Tpse.org Visioning Event - 18th May 2009
From Tpse
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Event report
The event was very informative, lots of people gave good feedback and provided a huge amount of information to work with.
Further feedback from participants would be useful and could be solicited as the facilitation formats used were somewhat experimental in this context.
The main point of the day were the discussions, starting very open ended, really testing out people's willingness to engage at all, and on what terms, and progressing to a more tightly prioritised set of themes and ideas.
Overall points
Although they didn't fit into any specific category, there were some overall points that people made throughout the day, which were more expressive of their overall ambitions for the network.
They included:
- 'Leaving elitism behind'
- 'Transparency: open discussions online, involving people in developing strategy'
- 'providing network/community information & support for smaller organisations in the region'
- think local, act national, (and global)
- TPSE should reuse what's already available, not create redundant initiatives
- TPSE should not impose a top-down structure, it should organise non-hierarchically
Major Themes:
PR and Marketing
The top priority selected by most people was to create a shared PR and Marketing resource, to give audiences a 'one stop shop' for visual arts information in the South East.
There were various proposals as to how to do that most effectively, and a wide variety of initiatives within that theme:
A shared online events, news and exhibitions calendar
- Aggregating information from existing TPSE organisational websites, rather than building a new site
- Using information from existing online tools and networks (social media, networks etc.)
- Using email (e-flux-style), RSS and possibly other mobile / local technologies such as bluetooth/SMS/wifi to deliver this content
- Allowing people to select topic-based or location-based (local, regional, national) areas of interest to receive alerts about
- Creating a simple online visual arts map of the region.
- Commissioning editorial to profile artistic work within the TPSE network
- Developing a consistent, shared brand (maybe not TPSE) to be added to all network member's publicity
A collaborative market research process
- A way of gathering and sharing audience/attendance data between TPSE network members.
- Possibly asking audiences to register 'profiles' to help TPSE improve their work.
General Observations
- There was a willingness to stay 'open' at the edges of regional bias, and allow a regional focus to emerge from the activity of the network, rather than imposing geographical restrictions.
- There was an ambition to diffuse information about visual arts beyond just the galleries - and perhaps beyond visual arts.
- There was a strong sense that 'TPSE' as a brand was both useful (because it has worked so far) and problematic (it's not a strong audience-facing brand).
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Discourse, Practice, Collaborations and Strategy
The second major initiative was developing a space for developing artistic discourse and collaborations, a space for the visual arts community - including audiences, both established and 'not yet engaged', to reflect on and network artistic practice, locally and globally.
There was also a desire for this to enable a feedback loop through which 'bottom-up' visual arts strategies could develop from broad discussions, and for the discussions to grow into collaborations and resource sharing.
Discourse
- Providing a forum for critical debate and peer review
- Inviting discussion on current themes from international networks
- Providing an new online reviews site (see questions below)
Practice & Collaborations
- Providing a forum for giving and receiving technical and professional arts advice
- Allowing people to offer and request artistic collaborations and partnership opportunities
- Allowing people to offer and request shared resources (technical/knowledge/spaces etc.)
- Allowing sharing of not-yet-public calendars, for collaborative scheduling
- Providing a non-audience-facing forum (or back-channel) for visual arts research and debate
- Project idea development - a forum for people to feed back on not-yet-realised projects
- An online mentoring scheme (enabling people to offer/request visual arts mentoring)
Strategy
- Inviting open feedback from audiences - to inform bottom-up strategy development.
- Feeding into an ongoing agenda for TPSE network members and stakeholders
- A space for TPSE to discuss the network and its ongoing development
- Informing TPSE's advocacy agenda, which it can then lobby with on behalf of its network
Questions
- Is it necessary to commission reviews, or can they be 'aggregated' from existing publications? What already does this?
- How are people already gathering feedback from audiences? Are there organisations that already do this?
- Are there existing organisations that offer artistic advice and support? Can they be engaged in this?
General observations
- There was a desire for this network to engage everyone in the visual arts - not just organisations at director-level
- There was a general sense that many of these resources already exist in some form or another, but they could perhaps be better known or promoted through TPSE
- There were concerns and questions about treading on people's and organisation's toes, but most people felt that a network could do things more efficiently.
Invitation
- Date: 18th May 2009, 12:30pm - 4pm - Location: Digital Lounge, Lighthouse 28 Kensington Street Brighton BN1 4AJ
You are invited to participate in a process that will help shape the future of visual arts in the South East, nationally and globally.
The Turning Point South East (tpse) project is planning to use online tools to contribute to raising the profile and capacity of visual arts.
These tools will be informed by this process, input from TPSE working parties. They may include on-line collaboration tools (such as wiki), shared on line diaries, joint digital marketing initiatives and other approaches.
Some initial ideas have been proposed (see http://tpse.org/wiki/index.php/Agenda), but your input and participation will be essential to the site's success. Please do visit and add your questions, priorities, intended outcomes and possible opportunities. They will be raised at the event.
Expect a lively discussion, a fun and informal format, and great drinks and snacks.
Please RSVP to Saul Albert: saul@theps.net / 02071007915.
Thanks
Saul Albert
