The Regeneration Olympics

So to begin with I will reference the final session at the Future Perfect conference as a way of getting you to state your positions with respect to art operating in the area of 'regeneration' schemes. Can the three of you respond in brief to the following: Do you think there is a critical role for art in regeneration schemes and/or what is it that sets it apart from other agencies?

I am very dubious that art (or maybe I mean artists?) should play a part in these schemes, what gets called regeneration is very often gentrification thinly veiled. The participatory nature of many art projects seems to imply consent from those taking part in the agenda of the scheme as a whole. Art operating in this arena can be seen as providing a cultural rubber stamp for what is simply a land grab on the part of private developers.

Its certainly fair to say is that there has been a tendancy to focus on arts & culture trying to fit in to quantifiable outcomes of regeneration which offers major challenges. However artists, art galleries & other cultural institutions have great expertise in terms of working with audiences, they can act as the 'glue' in terms of working with people & have strong histories of sucessful partnerships. Artists & creative practitioners think creatively about change in a way that the major players remaking our cities don't. There is great potential in terms of artists enriching, challenging, reshaping & contributing as equal players to the regeneration schemes/debates. Perhaps the focus should be on greater advocacy so that the status of artists, art organisations & cultural institutions have a stronger voice.

It might be useful to start to distinguish "regeneration schemes" - by their history, the constellation of agencies and initiatives involved, their time and physical scale and their main purpose. I think art should always take on a critical role in any public realm scenario, but the critical role should be defined by the artist, whether it's political/ideological/experimental/informal etc. The regeneration schemes we've worked on which didn't fail or proof exploitative, had all very open minded and curious commissioners who appreciate art's critical role, were rooted locally, allowed for a slow and informal pace and were small scale enough to take cultural projects and suggestions further. I think we need more discussion about the failures and frustrations experienced by the different producers and stakeholders involved in this field, in order to reassess the possibilities for art's involvement - which shouldn't end but strengthened.

All the debate seems to be focussed around the artist as providing a critical response, questioner and evaluator. The other aspect of practice is to create, imagine and invision. The creation of the NEW seems to be being left to the developers, planners and professional stakeholders. Artists now seem to be only mediators of the regeneration process to the community. How can an artist really play a provocotive role within the start of a regeneration process? Check out the blog of Tony Beckwith at Haring Woods "A cultural shift is needed, one that brings the arts and artists into the complex process of government policy and decision making as team players. And the arts industry needs to recognize the rich potential in this additional role, a complementary role to existing practice not a conflicting one." www.haringwoods.com/site/89/397.html

The critical doesn't need to be just responsive. It should be proactive, and I think that many arts projects within regeneration schemes set precedents which could and often should become more operational and be involved in decision making. As a practitioner this is something I have often experienced as an aspiration - by all sides involved - but rarely as a reality. It seems to me that the often very informal modes of producing art are not compatible with the highly formalised structures that constitute policy and planning procedures. It s back to a call for a "Non Plan" where we can experiment with different forms of collective and alternative forms of cultural and spatial production.

I think the artists roll has to be critical otherwise the artists just gets used to culture wash bad commercial developments, pigs to have the habit of becoming farmers when given half the chance after all. I do Support the Olympics and the lea valley project to create the largest urban park in Europe though. my view being that the lee valley would have been redeveloped anyway, the Olympics raises the profile therefore the critical eye. And potential for participation.

The contributions so far are covering a lot of pertinent areas, much of which was touched upon in various statements and remarks made at the Engage event. I'd like to throw in a couple of questions, again firstly to the participants at this point: * is the role of cultural venues in regeneration schemes, and the role of artist in those venues mutually supportive, or are we touching upon conflicting motivations? * as well as the critical function of art, we are talking about it being about hopes and dreams, something that can bind us together in the public 'arena' - are new practices (relational and durational, for example as Clare Doherty spoke of) mutually exclusive of art as instrumentalism. Is instrumentalism, if appropriately deployed, such a bad thing?

