Gavin Barlow looks forward to the audience taking over the programming at the Albany arts centre.
What would happen if a venue handed over artistic programming to its audience for a year? Its probably not a thought high up on the agendas of most artistic directors but, in fact, a number of organisations are beginning to take a radical look at the way they develop their programmes of work.
London International Festival of Theatres New Parliament will be a moveable structure with a programme of events and activities curated by an international team of artists and producers engaging with local communities. It is a bold attempt to reinvent the whole process and reframe the relationship between organisation, artform and audience. Arts centres which, until relatively recently, seemed almost redundant concepts, are in a perfect position to help develop and define new ways of working. They can work across artforms and, freed from the desire to have a unified artistic vision emanating so often from one person, they can act as a hub, a meeting place between any number of artists and communities.
The Albany, a purpose-built arts centre in Deptford, South East London enjoying a new resurgence after a long and chequered history, has embraced this collaborative approach. This may in some ways be making a virtue of necessity as the Albany has very little in the way of funding from Arts Council England but the results and benefits are clear.
Programming at the Albany is a process that involves the whole staff team, resident organisations and partners. Our relationship with resident companies such as Heart n Soul, who work with artists with learning disabilities, has made disability work central to our programme. The result has not just been some inspiring work, but has turned on its head the widely held belief that it is difficult to find audiences for such work our three best-selling performances of the last year were by disabled artists or companies. People with disabilities and learning disabilities now also form a significant part of the audience across the programme.
We work with independent producers and promoters tapping into developments which not even the best programmer could hope to keep pace with. A 19 year-old promoter is responsible for Arabian Nights, a monthly indie music night for under-18s, which sells to capacity with no discernable marketing apart from being mentioned on the MySpace website. A local producer uses his networks to bring big names and new talent to If its Lyrics Yuh Want&, a regular event recreating the heyday of reggae dancehall, with audiences including women in their 50s and teenagers. What results is a complex network of changing relationships. What may start as a hire or community event can be nurtured, invested in and, in many cases become a self-sustaining part of the programme.
Spoken word is a fast-growing artform and a key part of the Albany programme, with artists often acting as producers. As well as working with established organisations such as Apples & Snakes, we work with collectives of artist and promoters, such as London Slam Central, on developing new work. The Albany has also set up its own spoken word youth group, who are developing as young artists and producing their own events.
The use of a Shout Out team of ambassadors and a series of active forums supplements other contact with audiences to create a dynamic relationship between programming and audience development. The result over time has been a real diversity in audiences across the programme, and a greater sense of ownership and creativity for a variety of the buildings users.
Far from being a bolt-on, participatory programmes are often the driving force when it comes to developing programming. More and more, it seems we are also negotiating changing definitions of what is considered professional work. In his recent paper, The Art of Living, economist, John Knell, sums this up when he says widening reach or participation is not simply about introducing a growing proportion of society to traditional or high culture, and that it also needs to ensure that the widest possible range of people have a greater opportunity to shape their own experience of culture, acting as producers as well as consumers. Too often these attempts at innovation are not recognised. Not so long ago an Arts Council officer felt that innovative was not a word she could associate with work at the Albany, seemingly as it was community-based.
So what would happen if we handed over our programme to audiences? Some theatres, such as Rotterdams Theater Zuidplein have tried just that. The Nuffield Theatre in Lancaster is attempting a similar experiment. The Albany plans to develop in just such a way over the next few years, finding new ways to work with artists and audiences as co-producers of our creative programmes. We hope to have at least a season by 2010 that is entirely programmed by the audience. It will be a process which will transform the way we work, and we are aware that it requires resources as well as the willingness to take risks and discover the unexpected.
Gavin Barlow is Chief Executive of the Albany.
w: http://www.thealbany.org.uk