sign in sign up
<<
Home , Glasbury

CC(3) AC 45

Communities and Culture Committee

Inquiry into the Accessibility of Arts and Cultural Activities in

Response from Glasbury Arts

Introduction

This organisation was not on the Inquiry’s circulation list but the information was passed to us to consider. My name is John Fitzgerald, Chair of Glasbury Arts which is a based arts organisation operating under the auspices of Glasbury Village Hall. I am also a member of the Executive Committee of the Contemporary Arts Society for Wales, which I am very surprised to see was not on your circulation either.

Glasbury Arts is run by volunteers from our community, providing a visual and performing arts programme throughout the winter in rural mid-Wales which aims, on the one hand, to bring the best of arts programming to, and enhance participation in, our community. Rather than describe the programme in any detail, a pdf is attached with the programme for 2010/11. In addition our website contains not only our programme but details of local businesses and organisations who support us. Accessibilty to the arts is at the centre of everything we do and the opportunity to respond to the Inquiry questions is timely.

I have tried to keep our comments as brief as possible but of course they can be expanded upon either in writing or in verbal evidence to the committee. However, not all of the questions necessarily relate to small organisations and where they do not apply we have only commented if we had some specific information to convey.

Definitions of Accessibility

Most public documents use the term accessibility to mean providing services that allow different groups in society to access provision, e.g. access to buildings or transport for people with disabilities or opening up provision for people from ethnic minorities or areas of deprivation. In the arts this is interpreted to mean encouraging people to visit venues (museums etc), making sure buildings have wheelchair access or help for people who are visually or hearing impaired, whilst areas of deprivation on the whole are taken to mean urban ones. All of this is laudable and not something anyone in the arts would want to dessent from.

However, such definitions make assumptions that people want to be involved in the arts and whilst many will, there are just as many who are unaware that they might be interested, or are hostile, and they are entitiled to their perspective. In rural areas finding out whether you are interested in the arts is a problem because many areas have little to offer. In for example, the Arts Council sees contributing to a festival such as Jazz (and we are glad they do) as providing accessibility, but it does not because it is a niche market and is not sustained throughout the year. Any definition therefore should include opportunites for people in rural areas to find out what they like and dislike without having to travel long distances. This is the challenge for the difficult economic times in which we live.

Let me give you two examples:

3 years ago at the Glasbury Visual Arts exhibition I found an 80 year old woman from the village hovering outside and when I asked if she was coming in she said “I don’t know, I have never been anywhere where they hung pictures before”, in other words never visited a gallery. I encouraged her in and stayed with her until she felt comfortable. Two hours later she was having a cup of tea and I asked how she got on and she said “it was wonderful, I did

1 not know I liked art”. The sequel was that subsequently she travelled the sixty miles by bus with a friend and visited the National Museum and Gallery of Wales, which she loved and then Tate Modern by coach which she also enjoyed. 5 years ago a fifteen year old young woman was “dragged” into our exhibition by a friend who was doing GCSE art, complaining that she hated art. For about half an hour she could be heard continuing to complain but then she became quiet. She had come across some work by a new dynamic abstract artist and was talking animatedly with her. She then went round the exhibition and looked at everything and was enthralled. Subsequently, the young woman took and passed with A grades, GCSE and A Level art, has since gone to a leading arts school and will graduate in a couple of years time.

In these examples, neither the elderly woman nor the teenager knew that art was something they could enjoy because they had never lived anywhere which allowed access and exposure to the arts, and would never have travelled anywhere to see an exhibition had ours not started in 2003. Therefore any definition or discussion of accessibility has to go beyond standard jargon on the subject, and recognise that there are communities which are so far from centres of art that it does not exist.

Response to questions

There is no doubt that the increased resources made available to major centres has had an impact, for example to public museums and galleries allowing free entry. Most I think would show visitor numbers have increased over time whilst live performances struggle.

On the downside the results of the recent review of revenue grants by the Arts Council of Wales means that accessibility in rural mid-Wales will be less than it has been for many years with the withdrawal of grants from CARAD in , Theatr Powys In (the only professional company providing both theatre education and performance for young people in the county) and Wyeside in , is likely to mean no live theatre for young people and adults between Brecon and Newtown. For many people therefore going to the theatre or even a gallery or museum may mean at least an hours’ car journey (there are no buses at night) on slow twisting roads. I wonder how many people in Cardiff would be prepared to travel those kinds of distances and mileages?

