We Made That

Croydon Creatives: Croydon is fast becoming an attractive place for creatives with affordable space and great transport connections. Croydon Creatives will offer business rate relief for creative start-ups who locate in the Creative Enterprise Zone, studio subsidy for under 25 year olds, and start-up incubator with business support.

Hackney Wick & Fish Island: One of the most recognisable homes for creatives in the world, the Creative Enterprise Zone will enable artists to put down roots in the area. Planning rules will help develop a pipeline of affordable workspace with new initiatives helping local people access jobs. This will strengthen the links with East Bank on Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

Shapes Lewisham: An emerging hub, Deptford and New Cross has no shortage of creative talent at institutions like Goldsmith’s University and Trinity Laban Conservatoire. The Creative Enterprise Zone will see ‘move on’ studios for graduates, with start up support and local studios opening up for community use.

Tottenham: An established cluster for fashion, film and furniture makers, the Creative Enterprise Zone will secure affordable space and warehouse living. It will upskill small and micro businesses and get local young people into creative jobs and manufacturing.

Read more about Creative Enterprise Zones and the successful bids here.

The Creative Industries are the UK’s biggest growth sector and are recognised within the UK Industrial Strategy and new Creative Industries Sector Deal as a key driver of the future UK economy. Over 1.3m people work in the creative economy across the South East alone and it is estimated that 1.2 million new workers will be needed in the sector over the next decade.

The ultimate aim of the commission is to create a compelling case to attract large scale investment to the Estuary, to support research and innovation and to highlight potential schemes, areas and opportunities. In doing so, it will help to maximise the future contribution that the creative industries can make to the economy of the UK, as well as locally in London, Essex and Kent.

More info: The Thames Estuary Production Corridor Vision

Our vision and strategy, mobilised by an unprecedented period of sector and community engagement, is to develop and embed a CEZ that grows in a way that works for everyone. To achieve this Hackney Wick and Fish Island needs to mature, stabilise, diversify and grow to be increasingly impactful – both for local communities and for London as a diverse global creative city. 

More info: Creative Enterprise Zones

The Edinburgh Culture Summit brings together Culture Ministers, policy makers and delegations from around the world. The Summit is a collaboration between the Scottish Government, UK Government, British Council, Edinburgh International Festival and Scottish Parliament, delivered on behalf of the partners by the Edinburgh International Culture Summit Foundation. Now in its fourth edition, the theme of Summit 2018 is Culture: Connecting Peoples and Places. Summit 2018 will address three key themes; Culture in a Networked World, Culture and Investment and Culture and Wellbeing. Confirmed speakers include theatre director Ong Keng Sen on Culture in a Networked World, urban sociologist Richard Sennett on Culture and Investment and Professor of Psychology Dr Assal Habibi on Culture and Wellbeing.

The full programme for the Edinburgh Culture Summit can be found here. 

Key findings of the 2017 Artists’ Workspace Study include:

• 67% of sites identified in 2014 as ‘at risk of closure within 5 years’ had closed by November 2017.
• The risk of closure remains high and 24% (57) of current sites providing artists’ workspace are at risk of closure within the next 5 years. This is because so few organisations own the freehold to sites (around 13%).
• Between 2014 and 2017, 52 new sites providing artists’ workspace opened – a net gain of 13 sites. Mayoral regeneration funding has supported 5 of these sites.
• Workspaces are becoming more expensive. In 2014, 56% of sites charged an average of £11+ per square foot. In 2017, this had risen to 79% of sites.
• Many operators provide space for both artists and other creative tenants to support a blended rental income model. That means not every new site provides workspace exclusively for artists.
• Sites show very high and continuous occupancy rates. There appears to have been no decline in demand from artists for workspace since 2014.

