Category Archives: Arts, Culture And Heritage
2012 London Olympics: An Opportunity For Liverpool?
Already, some people in Liverpool believe the 2012 Olympics will be ‘bad’ for Merseyside. Having already won the accolade of 2008 European Capital of Culture, – and bearing in mind also the City’s 800th Anniversary in 2007 – surely we in Liverpool are actually very well placed to benefit greatly from the 2012 Olympics, if we start to plan now? The glass is decidedly half full, not half empty. The next challenge for Liverpool is to recognise this and act on it.
The news on Merseyside today is that a survey shows more local business people think the 2012 Olympics will be bad for the Liverpool area than good for it.
They argue that benefit will probably be directly in relation to proximity to London; and indeed that finance for the Olympics will take any available monies, leaving not much for the rest of us.
This is a particularly puzzling view in Merseyside, where we are about to benefit from our 800th Anniversary in 2007, and then the 2008 European Capital of Culture – events brim-full of business opportunities and visitors, alongside the city’s current enthusiasm for regeneration.
Call me naive, but I see here a chance to build on whatever success we in Liverpool can make of our 2007 / 2008 events. The city’s leaders have consistently said they want the celebrations and developments kicked-started by the 2008 Culture Year (and the city’s 2007 800th Anniversary celebrations) to continue longer term, with a programme which has horizons well beyond those dates.
These forthcoming events are surely the way to make sure we’re on the ball for the Olympics, a position which is unique to Liverpool in the UK . By 2012 we will have put in place all the infrastructure and tourism facilities you could possibly wish for, and we will have learned a lot during our 2007/8 years in the limelight.
It’s up to all of us outside the capital to make sure that our Olympics ‘offer’ for 2012 is up to scratch. I don’t want to ask people now if they are worried about 2012. I’d prefer to ask how, already, they are engaging their imaginations to make 2012 a year when the whole country makes the most of chances to work together to show what we can do.
This is definitely one scenario where the glass is not half empty, but already half full – especially for Liverpool, 2008 European Capital of Culture. Let’s make sure the 2012 opportunity is relished, not rejected.
Why Do Farmers’ Markets Cheer Us Up So Much?
Farmers’ Markets have a special place in city life. They encourage us to feel part of a community, yet when we go to these markets we also feel that as individuals we are attending to our health and leisure needs. Farmers’ Markets may indeed sometimes in reality be big business, but they fill a gap in our fragmented urban lives.
Farmers’ Markets seem to be all the rage in Liverpool at the moment. They started in the ciy centre (by the Victoria Monument), and recently sprouted up in Lark Lane to the South of the city. Now, this Sunday, there is at last to be one in Hope Street, the cultural quarter. All the recent evidence suggests that, weather permitting, this too will be a big success.
So why is everyone in the city so enthusiastic about Farmers’ Markets? Several possible answers to this question come to mind:
Farmers’ Markets make us feel healthy. Whether the produce is actually fresher and more nutritious (or beneficial in other ways, if not edible) than produce we can buy in supermarkets, we willingly go along with the idea that it must be.
Farmers’ Markets make us feel part of a community; we throng around, perhaps sharing comments with perfect strangers about what’s on offer, and aware of the shared purpose in our being there. Yet we also feel like individuals – not for us the pre-packaged routinised stuff of the big stores. We are making a positive, personal choice to buy, or perhaps just to consider buying, produce which feels, against supermarket standards, just a bit exotic.
Farmers’ Markets take us back in time. We imagine, more or less accurately, that this until quite recently is how people have always conducted their financial transactions. There’s a rusticness about what we’re doing which harks back to a supposed golden age which is in contemporary times usually only seen on Christmas cards.
Farmers’ Markets are ecological. If we can, we walk to them (or at least park the car a distance away), clutching cane baskets and imagining, correctly or otherwise, that what we intend to buy is organic.