I want to reply in regards to the relationship between cultural venues and the cultural producers who use it within regeneration settings. Too many regeneration schemes are importing "cultural venues" off the shelf - instead of developing very specific briefs with those involved in producing and using the cultural scene on site, and making sure that those briefs are used to develop specific architectural solutions. This might mean the development of new typologies of cultural spaces and some real experiments... Instead many new cultural venues are high maintenance and often too formalised to host dynamic and informal programmes - which means that cultural producers are once more confronted with formalities and admin instead of open space. The other issue is that many of those new spaces actually lack funding for programme, which makes the relationship between cultural venue and cultural programme very problematic.

With regard to Robin Bale's point in Post 2 - "The participatory nature of many art projects seems to imply consent from those taking part in the agenda of the scheme as a whole". It has ever been thus, surely, and it seems to me that a lot of what is great in much public art has to be 'extracted' from the context the work is tied into. Henry Moore's fine ethnic pieces in Bond Street, London, spring to mind, as does almost everything Michelangelo did. This 'tied context' has not necessarily invalidated the work in the past, so I wonder if Robin is working through a typically modernist position that proposes that the artist has to assert him/her ethical and artistic independent in the act of creation? I also wonder if all art SHOULD be tied to this anymore than to public contexts that compromise it? For many artists this moral dilemma may not exist.

I would argue that the idea of a public arena needs to be problematised, for starters. if the public arena exists at all, it is -and should be- a space of antagonism. We should not be "celebrating diversity", or being "bound together"...I would question who this "us" is. Institutions arrive in areas, say the Tate Modern or the Baltic centre, to become -unwittingly perhaps- the centrepiece of private housing development. "Diversity" can then be "celebrated" via workshops, by those who will not be able to afford to live in those areas at all within a few years.

Hi Sam, I was writing specifically about public art projects where the "community" has supposedly been consulted, or even taken part in via workshops etc. Whilst Michaelangelo had to worry about his papal patron, I don't beleive he had to worry about, or consult, the numerous others, cardinals, servants etc. who would be using the chapel. This is the crucial point - that approach is at least honest, the patronage is clear. secondly - yes, i am in favour of autonomy. But that means that the artist is clear about whose agenda they are serving. parachuting artists into areas on the grounds that they have some clearer vision than anyone else is, frankly, ridiculous. Artists have their own agenda beyond getting paid.

Robin - with Michelangelo the patronage was certainly clear, but so were the demands, and that included conformity. But I do believe that art contributes a compexity, a subtelty of vision and perspective that can be added to any environment and thus enrich it for the visitor. Given that, I would have artists contribute to most architectural contexts. Personally, I distrust words like 'regeneration', as we all distrust that other deceit 'development'. However, if good art is present it will offer more than the context may do. Hence, again, Michelangelo - anyone who looks at the work, in sculpture or painting, can see that his work is really quite subversive. The conformity is superficial - he clearly offers other perspectives than the religious, and the art itself reinvents how we may look at the world. My second point would be that we already exist in these exploitative environments. The artists are offering an alternative to them. This would make contributing perfectly ethical! Yes?!

Coming back to the Olympics. The Pope and the Olympic Development Agency might not be that different after all ... talking authority and autonomous power. However many approaches there are currently to make the Olympics "culturally vibrant", from the schemes and official debates I've followed over the last years I fear that the arts/artists will just become part of a major PR and marketing programme. I'm a local resident and a local artist but have very little ambition to get formally involved in this megascheme that in my opinion lacks a clear profile when it comes to the arts. There is far too much money and agencies involved who are paid to deliver a brief which was developed supertop-down.

1. Post 9 by Public Works suggests stark opposites between institutions and new agencies who are unable to get funding? Surely there's a range of different sized organisations in between these two sides? 2. Post 11 by Robin Bale - it is already acknowledged that new arts venues arise in areas of private development. How do you work within such contradictory circumstances as a venue or as an artist through critical practice, or as 'traditional community arts work' - or do you do something different in kind. If so, what is it? 3. Post 12 - 'Artists have their own agenda beyond getting paid'. Can you give us an example of a mutually good project? 4. Synthia - 'Perhaps the focus should be on greater advocacy so that the status of artists, art organisations & cultural institutions have a stronger voice.' I like the sound of that. Give us a summary of how the Tate get the local community involved as agents of their own projects?