“London’s creative and cultural sectors are supported by a rich ecosystem of workspaces to make, test and showcase work. Artists’ workspaces and other low-cost employment spaces often provide the research and development opportunities behind London’s world-renowned creative offer. Regular, proactive research into artists’ workspace provision is helping to ensure that these spaces are valued and better embedded in the city as it grows.” (Melissa Meyer, Associate)

See the Mayor of London’s press release here: https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/mayoral/mayor-calls-for-protection-of-artists-spaces# 

Find the 2018 Artists’ Workspace Data Note here: https://www.london.gov.uk/what-we-do/arts-and-culture/culture-and-good-growth/artists-workspace 

1. Beecham Building

Heart of Glass work from Beecham Building. Part of Arts Council England Funded Creative People and Places programme, from 2018 we have achieved Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation funding and investment from St Helens Council.

2. The Rocks

Marking a car park boundary of ‘The Range’ retail store, The Rocks were moulded in fabric for ‘Silent Night’ one of our earliest productions with artist Rhona Byrne and local students in December 2014.

3. The Hotties, Sankey Canal

Adjacent to the doors of ‘The Range’, the canal water of the Hotties disappears under tarmac. On a Saturday afternoon in November 2015, Marcia Farquar began her perambulatory tour ‘A Song for St Helens’ here, on the railings, in a swimsuit and swimcap. Forming part of the ‘Through the Looking Glass’ weekend of events in partnership with Live Art Development Agency, the previous evening had seen ‘Duckie’ with Ursula Martinez at The Citadel, for which Heart of Glass had requested a (declined) nudity licence.

Three police squad cars pulled up. The police had been called by a ‘concerned member of the public’ who said there was a woman on the canal, taking her clothes off, and she was going to kill herself. Startled, we observed that Marcia was wearing a swimsuit, was not nude and was not undressing. A farcical conversation ensued which jumbled the previous night’s artists and events with the afternoon’s plans.

The kerfuffle caused by 15 people congregating, warranting three police squad cars was an interesting turning point. The use of heterotopic spaces has increased and from challenging beginnings, a solid relationship with the police has also evolved.

Artist Mark Storor has committed to working with us for 12 years on Baa Baa Babaric. Two years into this artistic partnership, Storor’s project across the town in September 2017 marked the change in police relations. The police ran a chip shop for the day and police horses garlanded with flowers supported young people and the artist to question long-held assumptions of the town.

At World of Glass just along from the Hotties, Marisa Carnesky’s Haunted Furnace took place. The history of glass making in the town has created venue, narrative and subject for Heart of Glass. World of Glass and the former Pilkington Glass Headquarters have been used for happenings from Haunted Furnace in October 2015 to Rear Window in November 2016.

4. Chalon Way Multi-Storey Car Park   

Across The Range carpark, the landmark Chalon Way Multi-Storey became one of the lead images for Brass Calls with Artists French & Mottershead in collaboration with Haydock Brass Band.

At the opposite entrance to Chalon Way carpark, artists Heather and Ivan Morrison are working to create a part-art work, part-civic space Skate Park with St. Helens Skate community. As a partnership with police using police commissioners fund income and the Council, public space will be reimagined. Skateboarders who are persistently moved on from Church Square will be able to reposition themselves literally and metaphorically.

5. St Mary’s Market

St Mary’s Market hosts Platform Artists Studios and Heart of Glass popular weekly Family Art Club.

6. Chamber of Commerce

Chamber of Commerce have agreed to acknowledge artistic practice as a contribution to workforce economy, and we’re continuing to develop connections with local businesses, including piloting an arts skills development course. We’ve also established an artist on St Helens economy board.

7. Vera Page Park

At the opposite end of the Sankey Canal is Vera Page Park. Three signs demarcate the park, renamed via working with artist Joshua Sofaer on Your Name Here in 2015.

This location forms the hub of Council regeneration plans for a new town centre. Long-term, we’re working on St Helens becoming a centre for collaborative practice. St Helens Council is on the journey with us. Focused on culture, education and opportunity, we are working with the Council on embedding a culture of production into the town. Built around culture, not retail.