Farmers’ Markets let us feel authentic. We can actually talk, and maybe even negotiate our purchase, with the people who are seling their own goods – which we naturally suppose they have also themselves carefully crafted. The goods are authentic. The person-to-person transaction is authentic. We must be authentic.
And Farmers’ Markets are interesting. We are often not sure what we’ll find when we get there. Who will turn up this time? What will they have to sell? We attend trustingly, purses speculatively at the ready in our pockets; not for us on this occasion the usual boring shopping list!
It might be surmised from this list that I have a problem with Farmers’ Markets. Not so at all. They have a real part to play in the lives of many city people, just as they always have had in more rural contexts.
It’s the function these markets perform in our splintered urban communities which fascinates me. They may in fact sometimes be the visible parts of very large business operations, but they are perceived as ‘small’, micro-enterprises undertaken by real people. They make us feel special, they spark our imaginations and they activiate our interest in important aspects of health and community.
Don’t miss the next Liverpool Farmers’ Markets. Be sure to be in Lark Lane on Saturday, or in Hope Street on Sunday!
Threat to Liverpool Arts Press Coverage?
Liverpool’s leading morning newspaper is reported as intending to cut back significantly on its Arts coverage, which will it is claimed no longer only be ‘ghettoised’ on one page. How does this fit with Liverpool’s forthcoming status as European Capital of Culture 2008? And will the same rationale now be made for rescuing Sport from ‘ghettoisation’?
It seems that Liverpool is about to reduce its newspaper Arts coverage substantially. A report in the UK Press Gazette on Thursday (13 October) suggests that daily coverage in the city’s leading ‘serious’ paper is to be reduced from five to two days a week, the Friday art supplement is to be eight, not sixteen pages, and three paid columnists will be axed. The rationale is apparently that the Arts will no longer be ‘ghettoised on a specific page each day’.
There also seems to be a suggestion that this change is somehow linked with increased sales and prices.
Confusion exists about exactly how this reduction in specific coverage will be aligned alongside the claim of all concerned to be supporting Liverpool’s European Capital of Culture Year in 2008. If reporting and reviews of cultural events are cut, this must inevitably have an effect on readers’ awareness of cultural activities in and around the city – which includes a readership area reaching out to Chester, North Wales and parts of Lancashire.
It is likely that, in the possible absence of expert opinion on arts topics, only a small part of Liverpool’s cultural offering could be covered; and almost certainly those organisations which stand to lose out the most (alongside their patrons) are the smaller, specialist arts organisations.
When we also read that Sport is not to be ‘ghettoised’ on particular pages, perhaps the case for rescuing the Arts from such a fate will be more convincing.
Amateur Performers, Professional Artists And Conflicts Of Interest In The Community
Amateurs by definition are able to produce cultural events more inexpensively than professionals; yet both sorts of performers / promoters are necessary for community cultural (and wider) development. How can these conflicting interests be resolved?
There are inherent tensions in bringing together the ‘community’ and professional artists and performers.
Whilst community engagement is literally bread and butter for some professional arts practitioners (and must be warmly welcomed as such), parallel free / amateur performances may reduce the likelihood of support from audiences for professional performances – which of necessity have much higher overheads. But both are surely needed.
A conundrum
The very activities which give some professional artists a measure of income when they work with amateurs, and which give a first taste of the arts to some members of a community, are also likely to be in direct competition with fully professional performances in that same location / part of town.
Audience time expenditure
It may be worth looking at this issue in terms of time-expenditure on the part of potential audience, and of grant / investment in respect of funders. An example is recitals of classical music by fully professional musicians working in non-conventional locations.
Many more people who are unfamiliar with ‘live’ classical music are willing to give their time to try ‘classical’ concerts if complimentary tickets are available, than if they are asked to pay. And if costs are kept very low, they are likely to want to come again.
This behaviour on the part of audiences may seem unsurprising, yet still funding bodies insist that professionals build large box office income into their bid budgets . Indeed, if the performing group is a ‘business’, it is often not even eligible for grant aid.
