Transmission Gallery issues statement condemning Creative Scotland funding decision

Glasgow’s artist-run Transmission Gallery has issued a strongly-worded and expansive statement condemning Creative Scotland’s recent decision to drop it from its portfolio of regularly funded organisations.

The 950-word rebuttal from the gallery’s organising committee states that it is “dismayed to learn that in our 35th anniversary year, Creative Scotland have chosen to withdraw our Regular Funding” and that the decision “severely compromises the future of the gallery and comes at a devastating time given the recent demographics and aspirations of the space”.

It adds: “Transmission believes that Creative Scotland have chosen to cut our funding because they are no longer prepared to invest in an institution that refuses professionalisation, and yet by virtue of its unique history operates at a scale comparable to more professionalised institutions.”

The gallery questions Creative Scotland’s ability to be unbiased and independent in its funding decisions, claiming that the body is unwilling to invest in organisations that don’t conform to a particular demographic and organisational approach.

The committee’s statement continues: “Creative Scotland state that their decision to remove Transmission from the RFO register was contingent on the implementation of a new (as-yet undisclosed) funding strategy, to be specifically tailored towards the needs and demands of the artist-run sector.

“However, no such strategy has yet been designed, nor timeframe disclosed; the creation of a separate pot of funding for artist-run spaces has yet to be approved, and there is no guarantee that it will be.

“If the intention is to support artist-run spaces and produce a new funding strategy in consultation with the sector, then it is counter-intuitive to compel us to increase our unpaid workload in contributing to this conversation, whilst destabilising the institution by removing its existing funding.

“We acknowledge a very real need to develop an artist-run-space-specific fund (both RFO and Open Project Funding present difficulties), but we are not currently confident that this will come to pass in a meaningful way.”

Messy and unpredictable

The statement goes on to describe Transmission as “too messy and unpredictable, subject to quick change” for Creative Scotland to invest in its future.

Explaining the committee’s work over the last two years to “undertake a process of decolonisation, addressing representation in the institution” it argues that “while perhaps not explicitly racist, queerphobic, etc, it could be inferred that Creative Scotland does not see the expressions of these communities in their active, unrefined, ungentrified forms as being valuable, or the timing of this decision to be particularly loaded, and thus acts from a position of institutional bias in which racism, queerphobia and so forth emerge.”

Transmission was founded in 1983 by graduates of Glasgow School of Art and has played a central part in the city’s contemporary art for nearly 35 years. Many of its former committee members have gone on to be internationally known artists and curators and its model of a rotating committee that changes every two years has been widely copied by artist-run organisations across the UK and beyond.

Artists, curators and other visual arts professionals across the UK and internationally have expressed their dismay at Creative Scotland’s decision.

Responding to a piece on a-n News, in an Instagram post the New York-based curator and White Columns director Matthew Higgs described the decision as “irrational…baffling and depressing”, while describing Transmission as “arguably the most important artist-run space in the UK” and “among the most vital platforms for contemporary art in Europe (and beyond) for more than thirty years”.

In response to Higgs’ post, the Turner Prize-winning artist Wolfgang Tillmans said: “Whatever the budget restraints: not the right decision!”

Image:
Transmission Gallery, Glasgow, photographed January 2017 and featuring How To Suffer Politely (And Other Etiquette), posters by Kameelah Janan Rasheed. Photo: Chris Sharratt

The Transmission statement in full

Transmission is dismayed to learn that in our 35th anniversary year, Creative Scotland have chosen to withdraw our Regular Funding.

This withdrawal of support severely compromises the future of the gallery and comes at a devastating time given the recent demographics and aspirations of the space.

Over the last two years, Transmission’s committee has sought to undertake a process of decolonisation, addressing representation in the institution, taking direction from the original constitution and foregrounding the experiences of people who are underrepresented in the arts.

