Cinemas, film festivals, film societies, film clubs and arts venues screening film are being invited to participate in an online survey currently being undertaken by Creative Scotland and Drew Wylie Ltd. Creative Scotland has commissioned Drew Wylie Ltd. to undertake an initial mapping exercise of the film exhibition sector which aims to map every context in which audiences watch films together, and every organisation that delivers such activities. To access the survey please visit: www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/MappingScotlandsFilmExhibition

We are collaborating with sector partners, including Film Hub Scotland, Regional Screen Scotland and Cinema For All to ensure that the survey is as inclusive as possible, and captures the wide variety of film exhibition activities across Scotland.

Drew Wylie is contributing to two of the EU’s Voice of Culture programme themes.  Voice of Culture aims to ensure that the views of culture professionals and practitioners are heard in policy debates and a more collaborative approach to strategy.  Andrew took part in working sessions and then co-authored the findings on the theme of participatory governance in cultural heritage.  He was elected to co-present this work to the EU expert group which is tasked to prepare recommendations and a handbook on the theme.

We are about to join the group looking at promoting intercultural dialogue and bringing communities together through culture in shared public spaces.  It may be a clumsy title, but the topic is more important than ever, and links to the recent report produced by Julie Ward, an MEP with a successful career in the arts.  The process includes identifying the best forms of cultural activities to promote dialogue and bring people together, in what kinds of public spaces, and how this involves different types of people.  We are particularly keen to identify good practice in Scotland and the wider UK and would welcome suggestions with web-links.  The process and the background papers can be found here http://www.voiceofculture.eu.

2015 has seen Drew Wylie develop in key areas. Our strategic consulting has moved on a step with a mapping of the creative industries for Northamptonshire Enterprise Partnership, a review of the Scottish literature & publishing sectors, and a review and planning exercise with the UK’s university arts venues.  We have also moved into project development, developing a new concept in locally based screen presentation and events with A Kind of Seeing and Film Hub Scotland, and working with a team in Greece to develop plans for Corfu 2021.

Our 2015  international work has ranged from the British Council’s Wider Europe ‘Canny Creatives’ programme to the European Commission’s Voice of Europe initiative on participatory governance of cultural heritage.  We continue to support clients in their aspirations, plans, and European project development, and to contribute to conferences and workshops around Europe.  2016 kicks off with  a new piece of work to map the film exhibition sector in Scotland and we are looking forward to another stimulating year.  Have a great 2016.

Drew Wylie is joining forces with colleagues elsewhere in Europe to support organisations whose work aligns with strands of European Commission investment but who find it difficult to translate this into successful applications or to work with partners from around Europe. While these challenge may be administrative, technical or knowledge based, recent discussions with cultural policy experts in Wroclaw (1) reminded me that we don’t always think about the cultural policy and intent that underpins many of these investment streams.  The conference grappled with the implications of culture remaining at the margins of the Human Rights Convention at a time when inter-cultural dialogue is a necessity.  The work of Dorota Jurkiewicz-Eckert (2), one of the contingent of young Polish experts at the meeting, also points out that culture is missing from ‘Europe 2020. A strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth’ (2010).  Just as at the national level, we are continually having to restate, justify, and reinvent culture’s contribution to Europe while the technocrats’s holy trinity of ‘innovation’, ‘creativity’ and ‘growth’ gains pace.  Yet we share common cause with our culture sector peers and partners throughout Europe.

When we consider the newly published calls for culture in the Horizon 2020 programme, our preparations for the 2016 Creative Europe Guarantee Facility, or even our closer to home ERDF proposals,  we should also consider our relationship to the EU and European culture as a whole. This wider perspective works internally to involve everyone, from Board member to project team, and externally with partners who may have a different organisational culture and criteria of success.

1. http://www.culturalpolicies.net/web/index.php
2. http://www.ce.uw.edu.pl/pliki/tresc/program_wydawniczy/ksiazki/IntroSpisTresci.pdf

King’s College London just launched  The Art of Partnering report and their new home in the culturally resonant Bush House.  A focus on cultural partnership is a welcome relief from both the self-regard of creative entrepreneurship and the stifling embrace of the culture commissioner.  The enquiry aimed to explore partnership as ambition’s accomplice, stimulating bigger and better projects for more people, and delivered in innovative ways.  Partnership is nothing new and the research identified a development in formalised partnering in the cultural sector supported by increasingly specialist partnership professionals.   A suggested taxonomy and a theoretical partnership model are provided, and weaknesses revealed, including a ‘digital light’ cultural sector.  There was also a clear dilemma. Interviewees point to the importance of shared values for successful partnering, and circumstance points to partnerships forming to combat reduced local funding and participative infrastructure.  There are many examples of the pitfalls of both financially motivated partnership, and of place partnering that foregrounds development goals over local buy in.   So it is likely that the ‘how to’ elements of the enquiry will be the most valuable, both for professionals entering into partnerships, and stakeholders looking to support their efforts.

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