Agenda item

[To receive a presentation from the Manager for Arts and Culture] – Report will be sent to follow.

Scrutiny Board welcomed Marguerite Nugent, Manager for Arts and Culture to the meeting. 

The British Art Show 9 was due to open in Wolverhampton on 22 January 2022 and run until 10 April 2022. Wolverhampton was the first English host city, there would be 35 artists showing across Wolverhampton Art Gallery

and the University School of Art. Themes included:

·       healing,

·       care and reparative history

·       tactics for togetherness and

·       imagining new futures

There would be a Wolverhampton focus on ‘living and giving voice to difference’ alongside the most diverse range of artists represented to date, with 40% being Black or Asian, 45% being women artists and 11% European.

The Art Show would help to support the city recovery and wider city offer in the following ways:

·       Relighting our City- Vibrant High Streets and Communities strand

·       Cultural Strategy- in draft but focusing on 5Ps (Productivity,

Promotion, Participation, Pride, Partnerships)

·       Link to Open Events Cultural Action Zone

·       Events Strategy and longer-term plan for activity in the city

·       Driving footfall to the city (40,000 people to Aberdeen)

·       Evening economy – supports the development of evening

activity in the city.

Board understood that there would also be a learning programme supported by Arts Connect. This included:

·       Programme of BAS9 partner schools with focus on performance, visual arts and SEND working with specialist local practitioners

·       School visits and teacher resource packs available for schools

·       Programme of events to include workshops and talks both in[1]person and virtual

·       Family exhibition trails including Augmented Reality trail

·       Saturday Art Club for disadvantaged young people to run during the show

There was a bespoke community ambassador programme which included:

·       LGBTQ+ ambassador artist Kathy O’Conner

·       The Good Shepherd working with homeless people- tour and exhibition

‘it starts with a meal’

·       Amarjit Kaur workshops for Asian women using textiles and responding

to artist Catherine Walker

·       Student ambassador – producing a ‘Zine’ drawing on experiences of

autism and mental health.

·       BID ambassador would see an additional BAS9 street ambassador

in the city

·       Youth ambassador working with groups from The Way Youth Zone

Volunteering would be co-ordinated across all sites to include:

·       University students volunteering programme

·       Arts & Culture council volunteering programme for non-students through the Art Gallery

·       Training to be given on both operational matters and exhibition content

·       Incentives including certificates and training so that participants had evidence of career development.

·       Volunteer target of 40

Board considered the Offsite 9 project which would be delivered in partnership with Creative Black Country. This was funded by Arts Council England and would involve 25 local artists who had been commissioned to make work around the city. This would include an open call and four ring-fenced commissions with Asylum Arts, Eagleworks studios, Flexus Dance and DASH (disability arts). There would be a publication telling the stories of people of Wolverhampton and profiling the artistic and creative talent in the city. There would also be podcasts capturing Wolverhampton voices in a changing social and political environment.

A marketing and audience development strategy had been developed to identify target audiences. This strategy had been aligned to the national campaign with a launch event planned for 21 January 2022 at the Art Gallery. The hope was to bring an additional 50,000 visitors to the city for the duration of the show, provide new opportunities for local businesses, create meal and hotel deals, and provide events space for pop up events and activities. Through measuring the impact of the activities, the Council would be able to better profile visitors to the city for large scale events and it was hoped that the show would support the longer term cultural and events strategy, provide a template for any future large-scale exhibitions or festivals and raise the profile of the city.

Board welcomed the presentation and all the work being carried out and considered that this was a huge feather in the city’s cap.  Board considered it vital to ensure that we were getting every single bit of benefit from this huge show as possible. However, some members raised concern that when looking at the event on the internet it appeared to link with the visit Birmingham web pages and that it was important to try an encourage people to stay over in Wolverhampton so perhaps how we were marketing and communicating this event and our city required some additional work and thought.  It was considered vital to get the publicity and communication right to really make the most of this.

Resolved:      That the presentation be received.