Different rules for amateurs?
But the rules are different for amateur / community-led productions. This makes for a very up-hill and unrewarding experience for community-inclined professionals, and is almost a total disincentive to cultural entrepreneurship on the part of these performers.
How can professionals compete against the subsidy available to community groups, especially if they wish to serve the same less-advantaged communities? It’s a challenge, yet public service arts officers still insist they want professionals to work harder at audience-building.
Professional quality, community investment and capacity-building
There are often claims that high quality arts increases the likelihood of inward investment to an area. but this is rarely part of the equation when funding for professional arts groups is considered. How should we build genuine partnerships between the professional cultural community and any given local area?
Qualitative differences
The issues need to be examined carefully in terms of the micro-economics of expenditure of time (professionals’ and amateurs’) and resources (private and / or public investment). What are the best ways for cultural events ‘in the community” to be supported, managed and presented?
This is an issue of investment in the arts, and in communities. It’s about how long-term sustainable community-embedded arts can be, if the professional practitioners are not supported realistically, and are effectively set in competition ‘against’ much less costly amateur activities.
Aspiration and achievement
The arts offer one of the few examples of ‘visible’ aspirational routes for anyone with talent, but who in a community would aspire to a professional level of skill if it’s quite evident that doing so is not the way to earn a living?
Both are very valuable, but amateur artistic activities are qualitatively different from those of professionals. For the sake of communities and practitioners, the ways in which they are supported need also to be much more clearly differentiated and defined.
High Culture, Regeneration And The Legitimation Of Excellence
In some circles it is a given that High Culture is ‘inappropriate’ for ‘local people’. This is patronising. It dismisses the enjoyment the arts can bring to everyone, and ignores opportunities which the arts – as particularly visible public activities – can give for people to develop skills and even careers. Legitimation of ambition, in the arts or any other challenging positive activity, is important, regardless of where you live.
In a city such as Liverpool, there is for some a major issue about entitlement and appropriateness in respect of culture. It has on occasion been suggested that ‘high culture’ is not what should be on offer to local people, because they don’t / wouldn’t enjoy it.
This approach surely misses the point. Art must always be inclusive, but like many other activities, getting well acquainted requires patience and perseverance. All cities, and many smaller localities, need to offer every level and type of culture – and here is a challenge for developers as much as for community leaders and politicians – if they are to be true cultural centres, convincing and alive.
The case for a broad sweep in cultural provision is convincing. The argument that ‘high’ art is unnecessary because ‘people don’t want it’ is at best patronising, and at worst insulting, both to providers of that art and to its potential recipients. There must be opportunities for artists to offer their skills at the highest levels of achievement, alongside programmes which afford people engagement in the arts at lesser formal levels of skill (whether this be performing themselves, or listening / watching / looking at the work of others).
One of the challenges in this for regeneration is to find out how to knit together these opportunities, sometimes using the same human and cultural resources, and sometimes different ones, in a way which moves forward for all concerned. When this happens there will be more positive ‘artistic’ and professional role models for others in a given community to follow, which would help to ensure that local aspirations are high and that people from less-advantaged communities are not just left expecting the low-paid jobs.
Put another way, community perception of the art of the possible – expectations for the future – must include legitimation of the ambitious.
In the light of these considerations, perhaps there should be a re-emphasis within the questions above, at least to include these questions:
* How can decision-makers and leaders nurture formal arts and culture in places with limited understanding or appreciation of these?
* How would this impact in terms of enhancing engagement and opportunities for both arts practitioners and their ‘audiences’ / local people?
* What would be the cultural, social and economic synergies which follow from such enhancement and engagement?
Such questions in no way imply that everyone has to appreciate ‘high art’. What they might do is bring us to a greater consideration of the value of art and artists ‘for themselves’ as well as for what they can deliver in the normal sense of regeneration.