From a Tate perspective we try where possible to develop active genuine partnerships and to be responsive to the communities that surround us by having an ongoing sustained dialogue. What's fundamental to this is mechanisms for this two way process & exchange to take place - we need to actively know the communities that surround us and be open to what is suggested which means taking risks pushing the boundaries within and outside of the institution. One example of how this has developed is the community garden at Tate Modern. It emerged out of a need identified by our neighbours who felt that following tate modern's arrival there wasn't necessarily a green space surrounding the gallery for them, in the way there had been previously. The successful partnership with an organisation that supports green spaces in the area helped with the brokering of relationships for the Fritz Haig commission as part of Global Cities exhibition in the turbine hall some time later.

My point was more about the brief making for new buildings and their local commissioners/audience. I ve seen many examples for new cultural venues where an existing organisation - who often has grown very informally over the years - is confronted with the realities and forces involved in delivering a new building. Architecture (as we know it) is a highly formalised process, and can only to a degree incorporate informalities and flexibilities - both spatial and organisational ones. A new building often forces organisations to formalise more and to spend more time and energy on running the new building than the programme. I think The Public in West Bromwich is a good example for how a building can turn into a monster that kills the organisation. This is not to say that cultural organisations don't need buildings, but that it would be interesting to think and develop an architecture that can more directly reply to the need and nature of cultural organisations.

Malcolm, in response to the first question I would say that the agenda of arts venues and private developers can in some ways be close - they are both interested in the creation of a public/community. I feel that arts practice can be used to construct an idea of a community (funding structures make this imperative), frequently one that chimes in conveniently with the ideas of public that the developers display on their hoardings around the building works - that of happy, multi-racial professional middle-class people. A thought experiment might be useful here, imagine, in the Brick Lane area, a group of schoolkids being asked to devise a piece of art for their school or a local estate that, rather than being derived from south-east asian fabric patterns, extols the virtues of Sharia law, for example?

I think as an artist one has to be aware that one can become a facilitator or mouthpiece for a view of society denuded of its struggles and contradictions. This can be sidestepped by acknowledging one's own class identity of alliegences, however ambiguous. As soon as one imagines that one can present a value-free agenda of "celebration" and "inclusion" as the cultural Olympiad seems to require one is positioning oneself in the area that the developers and it seems the olympic delivery comittee, with their view of (pseudo) public space for a psuedo public, wants. So a short answer would probably be that ad-hoc graffitti, flyposting, demos/performances would probably be the best position. Artists need to accept that they cannot necessarily speak for others, and assisting regeneration will almost certainly render them homeless (as many others without the cultural clout will be) and probably priced out of their studios.

In response to your second question, in a not entirely facaetious spirit, i am sorely tempted to propose Richard Serra's "Tilted Arc" as an example of a mutually good project - it had no pretense about it regarding the artist's motives, it was an agressive incursion into public space, literally fracturing it and it illuminated battle lines, creating several different "publics" in the process. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/cultureshock/flashpoints/visualarts/tiltedarc_a.html

To be liberal about it, I tend to agree with all of the points since post 16. Re post 17 - The Public started with such great intentions (with such a rich history through Jubilee Arts too!). Another new place that has opened up recently is West Knowles Media Centre, and coincidentally following the Engage conference they hosted one a seminar on Monday 9th Nov which looked at regeneration plans for South Bristol, asking that old chestnut of a question that is maybe too late to apply to the developments around the Olympics: "how we can encourage involvement from, and interaction between, a range of groups including communities, planners, architects, artists and local government". When that centre opened in 2008, they commissioned a series of essays on the subject of art and regeneration, and a few quotes are worth reiterating in the context of this exchange...

