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ARTS, CULTURE AND COMMUNITY THE ENGLISH EXPERIENCE. CASE STUDY LIVERPOOL EUROPEAN CAPITAL OF CULTURE 2008.
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The idea of European Capital of Culture was conceived as a means of bringing European citizens closer together. Former film star-turned-politician Melina Mercouri was one of those responsible for promoting the idea.In 1985 the European City of Culture designation was launched by the European Council of Ministers. Since then, the initiative has become more and more successful with numerous European cities vying for the title every year. In 1999, the title was renamed European Capital of Culture.Cities as diverse as Glasgow, Dublin, Bruges, Prague and Salamanca have enjoyed European Capital of Culture status.
2008 sees a British city being given the chance to be European Capital of Culture.Each of the current contenders will be hoping to repeat the success of Glasgow, which was the last British city to win the European City of Culture title in 1990.
All the bidding cities have recognised the power of culture and creativity as an engine for regeneration, and a way of boosting civic pride and firing imaginations.As the Culture Minister puts it, “this is a journey to put culture at the heart of the city”.Each city bidding to be culture capital shows that cultural transformation goes hand in hand with an urban renaissance, city renewal and physical transformation. Many of the city projects are inextricably linked to regeneration schemes and waterfront developments.
Liverpool scopped the prize, impressing the judges as a strong ‘creative city’.Liverpool’s ambitious eight year plans include the building of the innovative fourth grace on Liverpool’s waterfront, extensive city centre regeneration and a new arena and exhibition venue.
In September 2002, the second Liverpool Biennial was launched. The UK’s largest and most innovative visual arts festival attracted over 19,000 visitors to the city.
‘2003 Celebrating Learning’, is the first in Liverpool’s programme of themed years. The city aims to offer every Liverpool citizen an opportunity to realise their creative ambitions through a city-wide programme of activities courses and challenges.
February 2003 saw the opening of FACT (Film, Art Creative Technology). The cutting edge centre is the UK’s only exhibition and performance space specialising in film, video and digital art.
CREATIVE COMMUNITIES Community inclusivity is at the heart of Liverpool's European Capital of Culture programme. It was the key to the city's successful cultural bid and led to Liverpool being given one of the largest funding packages for community art in the UK.
Creative Communities Faith in One City programmeEngaging unheard voices, we are sowing the seeds for 2008 and supporting partner organisations in cultural growth. More than 80 groups benefited in 2004 including Britain's only Arabic arts projects, Liverpool's Irish festival, Liverpool's Women's festival and smaller intimate schemes such as bread-making, poetry with homeless people and mosaic work with children with severe learning difficulties.
Creative Communities Neighbourhood ProgrammeWe are committed to engaging every resident in the Capital of Culture process, so people are participants, not simply spectators. This programme is focused on the delivery of harder issues through creativity. This year we have worked with more than 9,000 residents, producing art house films which will showcase as part of the Liverpool Biennial as well as informing consultation around housing and environment within communities.
THE FOURTH GRACE The new structure will stand next to the Liver building - with its famous Liver birds - and the Cunard and Port of Liverpool buildings.Dubbed the "Three Graces", they were many travellers' first sight of the city during its heyday as a major port. Now city leaders hope the "fourth grace" - combining cultural, commercial and residential facilities - will help regenerate the city's economy.The design contest was launched in March 2002 by Sir Joe Dwyer, head of the regeneration group, Liverpool Vision. He asked developers in March 2002 to make an "architectural statement" along the city's waterfront that "would be witnessed by the world".The prestigious project has attracted an impressive array of contenders.The public will then be consulted before the successful design is announced at the end of the year. Liverpool’s existing “Three Graces”
NORMAN FOSTER’S SCHEME THE ARCHITECT, FOSTER & PARTNERS THE ARCHITECT’S SKETCHES
NORMAN FOSTER’S SCHEME VIEW FROM ALBERT DOCK
NORMAN FOSTER’S SCHEME FOUR BUILDINGS IN ONE
Fourth Grace plans ‘unworkable’ BBC NEWS Monday, 19 July, 2004, 15:10 GMTThe scheme's public partners said costs rising to £324m from £228m and "fundamental changes" to the original waterfront plan left it unworkable.Earlier it was announced the grace - known as The Cloud - would include apartments to help finance it.On Monday concern was raised that because of the changes the scheme would be subject to a lengthy public inquiry. And there were fears that because "the scheme's character has changed fundamentally" it might be called in for extra scrutiny by Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, leading to a costly delay.Project partners - Liverpool Vision, North West Development Agency, Liverpool City Council and National Museums Liverpool - said at a meeting the additional risks created by changing the plans had become "unacceptably high"."I am disappointed that we are not able to take this scheme any further," said Sir Joe Dwyer, chair of Liverpool Vision.“The city remains committed to delivering our aspiration for a sustainable and deliverable cultural and leisure development” said David Henshaw, Liverpool City CouncilPlans ran in to difficulty when additional residential towers proposed to be built alongside The Cloud had height restrictions imposed on them.
