Driving an arts led recovery… Renew Newcastle
by Ailsa Brackley du Bois
Marcus Westbury, founder of Renew Newcastle and it’s larger birth-child, Renew Australia, opened this conference with a whole lot of talk about all sorts of interesting things, but the ‘stickiness factor’ for me was his early announcement that 2013 will be ‘the year of creative disruption.’ That evoked my interest, and I found myself intrigued from that moment on, keen to listen out and learn what that promise might entail, and what the roll-out of such a temptingly radical concept might look like, in real terms.
We (the delegates) were subsequently treated to three days of interesting and often inspiring seminars, panel talks and workshops, delivered by speakers with substance, style and compassion. The speaker I found most arousing personally was Dan Thompson, founder of the Empty Shops Network, U.K.
Public speaking is a funny thing – As a member of the audience you can find yourself totally thrilled by the delivery, authenticity and gusto of a performer, regardless of whether or not you actually agree with the premise of their argument. For me, Dan was the man that presented that paradox quite perfectly.
Dan is a self-confessed anarchist and old punk from way back, advocating dis-organisation and the value of ‘strong ideas, loose networks and new collaborations.’ Revolutionary Arts (his apparent non-organisation branded as RA) is his thing, and Dan is proud of his local roots in a small town called Worthing, and he genuinely moved me with his reflections on his mobilization of the masses in the aftermath of the 2011 British street riots and shop looting. He harnessed rapid and broad-spread people power to help shop-keepers clean up cities and towns across the U.K., and his candour, humility and self-effacing humour about how that all of happened, and what it meant on a macro scale, was palpable. An extraordinary feat – No question about it.
Dan spoke ceaselessly of the importance of plain language, all the while quoting an endless string of British poets, intellectuals and revolutionaries. His key message was “Don’t sing about it if you ain’t gonna, do it. Don’t write about it man if you ain’t gonna, do it.” It struck me that despite his ongoing outward–facing commitment to keeping it simple, keeping it real, and honouring the working class idiom, he clearly recognized the power of words and the contradiction therein, and I liked that about him, very much. Simple words or convoluted words – it takes all types to build a language for change.
Words are powerful. They ensure our capacity to communicate strong new ideas to the people who matter: our artists and our business people; our young and our old; our hipsters and our conservatives; our city slickers and our townspeople. Different words offer meaning to people from all walks of life: Simple words, complicated words, all sorts of words. Words connect the ideas that can drive real change. It’s all very well to pull together a massive range of talented producers and artists and artisans. You have to convince the business-people with the capital and the government representatives with the legislative power to invest in these communities. To do this you need a shared language – a range of terms and phrases that ‘stick’. And then the marketing speak can come into play, and keep the momentum going, until eventually everyone gets cynical about the over-use of certain key phrases. But in the incubator stage of change we do need these buzz-words; the new terminology; an energising vocabulary; however cliché it might seem; to join all the concepts together, and help people work collaboratively, with a shared language and understanding.
This is why these ‘talk-fests’ and ‘think-tanks’ (otherwise known as conferences) that engage all the players (or at least representatives from each supposed ‘type’): artists, arts administrators, arts activists, arts intellectuals, arts policy makers, urban sociologists and property developers, are critically important to our creative communities and our political economy. A shared language has to emerge – to get the momentum happening – to clear the pathways for change. Dan’s core message was that the people are willing to rise to a challenge, more readily than you might imagine. That when the going gets tough, the tough get going… And that people really do want to pitch in and help, when push comes to shove. But really…
This conference was about the importance of the ‘mechanics in the middle’ – the people who are politically pivotal in negotiating constructively between the ‘makers and creators’ and ‘business and government.’ And that’s a surprisingly broad range of people. Government employees are often artists themselves, in a prior life or indeed in their present life, in their ‘down-time,’ and artists are often business people who need fair financial recognition of their talents and expertise. Arts advocates are often multi-disciplinary: non-aligned, independent thinkers; creative thinkers even, keen to create a greater sense of unity between all interested parties. The boundaries between groups engaged in the arts and cultural sectors are overlapping and hazy at best, as we well know.
So what’s it all about? What’s with all the words, and froth and bubble? I think we all know it’s about economics. At times when recession looms large, and spaces and talent are abundant, but traditional hard-edged business prospects are grim, this is when we, in the arts and cultural sectors, are called upon to rise to the challenge. And rise we must.
The Honorary Simon Crean MP believes there’s about 531,000 of us engaged in the creative industries across Australia – And I suspect that’s an under-estimation. It’s about time we let our critical mass be felt, with our ideas, our creative output and most importantly our voice. As Dan says “Everything starts with a conversation.”
This year of creative disruption is an unprecedented opportunity for all Australians, with a vested personal and professional interest in arts and culture, to band together and make stuff happen together. Let’s not squander our time in the national lime-light: Let’s run with it, and see where it leads us. We’ve been given the license by the political culture of the moment – Let’s lap it up and embrace the creative impetus for change – Not just for ourselves, but for our current communities and future generations.
Talk fast, discuss, debate and grab this momentum while it’s hot. Reflect on what you want, what you’re passionate about, place yourself in the driver’s seat for this arts-led recovery, and put your foot on the accelerator… Right here. Right now. (cue Fatboy Slim 1999…!)
By Ailsa Brackley du Bois