The other workshops I attended at the TUC Conference last Saturday were more about Liverpool's year as Capital of Culture, which is less relevant to artists as a whole. There were still some realy interesting trends though: Two standpoints emerged – those who were quite bitter about not receiving funding and those who (were not artists) felt artists should be going out there and doing it for themselves. I did state an opinion or ask a question at one point and was told (encouragingly and with well-meaning) to just get together with some friends, find a space and make something happen. I didn't want to sound defensive and say, actually I am in a space (Wolstenholme Projects) with some friends and we put on great things like Liverpool Artists' Book Fair, lots of really interesting exhibitions, exchanges with other artist-led groups and regular films screenings. To deflect this rather patronising response I just said I was thinking less about me personally and more about the industry in general.
But that was one problem with this discussion, so many disciplines were represented there that often we were talking at cross-purposes, or too narrowly about our own disciplines, and some people clearly had no idea about the way in which artists operate.
During the Capital of Culture, none of the artist-led studio groups were successful in getting support from the culture company. I think this is partly due to a decision to focus on bringing people in to the city (more extravaganzas, no money to much less visible causes), it may also have been because the proposals were no good. I don't know. But it does make me think that although I often hear talk about Graduate retention and how important it is to keep young artists in the city, there was little tangible support for this sector during 2008.
Much discussion was had about community arts too and the fact that not enough money went to that. I didn't feel I could put the case for the young artists forward in a concise enough way to prevent saying it all wrong, making it very un-pc and getting attacked from all sides. How feeble of me. What I wanted to say though, was that we are a community in ourselves, and I hope that we will also be the future project leaders and arts innovators in Liverpool. For that reason, we also need to be valued and supported.