Regeneration plans must include artists directly, alongside all other partners. In including them directly we might even discover a new narrative to describe the meanings of ‘high art’, and what can come from it…
Cultural Gentrification Is inevitable; Displacement Is not!
Gentrification as a result of ‘cultural development’ is often perceived by locals as unwelcome; but does it have to be that way? It may well be possible to cash in on the newly acquired wealth of an area, to bring decent jobs and opportunities to local people, including the ‘creative community’ whose work may have brought about that very gentrification. There is a clear role here for entrepreneurs, social and otherwise, and for proactive planning and training.
‘Gentrification’ as a result of cultural innovation is a complex process which carries with it a whole range of processes and concepts not often examined. ‘Gentrification’ is seen as a pejorative term in some quarters and this does not recognise the fluid nature, over time, of development in its wider sense (including economic and physical renewal). History tells us that areas within towns and cities change use, shape and value over time. It would be more sensible to regard cultural matters within this context.
Whilst artists, musicians etc are certainly a ‘creative class’, unless perhaps they are in niche design, they are also often far from wealthy. This is the converse side of the complaint that gentrification makes it impossible for artists to stay in an area. So do consistently low wages, which are a deflator of the local economy.
There is a risk in looking only at direct socio-economic outcomes that we will forget highly skilled artists can, like other professionals, become part of the ‘brain drain’ which some parts of the UK still experience.
So whilst artists’ ‘creative’ needs may be being addressed, along with those of the wider community, it is often the case that their normal economic ones are not. On a wider scale, this sort of economic marginalisation can have serious implications for the cultural development of an area. Like other working professionals, artists and performers may choose to move away, to locations and jobs where it is easier to raise a family and plan for a comfortable future – resulting in the opposite of gentrification for a given place. Similar outcomes may occur if there is no feeling in a given ‘community’ that art and culture are significant. It is not only expensive accommodation which may drive creatives away from particular locations.
It will be important in the future to bear in mind that those who lead culture are themselves, as people, part of the equation, and probably have the same basic aspirations as other diverse partners in the exercise. Gentrification or its opposite doesn’t just happen; it’s predicated on the actions of individuals, some of whom will be artists…. Culture is never passive!
Nor are artists necessarily advantaged in their original backgrounds and education. Many fine artists and performers have experienced serious hardship on their way to a professional standing in their field.
Gentrification doesn’t necessarily mean that people who have previously lived in an area will have to leave it entirely. The situation can be handled proactively, not passively, as an opportunity to set up services of all sorts which cater for the requirements of the newly gentrified, through commercial, social and cultural enterprises. There has to be an ‘art of the possible’ in terms of building up expertise and knowledge to deliver businesses and facilities which offer employment at decent rates to the newly gentrified; and this in turn can offer decent work to local people. But whose responsibility is it to plan for this?
Do Regeneration Plans Acknowledge Culture Enough?
‘Culture’ often appears to be the optional add-on in regeneration. There may however be ways in which the arts and cultural community could do more to ensure that the benefits of embedding culture into regeneration are understood by those who lead development.
Is it important to encourage developers and planners to include culture in regeneration strategies and programmes?
Much of the physical context of regeneration and development is on or surrounded by publicly owned space. This leaves an important opportunity for local councils to insist from the outset on engagement with developers about the possibilities for public art. Perhaps more could be done to ensure that this engagement is assured, through training and awareness-raising of local government officials and elected representatives.
Awareness of the need to include ‘cultural space’ (flexible small theatre / gallery space, etc) in community regeneration programmes, e.g., alongside provision for / within the plans for schools and other essential public service buildings is also important. Are public guideline on these requirements and on their technical aspects easily available? Are they now part of planners’ and architects’ training? (The specific technical requirements of ‘arts space’ are rarely articulated or understood in dialogue about regeneration.)
