have been assigned ‘appetite builders’ to work with them on defining and commissioning an arts project they would like, and the Appetite website talks about ‘serving up a jam-packed programme’. Clearly it’s a useful and accessible theme for this three-year Arts Council England funded Creative People and Places programme.
“When I first came to Stoke I felt it had been overlooked or even abandoned,” says Theresa Heskins, artistic director of Stoke’s New Vic theatre, the organisation leading Appetite in partnership with B Arts, Brighter Futures, Partners in Creative Learning and Staffordshire University’s Creative Communities Unit.
The New Vic is the only Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation in Staffordshire, and the Arts Council has identified Stoke as having very low participation in the arts – “in the bottom 20%”. Heskins’ view is that this is due to lack of provision rather than there being no interest. She makes the point that “what Stoke can offer is an audience very hungry for art, and it is very rewarding to make art for them.”
Much of Appetite’s public programme is geared around street arts and the type of performance events that can provide presence, spectacle and impact for the most number of people. For example, Brighton-based Periplum will be staging their large-scale show The Bell on the 2 and 3 August, which includes acrobatics, pyrotechnics and aerial performance, and Walk the Plank will be recreating their Fire Garden work in November. Most events are free, although Periplum and two others have a ticket charge.
Lasting change in the city
The aim overall is very much to enable as many people and families as possible in Stoke to experience the arts, but the team is also hoping that this will kickstart lasting change in the city. At the grassroots level, their aspiration is that by working with ‘community hubs’, individual communities will be in a position to produce, fundraise for and commission their own art projects beyond the three years of the currently funded projects.
One such community-based project is London Road by artist (and a-n board member) Dan Thompson. “Over the next 12 months I will be writing a complete history of Stoke, consisting of all the local and half-forgotten stories in the area,” he says. He delights in making connections between stories about buildings, people, local landmarks and the communities surrounding them.
Liz Perry, from SWOCA (Stoke West and Oakhill Community Association) is delighted to be working with him. “We knew about Dan’s Riot Clean Up, and we asked Appetite for someone like Dan Thompson – and we got Dan Thompson himself! Appetite has come at exactly the right time for us.”
Appetite also has a visual arts strand called The Kitchen, intended to provide artist development opportunities for local and visiting artists to develop new ideas and help build the profile of Stoke as an artistic city. Bristol-based artist Rich White has been commissioned to make a sculptural installation at the hospital.
“It’s very early days yet,” says White, “but I’m doing some research with the Pathology and Radiology departments, and the porters. I want to uncover the support processes, not just for the patients but also the processes that make the hospital run. Then I’ll translate this into a fairly large physical structure, hopefully using hospital materials like splints and putty.”
There is also a commission worth £44,000 with the British Ceramics Biennial which is undertaking a short residency at the hospital to create Flowerbed, a series of workshops resulting in a site-specific artwork of bone china flowers utilising old and unwanted hospital equipment.
Open call to artists
This year also sees two rounds of grant funding through an open call to artists in the UK to make a new work in or for Stoke. It is not artform specific, but is intended to provide research, development and seed-funding for new projects. In the first round, five artists received R&D funding of £1500 each, and £16,650 was divided between them to make the projects happen. The plan is to distribute two rounds a year – advertised on both the a-n jobs and opps pages, and also on the Appetite website.
There is a small visual arts scene in Stoke, with the artist-led AIRSPACE and a good fine art course at Staffordshire University. “Graduates from the fine art course are starting to want to stay in Stoke,” says Appetite artistic director and Stoke resident Gemma Thomas. Recent Staffordshire graduate Ali Reed, who in March won the New Art West Midlands prize, is one example of this. With fellow graduates, she has launched Majestic Studios, providing studio and exhibition space for artists in the city.
There is certainly still scope for expansion of the visual arts infrastructure, though. Workspace wouldn’t be a problem – there are plenty of magnificent abandoned former ceramics factories in the city. “Property is cheap,” says Heskins. “I always say Stoke is the new Hoxton!”
She is perhaps being a little over-optimistic, but Appetite does seem to be making a decent start.
Also on a-n.co.uk:
a-n Degree Shows Guide 2014 – includes interview with Stoke-based artist Ali Reed
