Difference between revisions of "The Substation Town Hall"
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|'''Curatorial''' | |'''Curatorial''' | ||
|- style="vertical-align:top;" | |- style="vertical-align:top;" | ||
− | |'''The Board''' | + | |'''The Board's role needs to be clarified to the public''' |
* Is it due for an overhaul? The current board has been in place for a long time. It left The Substation without an Artistic Director for 9 months. Rarely has one seen an arts organisation left without direction for so long, to the point where artists become very concerned about its fate. Does the board really still care about The Substation? Can it prove it? | * Is it due for an overhaul? The current board has been in place for a long time. It left The Substation without an Artistic Director for 9 months. Rarely has one seen an arts organisation left without direction for so long, to the point where artists become very concerned about its fate. Does the board really still care about The Substation? Can it prove it? | ||
− | * Can there be more transparency | + | * Can there be more public transparency in how the board operates? It is currently like a black box - many artists who have worked with The Substation sometimes don't even know who it is on its board. Even some of us who thought we knew, actually didn't realise that members of the board had stepped down or had reduced their involvement with it. |
− | * Accountability and connection with the artists of today - are the board in touch with the needs of artists today? Do they see what is happening on the ground in the arts today | + | * Accountability and connection with the artists of today - are the board in touch with the needs of artists today? Do they see what is happening on the ground in the arts today, in order to allow them to make the best executive decisions and advice for The Substation? |
'''Ownership''' | '''Ownership''' | ||
− | * Who owns The Substation? Reason stands that it should be the artists who feel ownership of The Substation, yet in reality the building is owned by the government (arts housing), and all of its higher executive decisions are made by its Board, whose ministrations largely remain opaque to the artists within its space. The Board tasks the artistic director to make artistic decisions which affect the community within it. But | + | * Who owns The Substation? Reason stands that it should be the artists who feel ownership of The Substation, yet in reality the building is owned by the government (arts housing), and all of its higher executive decisions are made by its Board, whose ministrations largely remain opaque to the artists within its space. The Board tasks the artistic director to make artistic decisions which affect the community within it. But ultimately if the artists themselves feel powerless to decisions being made on their behalf, they may not be able to exercise ownership over the space. |
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Revision as of 13:55, 29 February 2016
IMPORTANT NOTE: the content in this page is not mine only but has been compiled from recent discussions with a number of other artists/art workers and also from other shared google docs.
it was difficult to grasp the enormity of it all the issues so i thought it would be beneficial to divide it into questions on different levels. I have reorganised and typed it out in the hopes of providing some useful starting points for thinking about The Substation.
Executive | Operations | Curatorial |
The Board's role needs to be clarified to the public
Ownership
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Labour and Fair renumeration for artists and artworkers: With a so-called lean team at hand, where do they draw the distinction between artists as practitioners and artists as part time staff? At the interest of creating programmes with artists, how are artists compensated fairly? And how do we address issues of rights of the programme?
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Process
The Public Voice
Inclusivity of communities
Cabinet of Curiosities (Current AD has proposed a "cabinet of curiosities". details are still forthcoming)
Difficult questions: The Substation's direction now seems to be one that encourages artists to deal with "difficult questions" and think critically about society at large, and to reassess perhaps the stakes artists have in society. Difficult questions, surely, will include issues the state will not be willing to confront including operation coldstore, operation spectrum, josef ng, lack of democracy, 377a, labour rights, human rights, queer communities, capital punishment just to name a few. Will substation be ready to support artists who wish to deal with these concerns? |