2018 is St Helens 150th anniversary. Vera Page Park is also a site for a proposed Pavilions project, and we’d like to see voluntary groups in St Helens work with to build structures that allow or create points of visibility for local creative communities.

8. St Helens RFC

Initially we were based at St Helens RFC. The partnership continues; on match days, pre-match and at half time we curate artists’ video screening in partnership with Abandon Normal Devices and FACT reaching a potential audience of 15,000.

9. Quaker Lodge (Friends Meeting House) 

Quaker Lodge is St Helen’s oldest building. We partnered with The Quakers on Verity Standen’s Refrain and held our second ‘WithForAbout’ conference here in May 2017.  

As part of Takeover fest with Scottee in 2015, older people’s groups from across St. Helens knitbombed Friends Park on Shaw Street. Installed on a Saturday, knitting covered most surfaces. By 10am on Sunday morning it had gone. Despite having permissions, the Council ‘Clean Up team’ had been, not checked who had creatively dressed the space, and took it all away. Similarly, to the Marcia Farquar incident, we learnt an interesting lesson: in 2015 when the strange was encountered in St Helens, it was tidied away as speedily as possible. The veneer of cleanliness runs strong and inspired us to question ‘Where are we directing our attention?’  Skateboarders are ostracised after the town shuts down at 6pm and perceived as ‘anti-social’. Knitting is perceived as ‘mess’. With the Council our aim is to reimagine and mobilise the energy of tidying away for more collectively positive ends.

Most projects at a point unearth some sort of democratic deficit. How do we make use of that knowledge well? WithForAbout and other encounters create opportunities to have challenging conversations and share learning. Huge trust has been put in our programming. Tensions can exist in a project and we need to allow them to be there, to be part of learning and connecting with each other.

10. George Street Quarter, and The George Pub

In October 2017 the Idle Women Institute was opened on Haydock Street, achieved with Arts Council Ambition for Excellence funding.

Verity Standen’s Refrain featured a non-verbal male choir promenading around George Street in May 2017. Refrain told the story of Ernest Everett; a school teacher in St Helens who was prosecuted as the UKs first Conscientious Objector. The George Pub hosts many meet ups for Heart of Glass and formed one of the locations for the choir. 

11. The Hardshaw Shopping Centre

Artists’ collective The Institute for the Art and Practice of Dissent supported the re-instigation of benches outside the shopping centre. The shopping centre had removed all the benches, which were primarily used by pensioners. Many protests by older people’s groups had taken place. Forming part of our Live Art Weekender, the Institute dragged a bench into the shopping centre, utilised a megaphone, and refused to move.

12. Church Square

Church Square forms a congregation point in the town centre. In 2015 Brass Calls was sounded here with composer Adam D J Taylor. Calls were created from personal tales and local phrases, and turned into musical scores performed and recorded by The Haydock Band. In 2017 the square hosted Candy Chang’s Before I Die. A project inviting people to contemplate death, reflect on life, and share their personal aspirations in public on chalkboard. We had to wipe our chalkboard six times a day, the level of interaction was so engaged.

13. St Helens Star Headquarters

Your Name Here programme announcements were distributed free with the Star and reached 70,000 homes.

14. The Town Hall

In May 2015 a three metre neon sign of the words ‘Your Name Here’ illuminated the front of the Town Hall. Heart of Glass heads to the Town Hall most weeks to meet with Council representatives ranging from the Chief Executive to Regeneration to Public Health.

15. Young Carers Centre

St Helens has a strikingly high population of young carers (over 2,500 under-18s). Mark Storor’s Baa Baa Babaric project is working with young carers as part of his 12-year commitment to Heart of Glass and St Helens.

Back at Beecham Building completing the circle.

As Cultural Geographer Tim Cresswell observes, spaces are transformed into places when meaning is attached. Culture drives our place-based journey with all our partners. We are demonstrating that we can change thinking around cultural production and economy and fit the need to create new thinking and fit-for-purpose capital development in the town. We hope that development can speak to real community need, as the effects of austerity and a crumbling community development sector continue to be felt. Utilising existing venues and public space in St Helens and co-opting any new capital spaces might eclipse the allure of new, less communal distractions. Our 2018 programme of work shares this long-term ambition with the local authority and with Arts Council England. St Helens Council have invested substantially in our 2018 programme as the transformation of St Helens continues.