On another level, what is being done to ensure that ‘culture’ is actually understood – or indeed appreciated – by developers and planners? It may be difficult to insist formally that private developers are acquainted with what culture has on offer (though project specs could include this), but at least it could be required that planners involved in cultural decisions actually attended or observed the sorts of ‘cultural’ phenomena under debate, before decisions are made….. The National Campaign for the Arts (NCA) recently pointed out that invitations to ‘new’ Councillors to attend cultural events tend to have a very positive impact on their thinking. Can arts and cultural institutions put their hands on their hearts and say they issue regular invitations to Councillors, planners and other decision makers to come and see what’s on offer?
And, once developments have been identified, what about encouraging local artists (performers, community activists, whatever…), equipped with appropriate info and guidelines, to become part of planning teams and community consultation processes, perhaps ‘adopting’ particular programmes of development? There is nothing like a real physically present person who represents a particular ‘take’ on a project, for ensuring that this aspect of the whole development is acknowledged.
This does not however mean that artists, unlike other professionals, should simply ‘give’ their time. Lead bodies could set up an identified fund to support artists of all sorts who are willing to give thought and expertise to ensuring ‘culture’ plays an active part in the thinking of regeneration decision makers.
Iconic Buildings, Local Communities And Cultural Capacity Building
People ‘in the community’ often seem to have a problem with proposals for iconic cultural buildings. Could this be because they only become involved (‘consulted’) after, rather than before, ideas of this sort have been floated? Would things be different if Artists in Residence were truly just that? And would this help ‘capacity building’ for the arts, as well as physical regeneration?
What impact and ‘meaning’ should iconic cultural buildings seek to achieve in terms of cultural excellence and relevance to their local communities? And could permanently established Artists in Residences have a role in working with local people to produce iconic developments which everyone values?
Issues such as this have been much discussed in cities like Liverpool in the past few years; and if anything the debate (e.g. about Liverpool’s proposed ‘Fourth Grace’, a notion initially imposed ‘top down’ and now abandoned, which did not derive from locals and cost much in terms of time, energy and other resources) seems to be becoming more rather than less heated. Local people often do not, at least initially, like change, or ‘iconic’ buildings which may appear to be strange, or which do not appear to have a clear purpose. Yet the wider future-facing view is that regeneration and cultural development must move forward and that special / cultural buildings must be ‘different’, excellent in modern terms, if they are to be effective in their own terms.
This hiatus of understanding will not be resolved just by ‘locals’ taking a few trips to see examples of innovative iconic development elsewhere. Perhaps only a serious willingness (and ability) on the part of decision-makers, to examine what local people understand their contexts and requirements to be, will enable genuine and constructive dialogue about the future to develop.
Such a willingness and ability would require a re-emphasis even before the initial stages of proposals, away from technical considerations to a long-term commitment to the community on the part of the professionals seeking to develop landmark buildings; and it would probably therefore also require a new approach to staff training and professional skills, or possibly a new type of role, as yet undefined, for some regeneration and cultural professionals… perhaps the ideal opportunity for Artists in Residence with a broad knowledge of the issues and excellent communication skills?
Local people may find change and cultural re-emphasis more acceptable, and better understood, when there is genuine embedded involvement by regeneration leaders in community development over time. The need, for instance, to build a new concert hall or gallery will be more easily appreciated – if re / new build is genuinely a better option that the less glamorous choice of refurbishment – where there have been efforts to establish to most local people’s satisfaction that such innovation is actually necessary or practically desirable for discernable reasons. And there is always the possibility that locals might in fact have views and opinions which could actually improve what is finally proposed for development.
Cultural and regeneration professionals need to to identify and value, on an equal basis, locally-based people who are already in a position to act as ‘translators’ or go-betweens in the necessary dialogue. To have significant impact, this would require that the roles and training of those engaged to lead development be revisited, so that (a) they are more easily able to identify appropriate local people, and (b) they become comfortable in valuing what locally-based opinion leaders offer, without any feeling on the part of the developers that they are thereby under threat from others, locals in the informal setting, who also have communication and developmental skills.
