There Is a Light That Never Goes Out

Yesterday, after months of rumours and deliberation, The Lighthouse, Scotland's Centre for Architecture and Design went into Administration. Hit by the credit crunch, the centre was given a crisis package of £250, 000 and an extra £50,000 pounds of core funding last year to help clear an apparent budget deficit of £300,000. Unfortunately this was not enough to turn the business' concerns around and "the extra income ... needed from rents, grants and conference and events just did not materialise as businesses, organisations and charitable trusts cut back on their activities when the credit crunch hit and the recession deepened."

Established in 1999 the Lighthouse has been responsible for delivering high-quality Education projects, Events and Exhibitions, including facilitating and co-ordinating the Scotland-wide Six Cities Design Festival. A victim of the credit crunch, the Lighthouse's activities and presence will be a great loss to Glasgow and Scotland's cultural infrastructure, at what is becoming a difficult time for culture in Scotland.

Earlier this month saw the deadline for Public submission to parliamentary committee discussions of Creative Scotland and the Public Service Reform Bill. The committee looking into the Public Services Reform Bill, which will see within it the establishment of Creative Scotland, a body which will replace Scottish Screen and The Scottish Arts Council. The original Creative Scotland bill failed to make it through Parliament last year and now has been shoehorned into a wider bill.

Many sources believe that the creation of this new body will find practicioners working in many media fighting it out for the same pot of government funding. Another bone of contention is that the exact details of exactly what the new body is goin to do and how it is going to do it. The information available seems to suggest a leaning towards "creative industries" i.e. creative practices that make money for the economy. There is a belief that the new organisation will depart from the previous "arms-length" policy of award giving which the previous two bodies subscribed to, in essence allowing Government to dictate the criteria for grants and awards.

A worry could be that first refusal for any public money going to projects of fiscal value rather than the furthering of artistic practice or engaging in new projects which may not have any immediate financial return. The Scottish Artist Union response to the bill can be found here, and a "Creative Scotland" blog run by Variant collates articles and updates on the project.

In the North, we are still awaiting information on the "civic square" project lead by ACSEF and part funded by Sir Ian Wood. £40,000 pounds of capital funding has been earmarked by Aberdeen City Council for the second phase of the proposed project, the first phase being the production of the HFM technical appraisal. The Second Phase was originally planned to begin in July and be carried out by the Lighthouse, is to involve further public consultation, exploring funding mechanisms, economic assessment and transport analysis. Even though the project is complete departure from last year's Aberdeen Local Plan(2008).

In the interim the Artist-led I Heart UTG campaign has been established, with the primary goal to Educate and raise awareness of the actual details which aren't included in the spin surrounding the plan and Sir Ian's "Generous Donation." The campaign is taking the form of a rising petition, badges, articles, Club and Gig nights, exhibitions keeping the issue fresh in the minds of Aberdonians in the lead up to the elusive public consultation, which looks set to be carried out by ACSEF, the group bringing forwards the plans for the square, which will see a six acre area above a road and railway paved over and the Historic Union Terrace Gardens.

The sad fact is that this has become a long game. Building was supposed to begin on the new Contemporary Art Centre in November and be completed by next summer, this is now in hiatus with an uncertain future. A Contemporary Arts Centre is part of the loose and vague plans for ACSEF's square, but this precludes any details or any detailed consultation with any major stakeholder in the Art Centre project, with the expectation that the £9.5 Million of funding already raised for the existing project being moved across to this new development.

In contrast, and on the brighter side, the Trongate 103 project is set to open its doors on 12th September. The new complex, located in Glasgow's Merchant City is set to house Glasgow Independant Studio and Project Room, GMAC, Glasgow Print Studio, Project Ability, Russian Cultural Centre/ Cafe Cossachok, Street Level Photoworks and Transmission Gallery. Giving Glasgow another centre for contemporary Art, an innovative project at the forefront of developments to transform the Merchant City into a cultural quarter for the city.

It is interesting to look at the project, one which has enhanced almost an entire block between King Street, Parnie street and the Trongate itself, with the proposed Peacock's Art Centre in Aberdeen. On a much smaller scale, the new building which is now in under threat was set to house Peacock Visual Arts, ACC Arts Development and Education groups, CityMoves Dancespace, would be a very similar project. A building to house a number of Arts and Cultural groups, to encourge creativity and engage community with the benefits the arts can bring.

Trongate 103 is the kind of development which is needed in Scotland at the moment to promote collaboration, participation and growth within the Artistic Community. It is just a shame that Aberdeen is unable to accept these kind of projects in the way Glasgow does, how the city activelly wants to create a Cultural Centre. In the north culture is secondary to capital, thinly-veiled fiscal opportunities have the ability to gezump existing projects if they are supported by a large enough donation, no matter the moral, ethical and actual financial implications.

In the North, nobody can hear you scream...

....or they may just not be listening.

My Letter to the Big Man

Rt Hon Alex Salmond MSP
Office of the First Minister
St. Andrew's House
Regent Road
Edinburgh
EH1 3DG

Dear Mr Salmond,

I am writing to you in respect to the “Civic Square” which is currently being proposed for Union Terrace Gardens and the Denburn Valley in Aberdeen, which is being brought forwards by Sir Ian Wood and Aberdeen City and Shire Economic Future.