Peter Jenkinson: "Many artists have the remarkable ability to generate new and unexpected ideas about the world we live in and to speculate radically if not dangerously about the future, yet they continue to be regarded by those with power not as players in the game but as prettifiers on the margins… As the irreversible engine of UK affluence forges ahead, reinventing, tidying up and gentrifying previously underused or derelict areas of our communities, artists are being forced out of their once ‘affordable’ working and living spaces every week. This is a consequence of ‘progress’ made worse in London in particular, and ironically, by the preparations for the 2012 Olympics. It is an unhappy picture nationwide and, when it is notoriously difficult for artists to make their voices heard or to make their voices count, the situation demands action form those who are able to do so." Apologies for any quotes out of context.

Tom Trevor ‘Public-Private v Social Space’ "Increasingly our city centres, are privately owned developments, policed by private security firms, narrowly focused on creating the conditions to generate maximum returns in terms of shopping and spending. Through so-called open malls… the concept of the civic centre has been re-defined in the interests of capital, essentially becoming a privatised domain governed by its own laws... A key feature of these new ‘private-public’ spaces is the set of rules governing behaviour that ensure only certain types of activities and certain types of people will be allowed to enjoy them ... with proponents arguing that they provide a ‘clean and safe’ environment. Critics on the other hand claim they create sterile, uniform places, which inhibit genuine public access and lack the diversity and particularity of traditional street life, while also displacing social problems into neighbouring ghettoised areas of deprivation."

And lastly Simon Poulter 'At Risk': "… looking beyond purely capital investments in landmark buildings, a number of questions arise regarding the wider implementation of culture as a social, economic and educationally motivated tool: i) Are culturally motivate regenerative packages solely focused on increasing tourism and what are the economic effects for local communities when cultural investment is attempted? ii) What impact have cultural regenerative projects had on social deprivation and does the central, urban location of these new structures benefit those in peripheral and neglected communities? iii) What role do artists play as agents of this renewed investment and how do regenerative criteria affect the creative outcome?" It would seem that these questions are particularly relevant in the context of the Olympics. Is there a vocal opposition to the effects of the Olympics from the 'artistic communities' in the East End?

Its fair to say that increased levels of tourism play a part in terms of the motivating factors for any cultural development particularly in major cities but there are good examples of how cultural organisations have gone beyond that to look at employment schemes to ensure its workforce is reflective of the area its situated in. The problem is that its difficult to measure the impacts culture can have on social deprivation. What large cultural led regeneration schemes do seem to do is kick start a much bigger process that can be seen in the development of artistic hubs, creative clusters and cultural quarters. Value around the impact of arts and culture seems to increase at both a strategic and grass routes level. Its certainly fair to assume that if a landmark cultural institution is positioned in an area and does little to go beyond the immediate economic or qauntifiable effects of its presence then its fundamentally failing.

The Cultural Olympiad has and will continue to allow culture to play a central role in terms of how the Olympics is experienced by those that visit from around the world in 2012 in a way that other Olympic cities have neglected. There are opportunities for a range of projects involving artists to build in scale and ambition during this process. As the Olympic site develops there is exciting opportunities to push the boundaries of public art and how it articulates itself in the changing landscape that is East London. Projects like 'Artists taking the lead' is a massive commitment to this. Shouldn't artists in east london see these as great opportunities?

I'm interested in hearing more about examples of 'artists taking the lead' around this issue. I was quite taken by the example of the Edgeware Road Project and also Whitechapel's 'The Street' as models of 'outreach' attached (or embedded?) in larger institutions that are driven by 'art world' agenda's and aspirations. At Engage Paul Domela from Liverpool Biennial gave some good examples of the way this 'institution' works on a more local and engaged basis in between festivals - a reversal of perspective perhaps as this really seems to eclipse the resonances that the big splash event has. An artist or organisation working with experts in teaching people to become beekeepers which results in a number of new hives - it says a lot about ecology, craft skills, agricultural production, the well-being of the countryside, education, food... not to mention of course how that sits with urban led development and community regeneration. Is it art? It's certainly culture.