Iconic choices are not just a matter of local dignitaries’ civic pride, but mean that community dialogue must actually precede proposals, not simply emerge from them. At present this rarely happens, not least because regeneration officials are frequently only brought in as the proposals begin to take shape, and much of their initial briefing will be by those who already desire the changes proposed. There are obviously cost implications, but if a more genuine engagement is to be achieved these may be inevitable.
There is a strong case for capacity / audience building for artistic and other cultural activities, which is both a necessary pre-requisite and a desired (though unfortunately not an inevitable) outcome of landmark and iconic cultural building. It would be interesting to interrogate the extent to which capacity building is influenced by physical development, and how much this is true the other way around, as well as evaluating the synergistic impact each has on the other.
In cultural contexts, the desirability of long-term on-going dialogue with local communities is yet another reason for cultural organisations in any given location to develop genuine, deep-rooted (and preferably conjoined) community programmes. As with regeneration professionals, this would require considerable training and re-emphasis of role within cultural institutions if it were to have substantial and sustainable impact. The nature of the work which needs to be done is probably at present not fully appreciated.
Cultural Leadership And Vision In Cities
When and how does a Big Town become a City? And, just as importantly, how does a Great City ensure it will never seem to be just a Very Big Town?
What part does cultural leadership and vision play in this transition? We take a look at Liverpool…
Imagine all the people – and all the things they’d do….
Cities are centres of communication, learning and complex commercial enterprises; …. they focus and condense physical, intellectual and creative energy. They are places of hugely diversified activities and functions: exhibitions and demonstrations, bars and cathedrals, shops and opera houses. I love their combination of ages, races, cultures and activities…
Richard Rogers Cities for a small planet (Faber, 1997, p.15)
When and how does a Big Town become a City? And, just as importantly, how does a Great City ensure it will never seem to be just a Very Big Town?
Doubtless we all have our first-off answers to this slightly strange question; but at base we would probably agree it’s not simply Size that matters. Quality rather than just Quantity is what counts in the metropolis status stakes.
So what does lie at the heart of a city, especially a great one such as Liverpool? What exactly does define its soul?
For me, and I suspect for many others as they ponder such questions at this pivotal point in Liverpool’s development, the critical aspect of our city’s renaissance must be a focus on what is most creative: both what we already have, and what we can forge for the future.
But this is in no way just a plea in disguise for ‘more arts funding’. Rather, I want to propose that Creativity in the City be seen as the critical factor which defines us and holds more promise than anything else for what Liverpool could become.
Thus, the real challenge is to shape and nurture a vision of our future which engages the entire creative process, the arts, the sciences, the full spectrum of the intellectual infrastructure and more…… For there is also a Plus Factor in all this to which we shall return and which we neglect at our peril.
What a modern, thriving, thrusting city needs more than almost anything else is continual recharging and renewal, a culture which challenges what is already known and done – however splendid that culture may be historically.
A city which delivers well the known and acknowledged needs of its citizens will also be one which looks to produce creative synergy with sometimes unanticipated outcomes. There can be no standing still in the search for excellence in the city.
So, to formalise the initial proposition, a Great City is one which
¨ does not just celebrate its past, but works hard to create it own future;
¨ does not simply curate its history and acknowledged culture, but seeks always to support the living arts and to ensure that benefit and creative process evolve from them;
¨ does not offer handed-down knowledge alone for its citizens, but strives ceaselessly to promote and engage the processes of learning and discovery which produce new understandings and insights across the spectrum of intellectual and creative endeavour.
Put thus, we see that Liverpool, more than many other cities, is well-blessed. We have in our heartlands an abundance of internationally recognised organisations and institutions which seek insofar as their resources and vision currently permit to deliver just the requirements listed above. The fight to ‘save’ our theatres and world-class symphony orchestra has been long and hard but, after almost decades of uncertainty, it seems we may indeed have won. Our universities and colleges permit comparison with many others, and are in significant respects outstanding. Our architecture and cathedrals are world renown.
