Title Artistic Director
Organisation Littoral Arts
How long in post? 12 years
Phone 01706 827961
Email littoral@btopenworld.com
What does your organisation do? An Arts Trust for Social and Environmental Change, including:
? Art and Agriculture: currently working with the Arts Council of England on proposals for an arts and cultural strategy for farming and agricultural change, arts and rural regeneration, etc.
? ROUTES: an arts and anti-sectarian project in collaboration with the bus workers in Northern Ireland
? Merzbarn: a project about Kurt Schwitters and legacy of the Merzbarn in England
What does your job involve?
Everything!
Who did you used to work for?
? The New Zealand National Art Gallery, curator;
? National Council for Civil Liberties London, arts officer;
? Manchester Polytechnic, PhD arts researcher
What do you like most about your present job?
Working with my colleague and partner in all, Celia Larner.
What is most difficult in your present post?
Finding other artists and people with the experience, commitment and stamina to work with.
What is your career ambition?
Not to balls things up too often.
Who has most influenced your career to date?
My debt to many great artists who pioneered the arts in social and environmental contexts: Kurt Schwitters, John Latham (APG/O&I), Helen and Newton Harrison, Robert Smithson, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Betty Beaumont, Wochenklausur; and my heroes - the small and family farmers of Britain; Michael Hart, Henry Bainbridge, Gillian van der Meer, Alistair Davy and many more.
If you could have done any job, what would it be?
I want to sail around the world with Kirsty Wark!
If you had three wishes for the future of the arts, what would they be?
1. To see the arts sector respond to the crisis in agriculture and take up the exciting new challenges in supporting rural regeneration and the important process of cultural reconnection of the rural and the urban communities, as outlined in the Curry report.
2. A greater commitment on the part of the arts nationally towards embracing cultural diversity and supporting social inclusion initiatives, in both urban and rural contexts.
3. Dump the Turner Prize