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Ben Wohl traces the impact of networking in a rural area where the distances are great and support is hard to find.

Cumbria may appear to have little to offer the contemporary art world, with its isolated artists who have little support. Yet Kate Brundrett, who co-ordinates the Cumbria Network, reports that “a colleague in London who gets our newsletter was gob-smacked at the amount of stuff going on up here… There’s more going on, more artist-to-artist support and more stuff to get involved in than their city networks.”

Kate realised that once away from the city, it takes effort to bring artists together. “The Cumbria Network was initiated in 2004 in response to the difficulties experienced by the rural isolation of artistic community spread across the county,” she says. Her involvement in the first FRED art invasion (Europe's largest annual festival of site-specific art) made it clear that Cumbria needed an organisation that could keep the conversation about contemporary arts going throughout the year: “It’s about creating a central hub for individual artists to support their practice and help generate a vibrant arts scene.”

The Network’s new website was launched in October 2007, and it has three preliminary HUBs and an ever-growing membership. (The HUBs are sub-networks in Kendal, Carlisle, and Cockermouth, and have existed for just over a year, and are a way for the network to bring people together in particular areas.) It has organised talks, gallery visits, workshops and even camping trips, becoming part of the foundation of an arts infrastructure in Cumbria. Membership currently costs about a fiver. “Almost every wage-earning opportunity I have had since going self-employed can be sourced back to the network,” explained artist Bryan Eccleshall. Currently on the Cumbria Network’s nine-strong committee, Bryan was instrumental in setting up the Cockermouth HUB.

The Cockermouth HUB “basically just kept on meeting in the pub [to] get drunk and sing songs all night”, but has also set up a three-day exhibition of eight artists’ work in the town’s old toy museum, attracting over 150 people. The Kendal HUB has focused more on specific goals, and is currently organising a trip to Berlin’s Biennial for Contemporary Art, both to see the art and to make connections. Kendal has gained funding for the trip and to research the viability of residencies between Cumbria and Berlin. Kendal HUB member Paul Clark explained that the resources of the whole county are needed to back the project. “I don’t think any of us could have done it on our own. You can break a single thick stick but there’s the whole bundle of little twigs you can’t break,” he says.

The Carlisle HUB has the role of bringing other groups together, raising the visibility of art and artists and running events in the city centre. It has played a key role in the Carlisle Arts Festival, and represents a gallery, studio groups, students and a performing arts organisation. The city has a dense population of artists, but doesn’t get the tourist numbers to boost audiences, necessitating real engagement with the local population. As Bryan Eccleshall has found, “You all pull together because you know there needs to be a critical mass to get any of your work out there.”

The Cumbria Network means that artists don’t have to work in isolation, despite the large distances between them. They can have the same amount of support as they would get in a bigger city, if not more, and there is an increasing level of critical dialogue between them. The Cumbria Network is lifeline for Cumbrian artists, a way of continuing to have a strong professional practice and live in one of the most beautiful place in Britain. ‘The Network’ means that artists in Cumbria can be part of community of artists, find opportunities and discover what’s going on. In short, they can be connected.

Ben Wohl is a poet and a member of the management committee of the Cumbria Network.
e: ben_wohl@phonecoop.coop;
w: http://www.thecumbrianetwork.co.uk