As an SNP voter and citizen of Aberdeen, I must say that I am extremely dismayed at the support you are giving to this project. I feel slightly let down as someone who voted for the Scottish National Party in the hope that you would lead Scotland to an independent country which can play on its considerable contemporary strengths to become a world leader in terms of cultural and creative output.

In the last twenty or so years our country has shrugged aside the many twee and negatively stereotypical perception to produce an impressive output of Artists, Musicians, Filmmakers, Writers, Designers, and Computer Gaming. For such a small country we have an impressively large inventive output. Scotland now has its own representation in the Venice Biennale, and there is also high representation of Scottish based artists in the annual Turner Prize. Many Scottish bands have gone on to achieve international acclaim, and even our unsigned acts regularly have a high representation in the South By Southwest Festival in Austin Texas. And we have an internationally renowned software and games company in Rockstar North.

As an Artist myself who has been involved in many of the above activities, I am immensely proud of our national output and to be involved in it. Because of this I am fully committed to pushing forwards our country to celebrate what we have achieved and how we have managed to embrace contemporary trends and culture to turn our nation around in the post-industrial age.

Given the wealth of talent in Scotland and commitments of many who live here, I hope my sadness at current policy of Government support, or lack thereof, for the creative industries. Both in respect to the lack of information on the upcoming merger of Scottish Screen and the Scottish Arts Council, but more pressing is my concern and distress with your personal support of Sir Ian and ACSEF’s plans to destroy Aberdeen’s historic and beautiful Union Terrace Gardens, which had been to provide a home to the new Contemporary Arts Centre.

As clearly identified in the Halliday Fraser Munro Feasibility Study, published in June, as well as Sir Ian’s donation of £50 million, between £60 and £90 million must be found from other sources, which would either have to be from the City or Government, each meaning that taxpayer’s money must go into creating this space, which has been widely reported to be equivalent to Red Square, wholly unsuitable for Aberdeen, with a population of 200,000.

Other details in the alarmingly vague study outline how an underground concourse can house “boutique” shops or restaurants, which are suggested in the study to be the like of “Harrods” or a celebrity restaurant possibly part of Jamie Oliver’s or Gordon Ramsey’s enterprises. These suggestions seem to me to be rather elite businesses for a civic square which is to be accessed by all, I doubt very much if the average Aberdonian could afford to regularly shop in Harrods or be dined by Channel 4’s finest. I know I couldn’t.

Aberdeen has existing civic areas that require regeneration, and several areas outwith the city centre which are also in dire need of regeneration but are not receiving it due to council cuts. The same cuts have also led to the closure of several homeless charities and foundations within the city. It seems ludicrous that this scheme is even being considered given the already existing shortfalls in funding and the current financial climate. To invest this amount of money in a single city centre venture then those areas outside of the city centre will be excluded from investment.

Other concerns have been aired from the Artistic Community as well, who have backed the proposed Art Centre plans for the last two years through it’s unsteady road from commissioning an internationally renowned architect, feasibility studies, public consultation that led to the project receiving £9.5 million pounds from Scottish Enterprise, Scottish Arts Council and Aberdeen City Council. The innovative project was set to re-house Peacock Visual Arts, Citymoves Dance Space and Whitespace: ACC’s Arts Development and Education teams.

Aberdeen is currently the only of Scotland’s four main cities to be without a substantial Centre for Contemporary Art, which shows in the statistics of art and design graduates from Grays School of Art, the majority of which will immediately move on outside of Aberdeen to Glasgow, Edinburgh or London in search of employment and inspirational opportunities which Aberdeen is sadly missing.

It has been widely reported and is evident here in Scotland, that the Arts have a strong role in the redevelopment of post-industrial cities. Glasgow’s cultural boom since being awarded the European City of Culture and more recently, Dundee’s redevelopment and cultural awakening in the wake of the establishment of Dundee Contemporary Arts, which has seen the city attracting more high profile design and computing businesses, government funding and the upcoming Victoria and Albert museum. This is an established route of economic development through cultural enterprises that could be so easily applied to Aberdeen.

Unfortunately, even though Sir Ian and representatives from ACSEF have loosely factored a Contemporary Arts Centre into their plans for the Denburn Valley, the money allocated to Peacock Visual Arts is both project-specific and time-barred meaning that the already raised funds may not necessarily be transferred to another plan.

As you may be aware, a colleague and peer, Katie Guthrie has set up an online petition to support the Contemporary Arts Centre and save the historic Gardens which, at time of writing, has 1089 signatures with many interesting comments relating to the desperate need to protect Aberdeen’s only city centre green space, which is protected by Historic Scotland and a conservation area.

I am also interesting in hearing the standpoint of the Scottish Government on Sir Ian’s proposed development and hope that my faith in Government can be restored. I would be extremely dismayed to think that it is the policy of the Government to support the investment of money, no matter the circumstance, rather than improve the cultural profile of the country around the world and create a modern, vibrant exciting Country which can continue to punch above it’s weight.

Thank you for your time and I hope you can restore my faith in the SNP led Government to do the right thing for the future and for each and every person in Scotland.

Kind Regards



Fraser Denholm