Unfortunately the studio’s central location turned out to be too good to be true. At the beginning of 2017 the Crown Buildings along with neighbouring Grade II listed properties, the Jerome and Carlisle Buildings, were purchased by developers Signature Living with planning permission granted for a Luxury Hotel to compliment the one they built on the opposite side of the street the year before. A decade on from the European Capital of Culture award, increased investment and redevelopment of the city centre has called for new areas to emerge that allow for start-ups and grassroots initiatives. While this marginalisation of creative spaces from the city’s centre has its negatives, it has also assisted in creating more concentrated creative communities in areas like the Baltic Triangle, where CBS moved to in March 2017.

For CBS the move provided a welcome point of renewal. The new location on Blundell Street in an old dock warehouse had the space needed to house a workshop, enabling sculptural production and picture framing services in-house to create greater financial flexibility independent of public funding. The success of which has been enhanced by the studio’s integration in the local community of the Baltic Triangle and its proximity to a wider range of creative amenities.

As well as larger production space the new location offers a more generous gallery for the exhibition programme. The gallery acts as a space for the directors and studio holders to host a range of artistic projects, curatorial experiments and residency exhibitions. The continued advocacy of artists is the underpinning aim of the gallery’s activity. Artists who have previously exhibited are invited to submit artists’ editions to be sold via an online shop, providing support to the participating artists and the opportunity for people to collect the work of emerging artists.

Around the same time that CBS was founded Rory MacBeth was appointed as the new head of the art school at LJMU. This marked a new outward facing approach to the Fine Art course. Establishing graduate residencies with local artist-led studios as well as points throughout the three years of the course to collaborate and work with local art communities. In its second year at CBS the graduate residency is providing a crucial platform for graduates looking to stay in the city and continue working, contributing to the growth of the artist-led network in the city and further afield. 

An advanced network of groups bring the creative and cultural sector together regularly to encourage and enable collaboration.  A funding structure has been created which bridges the public and private sector, dedicated roles engage the education sector and local communities in opportunities, and a pipeline of talent from the city’s four major universities ensures a fresh and vibrant injection of ideas every year.

In 2018, Liverpool marks the tenth anniversary of being European Capital of Culture with another big year of programming, which is made possible by the fact that this infrastructure exists and is in such good health. The investment, support and passion of all aspects of the city over the last decade are all crucial factors enabling the extraordinary transformation we have seen.  

But personally, I think the most important legacy of 2008 is not the physical or built environment, but the emotional infrastructure which has been created.

Capital of Culture gave this city a new energy, a renewed sense of self and importance in the world. The audiences of Liverpool have repaid this with a new commitment, acceptance and understanding of arts and culture. They are willing to try new things, to be challenged and stretched and to embrace creative ambition and innovation.

They have become voracious consumers. They turn out in their hundreds of thousands for free major events, they head to music and art shows in locations across the city and throughout the year. They embrace big international names and nurture emerging home-grown talent.

Without an audience who want what is being created, the breadth anddo as a society.

They are sophisticated but not pretentious. Vocal but constructive. Accepting of the new, and proud of the old.  And importantly, they rightly demand excellence.

Liverpool is not a monetarily rich city. But a diverse opinionated audience, where three generations of a family will come together to create memories, want to be engaged and want to be part of a city wide democratic conversation.

As we march into an uncertain future, where there are threats topassion and emotional infrastructure which we have been able to foster in this city is what will allow us to face these challenges head on.

We will continue to grow and build over the next decade – our ambition has no expiry date. There are still more boundaries to be pushed and audiences to captivate. Liverpool’s creative appetite remains insatiable and that is the infrastructure which will serve us well.