Fourth Grace 'flawed from start' BBC NEWS Monday, 6 December, 2004, 18:17 GMTLiverpool's controversial Fourth Grace scheme for a new landmark building on the city's waterfront was flawed from the start, an inquiry has found.It said the fact no-one was in overall charge of the failed £324m project contributed to its demise.
Adam Smith InstituteLIBERAL ARTS – SPONSORSHIP WITHOUT THE STATEThe problem: culture costs cash In many countries the arts have been effectively nationalized. In the United Kingdom, for example, not one of the national opera, ballet or theatre companies turns a profit: they survive on taxpayer subsidies. Regional companies are even more dependent on handouts. On the continent of Europe, opera and ballet is even more reliant on state subsidy. The idea: private sponsorship The arts do not have to be heavily reliant on taxpayer support. Instead, policy makers should encourage sponsorship of the arts by businesses, individuals and charities. Opera has traditionally been associated with heavy state subsidy, particularly on the continent of Europe. However, for decades the UK's Glyndebourne Opera has shown that it possible to attract audiences without the need for state subsidy. Taking advantage of the economic recession of the early 1990s, it entirely rebuilt the opera house for £33.5 million. Production costs are half those of the state funded Royal Opera House. Glyndebourne's success has been emulated by several small country-house opera festivals in England. Garsington, near Oxford, is probably the best known - its tickets are sold out years ahead, and Grange Park in Hampshire, the brainchild of entrepreneur Wasfi Kani, has proved very popular. None receive taxpayer support, yet corporate sponsors have responded enthusiastically to fundraising appeals.
Assessment: setting art free The arts have suffered from being welfare-dependent. Between 1950 and 1994 public expenditure on the arts in Britain increased twentyfold in real terms. In contrast, public expenditure as a whole merely (!) trebled. By 1996, each seat in the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden was being subsidized to the tune of £28. As Dominic Hobson points out in the National Wealth: "All too often the quality of subsidized art is low, the cost of producing it is high, and the prices charged to consumers are excessive." Scottish arts chief Magnus Linklater commented in the Scotsman newspaper: "I would like to see a range of small and medium-scale arts organizations being market-orientated and unstuffy about it. They should have no hang-ups about re-labelling themselves in association with a commercial company in what can be a very rewarding partnership for both sides." Private support for the arts reintroduces some much needed customer sovereignty into what is exhibited or put on the stage. It also provides valuable employment opportunities for young, creative talent, some of which will not appeal to politically correct state arts bodies.
Arts in Society'Investment in the arts is not only an end in itself, it is also a means of achieving our promises, our policies and our values'Rt. Hon Tessa Jowell MP, Secretary of State for Culture, Media & Sport Labour Party Conference, 1 October 2002
Arts in SocietyThe UK is widely acknowledged as a world leader in the creative, performing and visual arts. The Tate Modern Gallery is one of the most visited arts spaces in the world, a success soon to be replicated with the new Baltic Gallery on the Tyne. Our theatre, opera and dance are widely commended in terms of both aesthetic excellence and social and economic impact. Significant effort has been made by arts bodies to widen access and experience of the arts in the UK. However, little is known about the impact of arts investment on wider public policy goals. Yet these wider public policy goals are shaping local and national cultural practice and investment. What are the arts already delivering aesthetically, economically and socially? And how can such delivery be maximised and improved?
