Arent Artists Busy 2
I hear that Simon Grennan and Chris Sperrandio have held a meeting with the Geographic workers – who I discover have just a month to work their notice. Sounds as if funding for CN4M, in its current form, is collapsing as new agendas kick in through local Government. As CN4M embark on their re-branding, Simon and Chris set out alone to experience the CN4M geographic hotspots.
Jo Lewington has gained trust at one or two factories. Its surprising that not all manufacturing has gone east. Manchester is still home to a number of textile manufacturers and Jo is exploring these environments in her research into physical repetitive actions and movement and how these echo all our lives’ patterns. So a different approach to the theme of economy than the new Learning Skills and Employment network of CN4M might be taking, but possibly one that will resonate with the workers of the factories and wider, as Jo’s durational work evolves.
William Titley meanwhile has attended umpteen meetings with the Sustainable communities networks. Some of the meetings are poorly attended, and he identifies “heroes” – the volunteers who turn up time after time and are so committed to making it work. I say maybe it’s a kind of dying breed and he sees them as warriors, specially the people who have worked all their lives in community projects. There’s nostalgia there as well from some participants – a wish for things to be as they once were. For more solidarity, more trust, less change – he’s brought these thoughts together in an object – the old fashioned dustbin, with a lid – and he’s focusing on this as a sculptural work. But for now he’s taking part in a mountain marathon and is thinking as he runs………
Aren’t Artists Busy!!
The CN4M project is gathering pace and interest. After Hafsah Naib’s attendence at the Cultural Partnership this week, there is a buzz gathering around the activity. Also the artists are emerging from (for some) their culture shock – in coming to terms with what exactly this is all about – with new observations and strategies as work develops.
After our meeting last night with everyone I am excited about the project – the passion it is inspiring, the complex ideas coming up and the interconnections between and variety of approaches.
Joe Richardson has been delving into “the diagram” that tries to define networks – and tracing a route through the structure by using me as a starting point and then following up contacts that I recommended and then following contacts that they recommended and so on, to try to understand whether CN4M can really achieve its aims. Can CN4M’s structure communicate with the loose groupings of small organisations and really have much impact on the great twisting organism that is the local decision making process within local Government, as they also try to keep up with shifting policies, central directives and funding priorities. What other models for this are there in other NRF targeted cities – and I wonder what part does local democracy play?
Jil Moore, meanwhile gets on a bus, with Bill the Transport Pool coordinator on “one of the most problematic school run routes” and finds that on that day the “youth” are actually very considerate and polite (if lively) and it’s the bus driver who is creating danger by trying to race through before any children embark. She hears about some small but significant victories that Bill has helped bring about on bus routes.
Andrew has ditched his notion of hi tech “social capital mapping” – discovering that the “personal networks” between organisations are just that and not so easy to reveal. So he’s returned to something much more clunky, a board game, and instead of soical theories has begun to interact with a disability arts project and basic materials to point at the need for something like CN4M when the connections run dry.
Hafsah Naib attended the Cultural Partnership – the meeting that brings together the big players in Culture in Manchester – and hears that they want to “understand the visual arts market” They understand what Dance is and Theatre but how can they get to grips with the Visual Arts? At our own recent meeting, Hafsah was wrestling with the internal and the external in the experience of culture and the symbiotic nature of the exchange. She takes the symbol of the large oval table around which everyone sits, with its doughnut-like hole in the middle – a void – the space inside, and begins to work this into her plans.
to be ctd
