No further positive reflections as yet (still thinking) but crystallised my thoughts on one of the major issues that came out of SOTA12: The top down hierarchy at play enforced by both Ed Vaizey and Liz Forgan at SOTA12.
A point I made in the Art & Audiences parallel session is that defining the roles of artists and audience are integral to the discussion and that these roles are often blurred. Audience are artists, artists are audience, artists are curators (and run NPOs) and curators/NPOs are audience.
The archaic top down model just isn’t working. At the “bottom” the audience/artists/arts organisations are working together (as equals and frequently flipping between roles) in interesting, innovative and grass-roots ways. Government is determined to keep artists at armslength we heard directly from the Minister. In between the arts sector and Government is the Arts Council under pressure from Government to implement cuts upon cuts.
I think this underlies many problems and frustrations of the day and needs addressing desperately urgently. This is a major reason so many artists are calling upon Arts Council to allow them to be involved in the planning of SOTA13. The feeling of being at the bottom of a hierarchy and the communications not being a two way process “back up” to Government is the undervaluing theme of the day.
