BLANCHE PEASEA Practitioner-Led Arts Offer

Blanche Pease - A Practitioner-Led Arts Offer 1

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Darlington Media Groupsupported by Darlington for Culture

June 2011

BLANCHE PEASEA Practitioner-Led Arts Offer

A Contribution to the Darlington Arts Enquiry Process June 2011

Summary‣Darlington Media Group (DMG), with the support of Darlington for Culture (DfC), is ex-ploring options for a practitioner-led, self-managed element of Darlington’s arts offer

‣the proposed model is based on the traditions of such structures - high sweat equity, low run-ning costs, a peppercorn rent in exchange for a programme of work

‣to update this model, we propose to renovate to high ecological standards to further reduce running costs

‣for the model to work, it requires three key elements:

i. local authority support (peppercorn rent, reasonable length of lease),

ii. successful capital financing, and

iii. wider support amongst the arts and wider community.

We are therefore seeking a practitioner-led element to the final submission of the Arts Enquiry Group.

Practitioner-Led: Structure, Finance, Delivery DMG has operated out of Blanche Pease for nearly 30 years. It was constituted as an Unincor-porated Association in 1983, and is currently converting to a not-for-profit multi-stakeholder cooperative. Its principles remain the same. An executive committee is elected annually by some 60 members to run the organisation. Membership consists of local media artists, local users of DMG’s facilities, and representatives of local organisations who also make use of the workshop.

Wider public accountability is afforded through the grants process. Project grants require staged reports, whilst our annual voluntary sector grant requires quarterly reporting and finan-cials, and in the recent past a Service Level Agreement was developed that embraced much of our arts offer.

Coordination of our work and technical support for users is carried out by two freelance artists on specific time-limited programmes. They staff the workshop from Tuesday to Friday, and are supplemented by volunteers who staff the workshop on Saturdays.

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The £36,000 programme is funded by a mix of volunteer labour, project funding, earnings, sub-sidy from commercial work, and a community grant from the local authority which currently stands at just over £15,000. Historically, it has paid a peppercorn rent to the local authority for the use of the premises, heating, water and lighting. This currently stands at around £45 per month. In exchange for this level of subsidy, the town receives the following programme:

• 5 days a week of open access to a wide range of practitioner-supported arts activi-ties, resulting in 26,848 annual visits1

• an education programme of workshops and courses in the visual and media arts

• an ongoing programme of international and local photography exhibitions

• a film production unit that enables community participation whilst working to broadcast standards2.

• support for local media artists in their production

The nature of DMG’s engagement, and its relatively low cost, has yet to be fully analysed. But it is worth considering one recent example, Beauty and the Bike. Produced in 2008 and 2009 over a period of 15 months in Darlington and in the German city of Bremen, it resulted in di-rect participation in both the issues involved and the creative processes by over 40 people3. The film, book and exhibition have been shown around the world to audiences in excess of 100,000. Youtube alone has recorded over 80,000 viewings, and organisations continue to re-

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1 based on figures for Jan to March 2011 of 6,712 recorded visits

2 See Appendix 1 for a DMG filmography

3 See Appendix 2 for a full list of credits

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quest permission to organise public screenings, from Perth, Australia to Vancouver, Canada. An ecological project, Beauty and the Bike also involved the setting up of a bike hire facility which continues to function today from Blanche Pease.

The total cost of producing the 55 minute broadcast-standard documentary, a 72 page photo-graphic book designed and printed to extremely high standards, a 32 image exhibition, and an ongoing bike pool was £54,000. This was funded by a range of grants and awards (£35,000), some local, some regional, some national and some international, DMG’s own earnings and member contributions (£2,000), DMG members working voluntarily (£10,000), partnership working (£1,000) and DVD/book sales (£7,000).

Anyone aware of documentary production costs will realise that such a budget is a reasonable figure for a 55 minute film alone. The fact that the process drew together so many local people, including local practitioners (a local composer who works from the Arts Centre composed the original score, and seven musicians worked with him on the recordings), shows how a creative process can work when rooted in the local arts scene.

It is the sense of “ownership” engendered by its practitioner and user led structure that deliv-ers significant contributions in volunteer time by skilled artists and technicians. The exhibi-tion programme is another good example, run on an annual budget of a few hundred pounds, but involving an estimated £7,6804 worth of creative and technical contributed labour, from curation to printing to mount-cutting to framing and hanging. The exhibition programme has varied according to budget. Successful project financing in 2008 and 2009, for example, deliv-ered high-prestige exhibitions that attracted significant media attention and high footfall5. But the core of the work is always carried out by local photographers. And with a wide range of in-ternational connections, we are also able to source original photographic works directly from photographers.

