Guest post from Sandra Hall of Friction Arts
I’ve been reading both this site and others regarding the back lash on the arts and other cuts re: Biting Back themes… Anish Kapoor also used a high profile platform to blast. Which is great. For me the case I’ve been putting forward, though we shouldn’t be in the dock – is that funding is not a luxury.
I’m currently being paid to work with young autistic people by Sandwell council. All of their grades have improved, their communication and eye contact better, staff/parents incredulous at the success of the programme; parents love it – their kids are being creative and they get some much needed respite. This is not a luxury. It is a service. And as a service provider I’ve also raised further funding so that I can make an installation based on these extraordinary people I’ve been with since July. Working with artists including Marvel/DC graphic artist John McCrea to create each child as their collectively agreed superhero we will create animated video portraits to be projected life size….. so this is now “a key service with exceptional added value” that is positively impacting all public sector provision that these young people come into contact with.
Which brings me neatly back to Biting Back. How and what do we do in these times. I’ve been thinking about how language changes and shifts during times of trauma. The language of weather readers, was developed during the First World War which is why you have ‘weather fronts’ and the old maps resembled the war maps with lines across Britain before the fluffy clouds became popular. Spelling – there is a reason for this word; language casts spells. I noticed about 18 months ago the word ‘resilience’ being used increasingly in public sector language and arenas. We were asked to ‘focus some of our work on resilience training’ through arts, for young people. (And NO by the way). Languages for art, languages for public sector, Swahili to most.
Most of the rhetoric at the moment is defensive. I’ve seen this hugely in my work with Muslim communities through ‘Heard and Not Seen’ project which I’m currently also working on at the moment in East Birmingham. When moderate Muslim people I work with are given a platform, because they are so under attack, they come out defending. So a lot of the listening I’m doing is around the position of language, people’s vernacular and how best do they get heard – and seen.
This will be a key thinking nugget for me at Biting Back – I’ll be listening to the languages, the rhetoric, looking for the ways we can collectively name, shift and improve perceptions about the arts in a less defensive way. Whether we are visual artists, socially engaged practitioners, musicians, painters – we provide a service and if we had the same rights as other regular service providers we would also have rights/ unions that wouldn’t have us paid below minimum wage on a regular basis.
Friction Arts are a Birmingham based artists group led by Sandra Hall and Lee Griffiths. We have been making extraordinary art work in awkward places for over 15 years. From boot sales to allotments, Africa to Chingford we exist to agitate and reveal the extraordinary in the ordinary. We are committed to engaging with communities and creating bespoke contemporary art works as a result of our time together. At the centre of the practise is creating conversation; new places, interventions and events to bring disparate peoples together and connect.