But this inventory alone is not enough. The Great City demands more of itself than satisfactory audits of institutions, however important. Great Cities engage and nurture the best creative practitioners that can be had, put together in organisations which reciprocally appreciate and enhance the skills and traditions which are thereby brought together. Great cities value their indigenous artists and intellectuals but also welcome to their lead organisations both students and distinguished visiting practitioners who will inform and challenge current beliefs and thinking. And so through these same organisations Great Cities facilitate and even thrust upon us thriving collectives of artists, scientists, intellectuals, power elites of all sorts who can and will not accept on our behalf that which is routine or can be taken for granted.
A city’s creativity must not however remain solely civic. For it to mean anything it has also to be communal. The synergy of the city’s formal creative enclaves must be engaged and by mutual consent brought to bear on the lives of the people. This is the Plus Factor to which reference was made earlier.…..
And here lies the fundamental challenge for Liverpool at the beginning of the new Millennium.
Our city, Great City though it is already in many ways, is also a fragile, vulnerable city which is only now repositioning itself after many years of decline. The poverty of experience and expectation of many of those who have grown up and live in this city is part of the urban tragedy of our times. For too many here, Liverpool is the only place they know, the small-community-defined comfort zone from which they must collectively emerge if they are to demand the standards which those with wider and more privileged experience already expect. For too many of our citizens, impoverished both materially and ‘culturally’ through accident of time and place, the leap to acceptance and engagement in creativity in its fullest sense is a step to ‘high culture’ too far.
It would be very serious act of decontextualisation and of course entirely improper to suggest that perhaps there are communities in Liverpool ‘suffering’ from a ‘cultural deprivation’ which somehow diminishes civic pride or reduces the people’s determination to see their city great again. I hope therefore that I can avoid any charge of cultural / intellectual imperialism in pointing to a number of what I see as significant discongruities in the cultural fabric of this city – discongruities which I believe must be recognised and addressed by anyone who seeks to offer Liverpool civic (and therefore cultural) leadership.
But significant discongruities there are, disconnections of understanding between civic excellence in the cultural / intellectual infrastructure and socio-economic well-being, or between artistic / creative engagement and personal fulfilment. For instance, like parents everywhere, many here regardless of their own background would dearly wish for their own children to achieve success in the formal education system; yet these same people often express considerable antagonism towards the students who live in flats and bedsits in their midst and who thereby help to keep local shops and businesses viable – and who as graduates could with the right persuasion stay on in our city and help to revitalise it.
Likewise, many would see the flagship arts organisations of our city as indispensable elements of our civic identity – yet few expect to patronise these same bodies personally. And how many people in Liverpool know that the eponymous University has to its credit impressive numbers of Nobel Laureats? Indeed, how many people know anything much at all about what goes on in the research institutions of our city’s universities, or anything about the significance of this research in the regional economy or indeed on the world scene?
And so we could go on; for there are, to put it starkly, parts of our local communities where to ask even these questions would be to understate massively the alienation from mainstream understandings of culture and creativity. There is a palpable disinclination amongst too many of our young people beyond a certain age to lose their ‘cool’, to allow themselves to become engaged, let alone excited, by positive, imaginative and exciting ideas and activities. There is a fear by those in some parts of our communities that any bending towards the mainstream will result in cultural engulfment, that others do not respect or understand their particular traditions and beliefs. Above all, there is sometimes still apathy and an unwillingness to trust in a more accepting and better future.
This then is the true challenge which now faces the Great City of Liverpool.
Our civic leaders of the future will need as an urgent priority to deliver a cultural and creative concordat, a bringing together of traditions and modes of understanding which allow the many rather than just the few to translate hope into action – and this I believe can be achieved only through the pursuit of excellence, the engagement of the very best of what is creative in all the fields of endeavour we have considered.
