The Arts Council in Ireland is reaching out to the Irish arts community in a unique way, with a major consultancy exercise which will inform a new national arts strategy. Gillian Bates talks to its Director Mary Cloake to find out more.
By rights, Mary Cloake should be exhausted. Having been the new Irish Arts Council Director for just eight months, she is currently spearheading the largest arts consultation process in the history of Ireland. The Arts Council has been carrying out a research programme that has so far involved fifty focus groups from the arts community. Given that there are another twenty still to come, plus an analysis of the written consultation and some audience research, Cloake seems remarkably chipper.
Inclusive
The focus groups include anyone, and everyone, from the artistic community in Ireland. These range from large organisations like the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, through to solo craft makers. The initiative started last year on a very small scale. Arts Council staff carried out a phone survey of people outside the organisation whom they wanted to contribute to a forthcoming arts strategy. The aim was to discover the best ways of communicating with the arts world, after a troubled period which had culminated in the resignation of Cloake?s predecessor. ?In many ways, at that time, people had ?consultation fatigue,?? said Cloake, ?What they wanted was to meet and discuss specific issues, in small groups. There was a strong feeling that big general meetings did not help. There was also a sense that the Arts Council only consulted with the arts community once every five years when there was a new strategy coming along. What people wanted was to communicate on an ongoing basis.?
Unusually, focus group attenders were also asked who they wanted to be in a group with and what key issues they wanted to discuss. This process has already led to identifying specific areas that will inform the new strategy. Another spin-off has been the collaborations and networking opportunities that have developed when artists get together. The meetings have clearly often been lively affairs and Cloake can?t hide her delight at the debate they?ve engendered: ?It?s been incredibly stimulating to hear people talk about their work,? she said. ?There is sometimes difference of opinion, but it is always so exciting to hear the exchange of views.?
Making the case
Such a thorough consultation exercise is bound to raise expectations of change from within the arts community. Wasn?t Cloake afraid that the Arts Council would only be able to deliver a fraction of the framework needed to support the aspirations and needs expressed by artists during this research process? ?The tone we have tried to set is not that we can solve all the problems,? said Cloake. ?We want the arts community to express what the issues are and we want to be making a case for these issues. It is impossible to reconcile all the views we are hearing, but at least we can be confident that everything we do is based on grassroots knowledge. We can prioritise. We cannot aim to meet all expectations, but we can be clear about what these are and what we are going to do. We can also supply the reason why we can?t do other things at the moment.? She says an ?invisible outcome? is that the Arts Council now has a new way of working with artists, based on ongoing communication. In the future, it will continue to keep in constant contact with its diverse arts community.
The research is highlighting a key theme ? The Irish arts community needs its Arts Council to embrace the advocacy role: ?Both large and small arts organisations have a need to get support from the Arts Council that is appropriate to them. They want us to champion the role of arts in society, making the connections and interventions that are appropriate and talking to the right people ? other agencies, government, local authorities and others.?
The research is now moving into its final phase: ?We will then withdraw and spend time reflecting on all this,? said Cloake, ?We will look at what people are saying and what they are not saying. We will give careful thought to the findings and in June we will publish a draft strategy. Public meetings will then be held around the country and we?ll be talking to people on the ground about the design of those meetings.? Arts Council will also talk to audiences about their views of the arts in Ireland.
Collaboration
As well as the immediate urgency of the review and strategy, the organisation will continue to pursue some groundbreaking schemes, including cross-boundary work with Northern Ireland. This includes a 32 counties website (http://www.artslistings.com) that covers Eire and Northern Ireland and aims to increase tourist awareness of the arts. ?Visitors who are touring Ireland aren?t particularly interested in which arts council is paying for what, they just want to know what is happening,? Cloake says. The two Councils have also collaborated on a new art exhibition, ?Four Now,? based on the visual art that both organisations have collected over the past fifty years. Curator Sarah Glennie selected four young contemporary artists to choose paintings from both these collections, which will be exhibited as part of Cork 2005, City Of Culture celebrations. Arts Council will now look at carrying out more joint cross border initiatives and extending and championing the profile of the arts in Ireland generally.
As the June deadline for the publication of the draft arts strategy rapidly approaches, Cloake is preparing herself for the next exhaustive round of public consultation, intent on developing a new relationship between the Arts Council and its arts community: ?This whole process is about introducing a new approach to forward planning,? said Cloake, ?We are developing a partnership based on the best intelligence about the arts that we can get. And that resides within artists and arts organisations.?
?Four Now? opens on 6 May in Lewis Glucksman Gallery, UCC, Cork.
Mary Cloake is from County Wexford and joined the Arts Council in 1993 as Regional Development Officer. She was appointed Development Director in 1997 and Director in September 2004. Previously, she has worked as Arts Officer in Dundalk Urban District Council. She is a member of RTÉ?s Audience Council and was appointed to the Bloomsday 100 Committee by the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, John O?Donoghue T.D. She is also the Arts Council representative on the Council of National Cultural Institutions (CNCI).
In February 2005, she was appointed by the Minister for Arts to the board of Culture Ireland ? the new national agency to promote Irish arts overseas. She holds an MA from Dublin City University and a BA (Mod) from Trinity College, Dublin.