Re:view Bursary

Bull Hotel, Bridport, meeting with Julie Penfold, curator, b-side.

Really hot day, and a glorious journey through Devon to Dorset all along the A35. Country market towns and intense industrial agriculture with not a whiff of diversity, nor major or even minor conurbation in sight.

It is lovely to meet Julie – am very interested in soundworks/sound interventions and have followed PVA and PVA MediaLab (very exciting projects) since moving to the South West – Julie is co-founder in 1996 of artist group PVA and currently project director and coordinator of PVA MediaLab and Director of LabCulture Ltd.

(The Bull Hotel is gorgeous – a grand market town hotel with gilding and panelling and squishy carpets and a full-on ballroom next to the ladies. We sit outside in the lovely shady garden)

Julie says a couple of positive things about past work – real morale boost – and focuses in on the 2 strands of activity Smooth Space is developing. Her advice and information are invaluable – sharing examples of projects she has directed; issues with funding; examples of open studio events.

Julie emphasises we should make sure we get good documentation and evaluate as we go – sound recording, filming etc – and says this will help to instantly build up our initiative’s track record.

We talk a lot about funding and writing funding bids – and, inevitably, about ACE: what the current priorities are; how we should feel more positive after reading the interview with Peter Heslip on a-n. Julie advises contacting the Arts Council and trying to get a meeting – (this advice was also given by Carol Carey, Claire Doherty and Paula Orrell). Julie says that our relationship manager will have useful information about what other projects are being developed in the region and this will give us an idea of how successful our funding application will be.

we have been trying to make contact with our ACE relationship manager for more than 8 months. She gave us a huge amount of support when we were developing ‘over the horizon’ and came to Berry Head to talk to us and see project outcomes and offered us a meeting to discuss future development for Smooth Space – but since last autumn has not been able to answer messages/return calls

One message from Julie is still resonating – keep putting in funding applications: don’t wait for an answer, just keep putting them in….The reality of keeping any arts initiative afloat

It is tempting to question ability/quality after such a long hard effort with so many knocks, but this meeting with Julie really helps me to get back on track/keep my focus/steel my resolve! We aren’t crap, so keep on trying.

Submitted application from Smooth Space to Alias Arts for support from their advisory service.

Organised an exchange/share – swapping use of our camera & equipment for help with re-building our website.

Began re-writing Smooth Space values document.

Began to think/plan Torbay ‘in dialogue’ sessions.

small, achievable steps

friday afternoon, Plymouth University’s Marine Institute and a meeting with Paula Orrell who is currently involved with Tamar Project; Artangel; Efford Take A Part; Alias Arts; Karst Projects; Curatorial and Visual Arts South West.

The Marine Institute is a fabulous place to visit. Paula has a desk in the large, open plan office – she has booked a slot for us in one of the closed-off conference rooms in about 30 mins from our meeting start and so takes me to sit in a relaxed space where we can chat at the far end of the open floor.

Again, really bowled over by the help I am being offered through this bursary. Paula is so focused on making this session as efficient and useful as possible. This meeting is for critical support for my own artistic practice – and Paula immediately says that we should keep the discussion tightly about my practice and for Smooth Space I should submit a request to Alias Arts which can offer support with a mentor to develop us as an initiative/organisation.

Then in the small, private meeting room I nervously begin to show Paula films and documentation from past projects. This is a deeply difficult process – Paula is very professional, a curator whose practice I admire and respect enormously, and my past work has spluttered into being in fits and starts, whenever I have managed to win a commission, and usually to fit in with a heavily preconstructed commissioner’s agenda. Or, has come to life with little or no budget – creative ambition pared down to a bare, achievable minimum. This does not make for a solid and developing body of work. Have not had any kind of critical feedback – from any commissioners/galleries/projects.

Paula’s comments are rigorous and push hard. She asks if I have thought about applying for an MA – a critically engaged programme with exciting tutors.