Trying to examine the social impact of the arts and culture, establishing what exactly about them is unique and why, has been bedevilled in the past by ‘culture vultures’ screeching that the arts are important because they are – ‘arts for arts sake’. In the words of a recent Arts Council England report “the arts world has shown little interest in developing evaluative systems through which to prove its value internally or externally, seemingly preferring to state that seeing is believing.” The ‘arts for arts’ sake’ argument casts a long shadow over arts policy in the UK. All too often public policy discussions about the wider benefits of engagement with the arts is overshadowed by catcalls from those who accuse government of sullying the purity of the arts for their own ends. Not only is this argument manifestly wrong, it amounts to little more than special pleading. Why subsidise artists and not miners or manufacturing? Arts have a wider effect, and that has to be recognised. However, this is not the same as arguing that the only reason we should support for the arts is as tool to achieve other policy goals.
What is distinctive about cultural participation, as opposed to other forms of participation?Who participates in the cultural sector and who doesn't?What are the different types of participation?What are the motivations to participate and what are the barriers?What are the particular benefits for communities produced by cultural participation?What do people identify as common sources of community identity at a neighbourhood level?What are the common sources of community identity for social communities?How can these be best preserved and fostered?Strong cultural identity can have negative as well as positive effects. How can we ensure that cultural participation is a bridging rather than solely a bonding experience?What types of cultural involvement exist within businesses?What is the impact on the sense of community within an organisation?What is the impact on traditional business drivers like increased productivity?Can cultural activities provide bridging experiences between the employees of an organisation and the community in which it is situated as well as bonding experiences between the employees?
EvaluationNearly all programmes and projects concerned with arts and educational inclusion will be evaluated in some way. However exactly what is evaluated will be conditioned by a range of factors, determined in some cases by the type of project but more often than not by the criteria determined by the funding agency or more likely agencies. Some will concentrate on the ‘quality’ of arts input to the project, others will engage with the benefits to the participants, others with the mechanisms of delivery. Some will endeavour to measure the impact on individuals, others, the impact on a community. Some will be essentially quantative, others will take a more qualitative approach. Some will rely on peer evaluation internal to the project, others will commission external evaluators. While a rigid standardisation of evaluation format would not be useful, as the types of project are so diverse, what would be useful would be agreed methods of evaluation that could provide a body of knowledge for those starting new projects. There is a clear and pressing need for robust evaluation of arts projects which can enable skill sharing and benchmarking. However the methodologies of evaluation developed must not only speak to arts bodies and funders but also to wider stakeholders, such as teachers, Ofsted and DfES.
The fear of evaluation by arts organisations is real but that the climate has changed and that there are now organisations that have developed appropriate forms of evaluation for arts projects. It can be argued that ‘those involved in measurement have to learn precise skills so that they can ask tough questions, and ask the right questions’. It is the process of deciding what are the useful indicators and outcomes that is almost as important as the evaluation - and the process of making those decisions, as well as putting them to use, should be participative with all the stakeholders.
“Arts evaluation has to include and bear witness to the immeasurable, the unquantifieable, as well as recording more prosaic facts and figures. That maybe difficult to articulate clearly within bureaucratic systems. But as the writer Alice Walker says ‘ we create in order to make things very different; otherwise I don’t really see the point.’ Our evaluations should be no less purposeful”.
Questions asked by the free-market policy thinkersShould the state intervene in cultural development?Do we want to spend (up to one hundred) billions on a few museums and performance venues through indirect or direct subsidies?Is there a less costly way to foster cultural development?
Questions asked by the centre left policy thinkersOK, we want to spend the money but what public objectives (such as community renewal, social inclusion, education,mental health, building of social capital) do we want to achieve through investment in the arts?How to define, evaluate and manage the performance of public investment in the arts?
