series: access all areas?
Welcome to the first series from A Room Up North, the first of many I hope. Series may pop up every now and again when we feel we have a bit more to say about something that’s catching our attention; small explorations into some of the most fascinating and urgent issues happening across the north and what it has to do with our creativity.
To kick us off, we’re going to deep dive into one of the most important issues in creative industries, and the very issue that drove me to create this community in the first place; access.
Access seems an alien concept to our hyper-connected 21st century society. Most of us are lucky enough to have the world at our fingertips, although compressed into inconveniently sized rectangles. We are made to believe that we have an ungodly amount of power, and that this power is distributed equally to all those who are connected to our modern world. We have taken a step back from the fight and a step into the glaring light of social media; a parasite that latches on to our brains like an IV drip, releasing constant hits of dopamine to keep our appetites satiated. With our minds at bay, we forget about the things that are closest to us, our real social environment, our own history, and our collective identities. I won’t deny that some people do wonderful things with technology, but others do worse, and it is difficult to see the wood from the trees some of the time. We can’t blame ourselves for not challenging what we see or even trying to get involved in this identity massacre – there is simply too much to take in that it feels impossible to make even a dent in our own culture. This tech-fuelled world orbits around the concept of identity; it is what gets followers and sponsors, it’s something that can be appropriated and preyed upon. The safest option we have in this superhuman matrix is to just play it safe, be like everyone else, and pick apart your individual identity until it starts to look vaguely like someone you’ve seen on Tik Tok. With our new Frankenstein identity, we gravitate to more mainstream music choices and artists, we think that to be creative we must have made it big and rub shoulders with the influencers. All of these things are like side quests on our shared voyage to the bright lights of London.
We think this is access. We think that having all of this culture and information at our fingertips is liberating. We think of this as freedom, but we don’t realise that we are losing the most important thing of freedom – identity, history, and community.
Access is a huge problem in the north, not only in education , but access to spaces and opportunities. I imagine many of you reading this have a section in your notes app dedicated to your elaborate plan to finally make it to London; how you will fund yourself, how to network with the hopes that someone lets you rent their spare room. I see you. It is obvious even amongst friends of mine that success in the arts only seems legitimate once you’ve made it to the pearly gates of the M25. This shouldn’t be the case. I want to know why the north is second rate to the south in terms of creative success. I know that there are far more opportunities for work in London, but surely this is a concequence of the same issue. Why are the arts not valued in the north? Why are northeners forced to bankrupt themselves in a flatshare in Peckham just to have a shot at their dream? A lot of this comes down to money, of course. Because although we all try to ignore it, we all know that the art world is first a business, second a human right.
We need access to spaces, materials, and communities in order for our creative work to thrive and be seen and for us to feel connected as a society. I know that there are some fabulous studios and community projects that operate in the north, but there are simply not enough. This is not down to lack of creatives and people hungry for change and culture, but because these spaces are expensive and few and far between. The side-lining of art in institutional settings plays a part in casting a shadow over the necessisity of accessible creative spaces, and its vicious little sidekick, the media, further detaches our understanding of what creativity can do to a community.
The north has always been a powerhouse of creativity. It is a shame that we only really reflect on this as a series of historical trends, it has never been something that has stuck. We all feel that strange sense of nostalgia for Madchester even though I imagine most readers (myself included) were probably born 20 years after its hayday. We remember Oasis, Caroline Aherne, Happy Mondays, and yearn for the comfort of working-class talent.
We eulogise creativity in the north and channel it all into one city. Our creative heritage has become a trend, whittled down to a series of red flags cast high by the fuckboys of our generation, and the odd middle-aged man with a barcode fringe clutching onto his Got 2b hair putty and with all his might. We forget that things still happen; Manchester is still mad, Hull is still a haven for grassroots music, Leeds is a creative free for all, Newcastle is brewing homegrown talent in the dingiest of house parties, and everywhere inbetween are just as wonderful. Why don’t we get the same amount of screentime as London?
Is it because we are taught that art is not something to be celebrated, merely a hobby or something to do on a rainy day? Do we not associate creativity with success? It is possible, and there are a few theories to prove it. Access sits at the heart of all these problems, distorting our imaginations, limiting our aspirations, and laughing in our faces when we run back home with no money or no job. In the north, creativity is practically set up to fail, and it’s not without reason. Art, education, and community are powerful things that have time and time again been proved to overthrow oppression and grant access to those without. If we could put down our phones and look at what is around you, what people are making, doing, singing, writing, painting, dancing, drawing, interpreting, we could maybe start to get our fight back and put northern working-class talent back on the map.
This series will look at several individual issues when it comes to access. I will be exploring the state of arts education in the north with my dear friend and intellectual force to be reckoned with, Will Clarke. I will be discussing the inevitable issue of class-division in creative practices, access to spaces, and funding for creative projects, speaking with some of my fabulous colleagues from the university of Leeds, Dr Rebecca Starr and some students from the working-class network. I will be speaking to artists about barriers they have faced in the industry and what they think needs to change to make creativity a democratic subject. I will of course be sharing a little bit about my own journey which includes speaking to some incredible community-based creative projects, like Swarthmore Education Centre in Leeds and how they transform creativity from a hobby to a vital system of support.
I hope you enjoy the first of our series and please do bear in mind that I am very new to all this writing malarky, I’m learning! So, your patience, passion, smile and laughter will be greatly appreciated. So, pop the kettle on and get ya’ sen comfy, and join my pals and I in a journey into all things access.