five wasted years

I only became aware of them around 2005, but I’ve gained enough of value from attending several different workshops organised by Midwest since then that I’m happy to spend most of today and tomorrow contributing to Up, Up and Away: “part of Midwest’s programme for demise”.

Having just spent about 10 hours with a fairly diverse collection of artists and getting a sense of how the Midwest programme has also benefited them, reading this on D’log this evening was, um, unexpected:

Midwest £62,064
[ supposedly a support organisation for artists in the West Midlands, which never really took off — but somehow hung on to funding for about five wasted years ]
The full cuts list

The post goes on to say:

Cuts to the useless Midwest were widely expected among artists.

As I understand it, back in 2002/2003 Midwest were told in no uncertain terms that they had to prove their worth within the first 18 months of operation in order to receive the remainder of their funding for the rest of the initial 3 year planned lifetime. Not only did they do this, but they then went on to extend the programme for about another 2 years. That second segment has now come to an end and, with things in Birmingham having changed a lot since Midwest’s conception, the organisers have decided that it is now appropriate to bring Midwest’s activities to an end.

This decision was made public to the members of the mailing list in early September last year, so, yes, in that sense, Midwest not getting any further funding in the next fiscal year was widely expected!

Comments are currently switched off on the D’log post and with no obvious means of direct communication via the site I thought I’d open up things here to find out more about why Midwest is apparently seen as useless by some artists. It’s fair enough that some people may hold that view, but I’m curious about how this can be built on for things to come in the future.

What was it about the programme that didn’t work for you and how would you have done it differently?

avatar

Talking about how to represent yourself in a mixed-reality game.

Nova from Bleach:

Pete from Birmingham:

UPDATE:
Pete gets a bit more vocal on the subject and starts to put his avatar to work.

bolt

Found whilst moving house.

Pub Conversation: Douglas White & Justin Coombes

This from the Self Service mailing list, announcing the next in the series of Pub Conversations:

Thursday 17th Jan from 7.30pm

back at our usual venue:
The Lamp Tavern,
257 Barford Street,
Birmingham.
B5 6AH

Aside from directions and past conversation podcasts, our website is playing up at the moment so it isn’t up-to-date. Instead, please see the biographies below to realise why this is a night in the pub not to miss.

Places are free but please rsvp to selfservice[at]hotmail.co.uk to book.
Also, please pass this on to your mailing lists and any others who may be interested.

Douglas White

A Royal College of Art graduate, Douglas White has won the Deutsche Bank Pyramid Award, and a Mann Drawing Prize. He was also shortlisted for the Jerwood Sculpture Prize and the Jerwood Drawing Prize. He has also won the Cockburn Art Prize (1999), the Southsquare Art Scholarship (1996) and the Margaret Pollock Scholarship (2004). His work was selected for the New Contemporaries exhibition in 2004 and 2006. His first solo show was held in October 2006 at Paradise Row, London.

Justin Coombes

Another Paradise Row solo show artist, Justin Coombes is a Goldsmith’s graduate, specialising in photography. He was short-listed for the Paul Hamlyn Award 2007 and the Vordemberge-Gildewart Prize 2006 and won the BOC Emerging Artist Award in 2005. He also has work in the British Government Art Collection.

… a culture where things are produced because people care about it and not necessarily because they hope other people will buy it. So, what we will see is things made by the people for themselves.

…and when we stop doing it, we’ll be dead.

Escapism

I got through yesterday’s shift by treating it like an art project and, as a result, I became somewhat intrigued by the various accoutrements that accompany the returned exam papers and the stories they might hint at…

The Great Escape

Extract, silent (48 seconds)
Rubber band and paper clip accompanying literacy and numeracy exams from various of Her Majesty’s Prisons.

Link to video on Vimeo.

invigilator’s sheets

Currently doing a temping job sorting through incoming examination papers.

Dismayed to see the exam papers testing basic adult literacy are written in comic sans ‘cos, yeah, right, that’s going to make it easier…

Will wear an invigilator shirt to work tomorrow.

fin

Looking on as a small dog saves us the bother of wondering how long our beach drawing will last before the tide comes in…

studio notes

Reproducing some of my notes from the recent studio conversation in an attempt to keep some momentum going over the Christmas slump and because it feeds into other stuff elsewhere…

Draw your own conclusions and do as you see fit!

Things in [square brackets] are notes I’ve added as I’ve typed these now.

• Defensible space vs. shared spaces
• £4 per square foot, including bills (national average £7 [national average for what? What were we comparing?])
• Studios as something to exploit and then move on from
• Nobody [at the studios] was talking about their work!
• Programming vs studio space. Where is the activity?
• Push people out into the city [to further their careers, make way for new artists and prevent a plug forming in the studios]
• The functions of a café includes that of an ad hoc public space [cf actually making a direct financial profit, many projects are born here]
• Associate programme:
  • collaborations
  • sharing knowledge
  • Friends model
  • Travel bursaries
  • How do you make it sweet enough for people to be dedicated?
  • computer access 24 hours
  • library
  • Access to space and to each other (primary function)
  • Draw on it for information and opportunities
  • £12 per month
  • not through a selection process, but available to anyone who feels they are following a path within the visual arts
  • Consists of an active core
  • Peer-to-peer networking
• Studios as part of the ecology of the area and the region (how does it do this and how is it charged with energy?)
• Using the institution to create networks
• Who is the gallery for?
• Spike Design as a way of getting the funders through the door
• DCMS toolkit
• What is our relationship with bricks and mortar that can fit our new economies?
  • related to profile
  • dependent on career stage of the artists involved
  • are studios actually the model of the future?
  • Where is the urgency?
• 24-hour access
• Studios providing new ways for graduates to participate in the city
• Cube in Bristol as a potential model based not on studio space, but on social activities that become the starting point for many initiatives, thereby leaving a legacy.
• Do people need an ongoing space?
• Do people need a temporary space?
• A space that the city provides will never be your space – it is for generations
• Nuclei around centres of common need
• How to manage something that is fractured?
• Artists do not want to be building managers
• Lack of social confidence in Birmingham’s practitioners (by contrast Spike Island grew from activism and lobbying)

Merry Christmas everyone – what can you make happen in 2008?

forays

Coming at a time when I’ve just had to repeatedly justify my practice in terms of explicit marketing frameworks, income generation and business strategies, this extract from “how to unload bags and practice failure” by Forays is really very soothing:

There is something about excessive, inefficient and pointless labour for the sake of art that is kind of beautiful. Maybe it is that labour in other contexts, like at our jobs, is usually equally as inefficient but there is a lie to it, the lie that it matters, which however meagrely keeps people going back to their jobs. But unloading a bag for nothing, for no result just makes its pointlessness explicit, so obviously useless, and in some strange way more satisfying. And, what is also beautiful is when you go into something with a goal and by the end the goal is destroyed and in place of the goal you are left with a situation.
how to unload bags and practice failure

I’m making a note of it here for my own benefit because it strongly relates to various projects I’ve been working on and, in particular, recent conversations regarding the Invigilator series: methinks I’ll be wanting to come back to this later.