re: Olympics in Vancouver. There are numerous critiques of what many view as a massive investment in a 2 week extravaganza that has no benefits for residents. Funds have been diverted from social services, education, arts, etc. There is controversy over use of Indigenous land; the need for a large security force (and systems of surveillance) who will monitor everyone in the city as well as cordoning off sections of the city where athletes will be housed; "cleaning up" the downtown eastside where many homeless and vulnerable people live on the streets --they ended up there because leading up to Expo 88, the provincial government cut support services, welfare and social infrastructure that would have ensured security and stability. While there was extra funding promised for the arts, ironically, last fall, the provincial government (check) also made large cuts to the arts and many galleries as well as artists have suffered greatly (See Artspeak Gallery, Or Gallery, the Grunt Gallery).

Here are three initiatives that are located within or near by to the 2012 site. They re all self-initiated, where artists and cultural producers collaborate with residents and users of the site. Artists take the lead here because they want to, and they find strategies to do so, and not because they were told or offered to. Pudding Mill River by Optimistic Productions, see www.puddingmillriver.blogspot.com/. Lifeisland, see www.lifeisland.org. What Will the Harvest Be by Somewhere, see www.whatwilltheharvestbe.com/. Culture for the Lea Valley doesn't need to be invented for 2012 - there is plenty of it. And it's a shame that something like the Cultural Olympiad is mainly a selective branding system to make the games look cultural (within their agenda), rather than a genuine platform and support system for existing and emerging local cultural projects. I would be interested to hear of more initiatives in the area and examples from other cities who had the Olympics.

The cultural programmer for the Sydney Olympics gave a very good presentation in London sharing experience and highlighting opportunities for London to make the most of the opportunity it brings. He stressed avoiding getting overly concerned about the branding, realising the games are on for a very short period and seeing the very good opportunities there are for cultural activity to be developed and built on in an annual basis in the lead up to the games. He said that we were at that point already leagues ahead in terms of our thinking than Sydney had been at a comparative point. I'd say what is critical is that there are these very good examples of self-initiated activity, has the Olympics acted as a catalyst in some way to the already existing projects? The Olympics are about putting Britain on the world stage and of course that there will be cultural projects of varying sizes and scales that will do this effectively some national and some local.

Contemporary British culture is already - and has been for a long time - acting on a world stage, at least on a cultural one. I agree that the Olympics can add a temporary global media platform for projects, but I would have preferred a strategy that offers a support structure and public platform that was more about nurturing and networking projects than branding them. East London and the Lea Valley are anything but an isolated cultural desert. It has an extremely broad cultural scene with a vast variety of aspects. I m uncertain how much the Olympics contribute to a growth of the existing cultural live, or how much they edit what s there in order to promote an event which is much more driven by political and commercial decisions .

In terms of any resistance to regeneration or the olympics amongst the artists of the east end - I think that the link below says it all. I lived in Hackney Wick when the original market was running. It was the polar opposite of an arts/crafts farmers market. It was autonomous (quite literally) lawless and frequented by the very people who have been erased from the olympic zone. The new Wick market, fittingly run by artists will only encourage the yuppiefication of the area. artists are wittingly or unwittingly agents of class cleansing. http://www.hackneycitizen.co.uk/?p=6050

There has been a counter polemic against New Labour's idea of social inclusion and instrumentalism. In London this is characterised by the Conservatives move away from philistinism, towards embracing artistic excellence. Thus Claire Fox gave birth to Munira Mirza ideologically. See www.viral.info/ctg/ctg.htm - there are examples of regenerative art practice where direct changes have occurred in levels of aspiration in young people. The Olympics latches onto this idea of individual pursuit and excellence. In the artistic community there is an issue with knowing which side your bread is buttered and what seems to be a stand-offish attitude to the Olympics. I propose a manifestation of Scarborough Fair in 2012. An open invitation to aggregate all of the world's talented outsiders with the intent of doing something interesting, perhaps the only way we might propagandise against the opening ceremony at the Beijing Olympics.