Whilst small organisations such as ours can fill some gaps, we cannot fill them all. It is important to note organisations like Glasbury Arts do not receive any public subsidy and our ability to survive is down to a mixture of having the right programme, actively publicising it and our volunteers working very hard.

The short answer is some are in this area trying very hard, but given the distances audiences have to travel it is a particularly hard task. Libraries in Powys have problems with most only opening part-time opening so yet again rural communities miss out.

We work with our community in a variety of ways for example at any one time we will have between 30 to 35 volunteers aged 16 to 80 working on everything from putting out chairs to managing an arts project to raising money. The village of Glasbury has a high number of working artists, some nationally or internationally known, writers and singers all of whom we try to weave into our programme. More importantly we have a brilliant secondary school (currently under threat of closure) with one of the best arts departments in Wales. A look through our programme will show that young people from the school exhibit at our annual exhibition (now quite prestigious), with two of them (now graduates starting out on an arts career) coming back to exhibit again in November. One of these is this seasons artist in residence, a role which includes going back to the school to help with an arts project. In addition a group of sixth formers is running one major event, and another is making a film about Glasbury Arts, and a sixth former who manages our lights and sound. Because the India Dance Wales will be performing here in the new year they will also be running workshops during the school day for sixty young people, Many of the adults and young people involved would have more a limited involvement in the arts if Glasbury Arts did not exist.

2 Lastly we run a free wheelchair accessible bus service (in partnership with Hayand District Dial – A - Ride from Hay-on-Wye and surrounding villages to all our major events.

3 &4 These questions relate to sufficiency and geographic spread of the arts and the impact of the Arts Councils Investment Review.

Most of this I have answered in question 1, but suffice to say in large sparsely populated rural areas, accessibility is limited and increasingly dependent on inititives like ours. The Arts Council decision to discontinue funding to 32 organisations, particularly in rural areas, will mean a withdrawal of enriching experiences at a time when they are needed most. Does a concentration of funding avoid spreading resources too thinly? This is a debate that has gone on over many years without a convincing resolution. When you see the hole in provision in mid- Wales the answer has to be no. Sadly I do not think the Arts Council has ever got to grips with the range of organisations who could fill the gaps in provision. For example, £7500 a year to organisations like Glasbury Arts would not be spreading resources thinly because we could make the money go further, but we have no hope of ever being helped either by the Assembly or the Arts Council.

Whilst I do not want to see funding removed or cut from festivals, which in Wales more than elsewhere are an important part of our cultural life, simply funding a single event does not of itself provide accessibility, accessibility needs to be sustained over time.

There can only be one short answer; it will have an even greater negative effect than the cuts already announced.

I can only comment on , where resources are scarce, but where the local authority has managed to find a brilliant Arts Officer, Lucy Bevan, who manages to be enthusiastic and supportive to organisations like ours, a fount of information, and wonderful at encouraging new artists when life within local government is difficult because of pending cuts.

We would think the finding is only partially true in our situation with our audience base being much broader. This we would put down to, on the one hand, providing a broad programme and on the other, being closer to our audience and community.

That is not our experience. Our communities tend to have more older adults than younger people and therefore the audience profile does not match the survey findings. However, we do have a substantial minority of young adults and young people who attend and participate in events.

It depends on the event, some will be 50/50 others 60% female and 40% males. Workshops however, are likely to have a 90% female attandence. Establishing why is the “64000 dollar question”.

This area does not have a strong tradition, though it is beginning to change as children and young people learn the language in school and adults attend Welsh classes, our audiences and participants are predominently English speaking. As you will see from the pdf attached we do promote the Welsh Language.

Other comments

These are difficult economic times for everyone and we all have to accept there will be cuts in all walks of life but at the same time the arts have a significant role to play in ensuring the life of our communities continues to flourish. I would suggest that a creative approach to funding that provides long term support over as wide a programme as possible together with extensive collaboration between organisations so that costs can be cut is the only way arts bodies can survive. Collaboration requires a shift in thinking on the part of organisations when

3 competition has been the way of operating over the last decade or so but it will make the arts stronger and more creative.

JOHN FITZGERALD OBE CHAIR GLASBURY ARTS

4