It must be emphasised that this kind of practitioner-led model is an alternative to the officer-commission model that is central to a top-down planning approach. Both have their merits in various circumstances. But if the Arts Enquiry process is genuinely interested in exploring dif-ferent ways of delivering the arts whilst making financial savings, the practitioner-led model must surely be considered.

The Need for IntegrationDarlington Media Group’s programme is a typical example of how the patchwork of arts provi-sion has been operating in the town. The courses programme is currently integrated into the local authority’s courses structure, but the exhibition programme is not. Workshops are organ-ised at times independently, at times in collaboration with Arts Centre staff. The film produc-tion unit works independently of the wider arts offer, but has produced a growing list of short and full length films in conjunction with youth groups, the Open Arts Studio, local community

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4 figure calculated for financial year 2010/11 based on our standard pay rate of £10 per hour

5 see Appendix 3 for a list of exhibitions

groups, and indeed other council departments. It would appear that, to date, there is no sig-nificant sense of film production in Darlington’s arts vision.

Our participation in the arts enquiry process is therefore predicated on the desire to see our work, and the work of similar arts organisations and individual artists, embraced by our collec-tive vision of the future. It is perhaps early days, but as one arts organisation that has con-sciously delivered an arts programme in Darlington Arts Centre, we are seriously concerned that existing artistic pluralism might not be adopted as a starting point for discussions about governance. Top-down models are already appearing in the “Spaces and Places” consultants’ report, with local artists and arts organisations being allocated a sub-contracting position. This is hardly partnership.

But we believe that the desire is there on the part of members of the arts enquiry group to plot a constructive way forward. It is therefore with this spirit of partnership in mind that we for-ward this proposal for a practitioner-led element of the arts offer. We envisage Darlington for Culture’s role to be one of ensuring such integration at the level of programming, marketing and arts policy development. A test of this role, and of the integration of our work in the Arts Centre programme, will take place in the Autumn of 2011, when council provision is supple-mented by Darlington for Culture-coordinated programme content.

DetailsDMG is offering to lead, over a period of some 6 months, ideally with some practical council support, the development of a feasibility study for a practitioner-led management of Blanche Pease as a centre for professional, enthusiast and community production of media and wider

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visual arts. The study will build on existing work to formalise a series of definable outputs that will be fed into the wider Arts Offer:

‣in conjunction with local artists, a programme of workshops and courses in visual and media arts

‣a practitioner-curated programme of local, national and international photography exhibitions

‣in conjunction with the open arts studio, a programme of regular open access days

‣innovative media production projects that encourage collaboration amongst local film-makers, writers, musicians, performers and visual artists

It cannot be overstated that many of these outputs already exist. But the fractured nature of arts provision in the town - and the Arts Centre - has mitigated against cooperation and inte-gration of our collective work into a comprehensive vision of the Darlington Arts Offer. These problems could continue to beset the Arts Enquiry process if space is not now provided for alternative delivery models.

A key challenge will be to establish a creative interface between a practitioner-led element, elements delivered by other forms of social enterprise, and any residual council-run elements. Darlington for Culture’s role in this proposal will therefore be to concentrate on the qualitative development and integration of the Blanche Pease output into the wider arts offer. Thus, for example, through a process of discussion and mutual respect, the photography exhibition’s programming policy will be developed to work within the wider visual arts policy of the Arts Centre.

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To realise this ambition, the Blanche Pease building will require extensive refurbishment and development. The aim at all times will be to maximise up front capital input in order to mini-mise long-term revenue costs. To achieve this, the project will include a series of innovative green elements:

‣the installation of solar panels/wind turbine on the building’s south-facing roof

‣replacement of existing windows with heat-absorbing units on the south side, and heat-retaining on the north

‣high levels of wall, window and roof insulation

‣heat exchange technology

‣rainwater harvesting for toilets

‣good provision for cycling, including a cycle hire and cargo bike scheme

‣use of ecological and reclaimed building materials

Since Blanche Pease was first threatened with demolition by QE 6th Form’s plans in 2009, lo-cal groups have been consistently supportive of the idea of renovating existing buildings rather than demolishing and replacing. We want to draw on this backing for a renewal of Blanche Pease, and enthuse local people into participating in an ambitious ecological development, driven by their own sense of ownership.

