Joining the dots

Until I began working on projects outside the city, the rural arts scene did not feature on my internal art-world map – it dwelled in the grey areas between the bright, busy urban centres. Since I’ve spent time with rural venues, festivals and practitioners the grey areas have been filled in with a colourful range of work. Arts activity in the rural East Midlands is quite astonishing, not only because of its quantity, but also because of its breadth. In recent years the organisations presenting and producing work have upped their game, and there’s a new confidence in what is produced. It is far more ambitious and advanced than might be expected from scattered groups working in a largely rural area.

On the map

The East Midlands is the third most rural region in England: 30% of its population live in places with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants, and 78% of the land is used for agriculture and horticulture. There are strengths in the arts across all of the counties: thriving festivals, site-inspired artistic projects, initiatives that work in new ways with the region’s heritage. There is no expectation that rural should mean mediocre or conservative. There are a huge number of festivals, including major events presenting international artists. In Buxton, people come from across the country to see opera rarities performed in a restored Edwardian opera house, while Wirksworth Festival is community-led and champions the work of local professional artists in almost every available space in the town. Even relative newcomers like Lincolnshire’s International Chamber Music Festival are building audiences far from the cities. The majority of visual art work is contemporary and often site-inspired, where unusual buildings or the physical landscape in the region are integrated to create new exhibition styles, rather than attempting to mimic urban art spaces. The Beacon Art Project uses historic sites to show international work; Fermynwood Contemporary Art in Northamptonshire presented installations by Laurenz Theinert in Fermyn Woods, experienced by the audience on a night-time walk. In Lincolnshire, a parade of beach huts have been installed by the seaside,selected from over 240 international entries to be part of the ‘Bathing Beauties’ festival. The new Level Centre in the Peak District is undertaking internationally important arts work with disabled people.

Nicki Gardner, Chair of the newly formed East Midlands Arts in Rural Areas Network (EMARAN) and part-time Arts Officer at East Lindsey District Council, felt that the increase in the number and quality of regional projects was linked to the introduction of ‘Grants for the Arts’ by Arts Council England (ACE) in 2004. The scheme increased access and redressed inequalities in funding, and rural areas began to benefit. Similarly, greater recognition of the value of cultural tourism and the beneficial effects that the arts can have on rural communities has led to a change in attitudes. There are now rurally accessible arts and creative business support systems from regional local authorities, such as the ‘artsderbyshire’ web-resource and Creative Leicestershire. EMARAN adds to the support system by assisting the development of organisations and individuals – a first for the region and for the whole UK. The network came about through an original initiative led by Culture East Midlands, designed to strengthen and raise awareness of the role that culture plays in economic and community development in rural areas.

Reducing the distance

EMARAN has a twice-yearly conference that allows anyone working in the rural arts to make connections, increase their visibility and develop their practice. As Gardner explained, “We have learnt how fundamentally important it is for people to be connected and be able to build and maintain relationships. It might seem like a simple task, but without this, ideas aren’t formed, projects don’t happen and rural artists can become invisible. The risk working rurally is that the opportunity to make links is severely limited and overcoming this is the biggest challenge for people. Incubation centres and arts hubs are more common in cities, and new projects, ideas and support instantly arise when people work together.” The first four conferences have attracted more than 300 delegates, and Gardner feels that the success of these events is because “Our conferences work when they are being true to the specific needs of rural arts delivery and development. We’ve tried a formal approach and it just didn’t deliver in the way that we’re used to: it wasn’t what our artists, companies or organisations needed. Our next conference – and this is a method we’ve learnt works best – will see us learning from listening to experiences ‘from the floor’. We want to uncover what makes a successful rural partnership and we want to involve everyone in a big conversation, as that’s how important issues are raised and problems solved.”

Further support for rural arts and culture activities comes from the rural culture website that also came into being through the Culture East Midlands rural initiative. The site holds case studies, news on new training and funding opportunities, and a comprehensive contacts list, as well as recent research and toolkits to support organisations working on or with rural cultural projects. It attracts over 1000 visits a month and has begun to form a hub for a virtual network. In the future EMARAN wants to bring more people together and help create a network of relationships regardless of geographical distance. It has secured development funding from ACE to increase its capacity and expand its reach. It can engage even more people in new conversations and help develop more ambitious work. Nevertheless, Gardner felt that “a network is only as good as your last conversation, so we want to keep on trying new ways of working”. Having just returned from its lively, talkative and frank conference on partnership working and seen new relationships developing and ideas forming, I think it looks as though EMARAN is starting to colour in the grey areas on other people’s maps.