We need architects and sculptors who regain the public sphere for community and performance; actors, artists and musicians who draw on their many cultural traditions to bring people together and enhance their lives; teachers who capture the imagination and ambition of their charges; community workers and volunteers whose enthusiasms, local knowledge and skills are welcomed and engaged by the civic authorities; research workers and academics who build on, and see the local economic benefits which may accrue from, the distinguished record of our institutions of higher learning.
It will be a task of breathtaking proportion to sustain in their own right, and simultaneously to bring together, the historically disempowered communities of our city and the hitherto so-called ‘elitist’ cultural institutions which history has endowed to us.
It cannot be said too clearly there are many already on all ‘sides’ who seek excellence without compromise or fear, who want and will for the city a common understanding alongside outstanding achievement across the spectrum of artistic and intellectual endeavour. But individuals of goodwill can reach only so far on their own. Cultural nostalgia, lack of resources (human, material and civic), entrenched, sometimes limited bureaucracies, the inertia of years of low expectations, cannot be overcome by individual goodwill alone. All these factors are real and enormous barriers to progress.
The challenge for Liverpool’s first Elected Mayor will be to achieve a very fine balance in pursuing world-class excellence for our city across the artistic / generically intellectual board, whilst also seeking to achieve maximum creative community synergy and engagement and maintaining personal political credibility – a tall order indeed, but one which I believe those in our amazing, deeply culturally blessed, Great City will support and embrace.
(Chapter in) Manifesto for a New Liverpool, 2000 (published by Aurora, The University of Liverpool and Space)
by
Hilary Burrage
Chair, HOPES: The Hope Street Association
Hope Street Quarter Developments And Public Realm Works
At last the public realm works in Hope Street, Liverpool, are underway. This will make a huge difference to the Hope Street Quarter; but where do we go from here?
The Hope Street Quarter is at a critical stage in its development. With luck we shall soon see delivery of the Public Realm works which HOPES and, latterly, Liverpool Vision have sought for so long; and alongside that we can already perceive the evidence that the Quarter is at last becoming the vibrant destination it should always have been.
All this is excellent news, both for those directly involved, and for those whose future livelihoods may depend on such vibrancy and public visibility for the Quarter; but another aspect of these developments is the risks which, unless we are vigilant, they may bring.
The evidence that physical improvements, and even economic growth, may not be an unmixed blessing for everyone is now well-documented: we have only to look at areas such as London’s Hoxton, Newcastle, or indeed some parts of Glasgow and Edinburgh for instance, to see that ‘gentrification’ brings with it a challenge in terms of community and social sustainability. These issues were well recognised, as we know, at the recent ODPM conference, and must be core to how we see the future in taking HSQ forward.
It is a mistake (I would suggest) to suppose that inner-city areas do or should not change over time, or that somehow we should try to keep things as they are. We have, however, the advantage of hindsight in respect of other places, as we attempt to move forward in the Hope Street Quarter – like other parts of the inner city, a location with many people doing many things in many ways , but also a truly unique and very special place of itself.
This is not the time for a full analysis of all aspects of Hope Street Quarter’s past and future. But it may be helpful to list a few of the opportunities and issues which we face:
SUSTAINABILITY
There are several ways in which an area such as HSQ needs to be sustained:
· it must be managed in a way which is environmentally sound;
· it needs to have a micro-economy which resonates with the larger context, but which also enables significantly accelerated growth in terms of the particular advantages of the Quarter – its creative and high-skills base, its historic attractions, and its hugely significant arts and cultural attributes, for instance; and
· it needs to have resonance with the majority, if not all, the people who live and work in HSQ and closeby.
Hilary Burrage
Hon. Chair, HOPES: The Hope Street Association
Meeting with Liverpool Vision and other partners, 24 June 2005
Dreaming Realist 