Can Darlington deliver such an ambitious project? We believe there is nothing to lose in giving the project a try. Due to its structurally divided nature, local artists and community activists have developed a certain cynicism about their role in the arts offer over the years. But the cur-

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rent review process is an important attempt at addressing the underlying problems that have caused this. A genuine offer of the Blanche Pease annexe for a practitioner-led initiative will give strong credibility to the plan in the eyes of local artists. If sufficient grass roots support can be harnessed, funding opportunities identified, and a viable development plan put in place

by the end of 2011, DMG is offering to lead on the redevelopment of the building, and with the help of other artists and groups consolidate and refine the arts offer that will result.

However, a Plan B will be required. If the plan fails to win sufficient support, we will all have to accept that we have given it our best shot, and the various artists and arts groups will need to find a home within an alternative strategy.

DMG’s building requirements are very much rooted in the production of art, whether the ex-hibitions cited above, the enabling of community access such as with the Open Arts Studio, educational work, or new video and photography production. Such requirements are increas-ingly shared with other artists and arts organisations in the workshop spaces of Blanche Pease. Meanwhile, the fabric of the Blanche Pease building has been allowed to deteriorate through years of neglect. This is not a chance history, but rather a reflection of the lack of practitioner-

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Was schreckt Frauen und Mädchen in vielen Ländern Europas vom Fahrrad ab, während sie in Deutschland, Holland und Dänemark nicht davon lassen können? Dieses Buch handelt von jungen Frauen in Bremen und der englischen Stadt Darlington; Städte, die diese Gegensätze repräsentieren. Die Mädchen haben sich gegenseitig besucht und dabei herausgefunden, was zu tun ist, um das Fahrradfahren attraktiv zu machen. Die Lösung lautet: „It’s the Infrastructure, Stupid“. Doch hört ihnen jemand zu? Und wer ist der Täter?

Why do British, and many other European, girls stop cycling when they become teenagers, whilst girls in Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark loves their bicycles? This book documents the lives of young women in the German city of Bremen and the North-East English town of Darlington, two examples of this contrast. When the girls visit each other, they develop a clear understanding about what needs to be done to make cycling actually attractive: „It’s the Infrastructure, Stupid“. But who listens to them? And who is the culprit?

Der Film ist als DVD erhältlichThe film is available on DVD

Resume of the project

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Beauty and the bike

Beatrix Wupperman & Richard Grassick

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led content in the various development plans and capital grant applications that have been pur-sued throughout these years.

“New arts governance arrangements must promote fairness and inclusion; work effectively across a$ arts sectors and communities; represent the experience and voice of individuals; be bespoke to Darlington; and encourage co$aboration”.6

“The enabling role should support the organisations with co-ordinated publicity; venue information; facili-ties support and equipment library; connections between organisations; and a co-ordinating link to the Arts Council”7.

The current process offers an opportunity to finally address this issue. DMG’s relationship with the local authority has indeed been an enabling one. The council established a principle in the 1980’s that DMG pay a peppercorn rent in return for a substantial programme of arts ac-tivity. This enables an arts organisation like ourselves to concentrate better on what we do best - art. It is still a favoured relationship between local authorities and small arts organisations in many parts of Europe today. We believe this experience should be built on, as a way of develop-ing discreet practitioner-led arts offers in a building that is currently suffering from years of neglect. DMG is keen to explore the possibility of raising the finance needed for a redevelop-ment of Blanche Pease, on the basis of a long-term peppercorn-rent agreement for the whole building. This, after all, is classic Big Society territory.

Blanche Pease has already seen many new art works created by local people. But it is vital that this role is now better identified and recognised. As part of a broader plan for the arts in Dar-lington, it could give us a surprising and exciting contribution to the arts mix.

Darlington Media Group Executive Ctte. June 2011.

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6 Draft Arts Vision Enquiry Group 4

7 Draft Arts Vision Enquiry Group 4

Appendix 1 - DMG Filmography

Little Stories (mixed pro and amateur crew)Kendra

Tea Dance

Tower Road Big Lunch

Janine

Jim

Documentaries (pro crew)R.A.I.D. in Lesotho (Darlington Youth Aids Project)

Putting It About (Darlington Youth Aids Project)

International Day (series - 3 films so far)

Cycling to Mulheim

Output

Beauty and the Bike

Open Arts Studio

What Happened Next?