She also understands the struggle of trying to maintain a creative practice with no related means of financial support and asks what work I have to do to earn a living – these questions have never been put to me by any organisation, commissioner, gallery.

Paula’s advises small steps – achievable shifts – to make steady progress, with a couple of really solid suggestions. Plus, 5-year timelines – one for Smooth Space and one for my own practice – where do I want to be in 5 years’ time?

We had initially spoken of a session which would last a couple of hours, but have spent most of the day together. Paula’s stamina far outstrips mine – she is still fresh and focused, I stumble out feeling shattered.

But amazed. Fantastically difficult encounter which has stretched and pushed me. Have not experienced anything as rigorous since graduating.

When I get home I find an email from Claire Doherty with a link to Guardian discussion on residencies.

Smooth Space monday morning planning meeting following visit to Claire Doherty from Situations at Spike Island in Bristol.

My co-Smooth Spacer comfortingly calls it a paranoia meeting.

We are trying to work out how we approach the Geopark partners to let them know that we have to abandon the 3-year project.

We are also feeling vulnerable – and mainly because competition for funds is so intense and we always need to secure funds before we can produce work. Writing funding bids when you are working 14-hour days generating enough income to pay the rent and cover basic living is no simple task.

mid-morning at Situations office, Spike Island. Beautiful poster from Slow Space Bjorvika on notice board.

Claire Doherty begins by asking me about my practice and where I see my work in 3 years from now. Am unnerved as it seems that my current activity is all focused on the 3-year programme we are hoping to roll out in partnership with TCCT – and it needs to fit in with Situations recommendations for the ‘new artistic vision’ for Torbay. My response to Claire has to be to start talking about Smooth Space partnering TCCT for a 3-year programme of projects across flagship Geopark sites. I list the sites and ask whether this clashes with Situations proposals.

Well, yes is the short answer.

I was expecting this, in my heart of hearts, but it’s still tough to face the finality of months and months of hard work and pushing ourselves to come up to the task of planning and proposals writing and funding applications and meetings and to accept that it is all finished….If we are trying to do the same thing that Situations has been commissioned for, then we will not get support from the Arts Council – and we were hoping for 60% funding from ACE.

But, Claire is very kind and very sensitive and keeps asking questions about what Smooth Space values are, why we are so focused on lengthy periods of research, what we like about non-arts partnerships.

Claire responds that we are artists and that the project we’ve been planning turns us into a commissioning organisation, taking us far away from our own artistic vision.

(We were aware of this, but I think about the conversations we’d had, batting ideas back and forwards as we began forming the idea of Smooth Space and what we wanted to achieve through working collectively. And our Smooth Space committee meeting, immediately post over the horizon, where we talked about how to move forward. And then how we were approached by the Director of TCCT, shortly after the committee meeting, with a direct request to work with them to produce this massive project across their sites and feeling like we musn’t refuse – that we should not turn down such a fantastic opportunity).

Claire says that Smooth Space could be referred to as an initiative rather than a commissioning organisation. We need to drill down into what we are/what it is like working with us – and to write this as a new values/vision document which will help artists to understand who we are. Claire picks up on everything I’ve described (and on things that were implicit) and speaks about Smooth Space giving ourselves time to really bed down in place – that projects which have research periods built into their structure still don’t really get under the skin of place – that commissioned artists will only visit a site perhaps once or twice during research – and that what we at Smooth Space are talking about really is residencies.

I talk about working people with expert knowledge and cross-fertilization of disciplines – for example, during over the horizon we commissioned specialists such as Dr Chris Proctor, geologist and Andy Byfield from Plantlife to work with us during our research phase. Claire speaks about using Smooth Space as the umbrella under which our activity takes place, with artists and others with specialist knowledge invited to collaborate with us on embedded projects.

I feel stunned – am sure it shows – reeling, in fact! And wierdly, experience a bit of a head-rush moment.

And so here it is – all that we had ever proposed that Smooth Space could be spoken out loud, pulled back to us.All hypothetical – but so is everything before it properly begins.