The gallery has long been a training ground and site of experimentation for early-career artists, many of whom have famously gone on to be influential locally and internationally. Since 2016 we’ve sought to build on and respond to this legacy, acknowledging critique, membership desires and political questions relevant to the context of contemporary Glasgow. This has manifested in the development of a coherent, progressive programme focused on issues of decolonisation, race, sexuality and gender with an understanding that change must be instituted beyond the public programme. Creative Scotland’s withdrawal of future funding comes at the first moment in Transmission’s history that it has been led by a committee of people of colour.

In the closing paragraph of their funding assessment, Creative Scotland state, “It should be noted that Transmission’s application was assessed as fundable and its approach to EDI* is exceptionally strong and sectorally relevant at this time.” Given this we cannot help but understand their decision as a political one. Transmission interprets this decision as discriminatory, conscious or otherwise, and indicative of a wider but pressing issue of institutional bias. We understand our situation in a wider context of simultaneous cuts to disability-focused theatre and children’s theatre projects this year, following historic dismantling of grassroots and minority-led arts organisations across the UK. These points of decision-making are where the responsibility must lie. If Creative Scotland is committed to advocating diversity within its organisations this issue must urgently be addressed.

The decisions made call into question what demographics Creative Scotland is willing to support, and to take seriously; whose development it is willing to sponsor; whose needs it is willing to listen to; who it wishes to comprise its arts community and audience, and moreover what that community is permitted to say.

Creative Scotland state that their decision to remove Transmission from the RFO register was contingent on the implementation of a new (as-yet undisclosed) funding strategy, to be specifically tailored towards the needs and demands of the artist-run sector. However, no such strategy has yet been designed, nor timeframe disclosed; the creation of a separate pot of funding for artist-run spaces has yet to be approved, and there is no guarantee that it will be.

If the intention is to support artist-run spaces and produce a new funding strategy in consultation with the sector, then it is counter-intuitive to compel us to increase our unpaid workload in contributing to this conversation, whilst destabilising the institution by removing its existing funding. We acknowledge a very real need to develop an artist-run-space-specific fund (both RFO and Open Project Funding present difficulties), but we are not currently confident that this will come to pass in a meaningful way.

Transmission believes that Creative Scotland have chosen to cut our funding because they are no longer prepared to invest in an institution that refuses professionalisation, and yet by virtue of its unique history operates at a scale comparable to more professionalised institutions. The climate that engenders this is articulated by Morgan Quaintance in his essay, ‘The New Conservatism: Complicity and the UK Art World’s Performance of Progression’** for e-flux

“This state of affairs has facilitated a massive transference of power from artists to institutions, from the grass roots to the establishment, and from community groups to highly professionalised and internetworked charitable organisations. The result in the UK is an art world whose only steady, top-down movement seems increasingly to be towards the absorption and neutralization of aberrant forces, and the consolidation of its own regressive institutional influence over what may be considered art or legitimate arts derived activity.”

The cultural capital that Transmission generates, though measurable, does not have the kind of payoff that Creative Scotland as a financial body wishes to continue to invest in. It is too messy and unpredictable, subject to quick change. While perhaps not explicitly racist, queerphobic, etc, it could be inferred that Creative Scotland does not see the expressions of these communities in their active, unrefined, ungentrified forms as being valuable, or the timing of this decision to be particularly loaded, and thus acts from a position of institutional bias in which racism, queerphobia and so forth emerge. This implicit neglect of people working on the margins also extends to affect the broader membership of Transmission, regardless of background.

This is because Transmission is and has long been a members’ organisation that supports 300+ artists in Glasgow and further afield in various ways. Its free resources sustain artistic practices, grassroots events and exhibition-making. The venue is used as a free accessible meeting space for multiple groups beyond the arts community; many of whom do not have the resources to rent spaces. Transmission may be ‘artist-run’ but its remit has always extended beyond the artist, to the writer, curator, musician, historian, activist and so forth. It cannot be overstated how much well-archived, immeasurably influential, radical activity has been generated through, around and despite Transmission over the decades.

Transmission will be calling an Emergency General Meeting in the coming days. This meeting will be members only.

The committee would like to take this opportunity to thank and express love to all members and all who have offered words of support since the disclosure. Please watch this space for further announcements.

Transmo Loves You xx

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