Husqvarna (in production)

On the Road with Beauty and the Bike (in production)

Courses (student crew)You

Open Arts Studio (mixed pro and amateur crew)Tea Break

Blanche Pease Reflections

Aliens

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Appendix 2 - Beauty and the Bike creditsPRODUCTION TEAM

Stephen Baird

Barbara Born

Reinhard Büsching

Sabine Bungert

Thomas Dahm

Paul Dillon

Phil Dixon

Ellin Bridie Grassick

Richard Grassick

Ria Pietzner

Beatrix Wupperman

INTERVIEWEES

Dave Lyonette

Reinhard Loske

Mike McTimoney

Tim Stahl

PRODUCTION ASSISTANCE

Samantha Donkin

Ricarda Hamacher

Sam Wood

SESSION MUSICIANS

Richard Emmerson - Saxophone

Shaun Eland - Trumpet

Terry O'Hearne - Trombone

Neville Kirby - Accordion

Diana Wilkes - Violin

Steve Bone - Flute & Clarinet

Dan Shield - Piano

Syd Collumbine - Guitars

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OPENING TITLES SEQUENCE MUSIC

"Gliding" by Alex Plowright

PRODUCTION PARTNERS

Darlington Cycling Campaign

Heinrich Böll Stiftung Bremen

Medienwerkstatt Kulturzentrum

Schlachthof Bremen

Local Motion

Gewitterziegen e.V.

Dokument@r Bremerhaven

DARLINGTON BOROUGH COUNCIL'S TRANSPORT TEAM

Nick Butler

Sue Dobson

Greg McDougall

Louise Neale

Owen Wilson

DARLINGTON CYCLING CAMPAIGN

SENATOR FÜR UMWELT, BAU, VERKEHR UND EUROPA

ALL THE GIRLS' PARENTS FOR THEIR SUPPORT AND HOSPITALITY

and

Gary Arnold

Ruken Aytas

Ellen Best

Hartmut Böhme

Wolfgang Golasowski

Dieter Mazur

John Orchard

Marianne Papke

Michael Glotz-Richter

Peter Rüdel

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Darlington Youth Service

Gymnasium Obervieland Bremen

Hummersknott School, Darlington

Marchday

Queen Elizabeth 6th Form College, Darlington

Polam Hall School, Darlington

COMPOSER

Syd Collumbine

STILLS PHOTOGRAPHERS

Sabine Bungert

Phil Dixon

PRODUCED & DIRECTED

Richard Grassick

Beatrix Wupperman

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Appendix 3 - DMG Gallery exhibitions

2005Appleby Fair by Dave Thomas (Darlington)

Growing Green by Richard Glynn (Darlington)

The GP’s Patch by Dr. John Clarke (Crook)

Grohner Düne‘by Andreas Bohnhoff (Bremen, Germany)

2006Chronotopia by Simon Norfolk (London)

In Vino Veritas by Lucy Carolan (Darlington)

Cummins by Richard Grassick (Darlington)

Stormin‘ the Castle by Richard Glynn (Darlington)

Echoes by Northern Echo Photographers (Darlington)

2007Magic Party Place by CJ Clarke (London)

Big Snap 2007 - Open Photo Exhibition (Darlington)

Darlington Carnival 25th Anniversary (Darlington)

Burma – What Human Rights?’ by Dean Chapman (Newcastle)

Photogenus - Local Photographers Collective (Darlington)

2008Big Snap 2008 – Hidden Gems (Darlington)

Making the Weight by Paul Alexander Knox (Gateshead)

Lost Industrial Teesside Communities by Derek Smith (London)

Corrina and Anna by Sabine Bungert (Essen, Germany)

Iran: Sisters in Chanel and Chador by Newsha Tavakolian (Tehran, Iran)

Money Well Spent by Phil Dixon (Darlington)

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Big Snap 2009 – Faces and Places (Darlington)

Ramshackles by Dave Thomas (Darlington)

Lost World by Georg Krause (Berlin, Germany)

Photogenus II – Exploration of the Pinhole (Darlington)

Beauty and the Bike by Sabine Bungert and Phil Dixon (Darlington/Essen, Germany)

2010Moments in Time by Mark Snowdon (Darlington)

DMG Members’ Exhibition 2010 (Darlington)

Post Industrial by Richard Grassick (Darlington)

Echo Photographers’ Exhibition (Darlington)

Training Land by Jill Cole (Teesdale)

Marsden Bay by Paul Gibson (North Yorkshire)

2011Fresh Perspectives by

Geoff Bradshaw, Bob McAvoy Geoff Pemberton and Richard Collier (Darlington)

Masham Cattle Auction Mart by Henry Brown (Northallerton)

DMG Members’ Exhibition 2011 - 25 local photographers exhibit their work (Darlington)

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