Death of a Network

I really "feel" for the current Chair of the Sustained Theatre National Artists Team. She is STILL striving to deliver things I had brought to the brink of completion in 2011 just before the comprehensive spending review froze Arts Council funds- things like getting the NAT properly constituted so that it can raise its own funds (for example). When I was Chair, it was the Arts Council inhibiting that development, I never understood why, apart from them perhaps fearing what we might do if we were financially independent. Now, the dissent comes from within the ranks and although I've read their objections I don't understand them.

The practical upshot of this decision is that the network has no resources of its own and depends on funded organisations subsidising representatives to participate or individuals doing it themselves. A meeting is planned for the end of the month in Leicester, as the Chair of NEST I am expected to pay for my own travel (not to mention the 4 hour journey each way) to go to a meeting which, for reasons I will mention in another post I feel to be largely irrelevant. I am unwilling to do so and there were no takers when I invited members to step up to represent.

The national network is beginning to fracture. The South East Regional Hub has already left- although they remain in contact and have offered to remain supportive, they will not participate in the structural and strategic development. In light of how little practical support and actual participation was being displayed by NEST members I began to feel resentful. Support for the building development project wavered as some of them began to fret that they didn't have building management experience and feared they would spend more time keeping the building open than developing as professional artists. I couldn't understand the logic of this argument as without their own space they would need to "negotiate" (i.e. beg) space from existing venues who say they're booked 12 months ahead when approached or can offer literal corners of their buildings at times when positively no one else would want it. The enthusiasm for the festival amused me because of its inherent unsustainability- a two week programme of work by minority artists is unlikely to be remembered by many for long, whereas a centre for the development of minority arts on the edge of the city closest to where most of the minority communities are to be found could really go from strength to strength for years to come.

So, I found myself recommending that NEST withdrew from the network too. I argued that, like the South East group, we would still be in contact with the rest of the network, but as we were unwilling or unable to make any practical contributions, there was little point in going to meetings for the sake of being "represented". What could the group say to me? - THEY weren't willing to put themselves forward and although there was a brief and frankly silly idea that they might pay me, (with what?), they had nothing to offer me to make me do it. They agreed and I had to share that news with the Chair of NAT who has since asked me/us to reconsider and dangled a meeting with the ACE officer responsible for London before us... Which is odd- I don't know what we'd have to say to the ACE officer for London. -Well I do, but it wouldn't be polite!

This will no doubt be chalked up as another failure by the minority arts sector, I intend to show how ACE paid lip-service to this ever being in reality the "Artist Led Initiative" they have claimed it to be and I am heartened by finding out that my counterpart in the East Midlands plans to do the same thing.