Thoughts for May: Cultural Capital (honesty about funding nos and why it won’t stop us sharing)
Robin Ravi as Abed, Rhian Liu as Nadia and Seán Ryan in Santa Must Die! (2021). Photography by James Vardy.
Recently we announced that our next project will be a gig-musical reimagining based on Charlotte Brontë’s novel Shirley, but currently we aren’t in receipt of the funding to start realising the work - so why did we announce?
Beth and Seán talk about the honest impact of funding yeses or nos and how we want to take some power out of this hellscape. We also hear from artists Yolanda Mercy and Adam Z Robinson on their own processes of this too.
For our first full monthly blog it feels like we’re taking out the biggest bite of ‘being an artist’ first - and definitely more than we can chew alone, so we’re so grateful for Yolanda and Adam helping us take on this one too. But when you get a ‘no’ it becomes a very present reality in its impact on your work. We recently got a no from the Arts Council England (ACE) to start developing our next collaboration with Leeds Industrial Museum, Shirley: An Awakening, so we want to talk about this now. For those who don’t know, this is your most likely outcome when making an application. In the last financial year only 27% of applications in the category which we applied were successful; and this is getting worse, as it was 34% the year previous. (Stats here, which we’ll come back to).
There’s a line in the receipt of application email you get from ACE when submitting a project grant that says
“we advise you to think about what you will do if we cannot fund your activity”.
We’ve always found this an interesting one.
While our work, and lots of work like it, is hugely important and has reached thousands of audiences, created opportunities for loads of participants to explore their own creativity and given lots of artists (including some artists their first professional) jobs; it may well come as no surprise that producing a site-specific musical with significant wraparound engagement and embedded access, co-creating a contemporary spoken-word dance film with nurses or hybrid-touring a gig-theatre show aren’t big commercial money spinners, and don’t come cheap to make.
We sold-out Mother of the Revolution before it opened, but the income from our financially accessible tickets made up less than 4% of the funding of that project. The reality is that archipelago projects do not happen without significant funding. But now also the reality is that funding is less likely to be allocated to your project, no matter how well supported, articulated or how well it meets ACE’s (we believe really strong and well-intentioned) Let’s Create strategy. Our feedback, like so many of our peers, sat in the ‘Strong project, not enough funds’ category. It’s a really frustrating position to be in, doing seemingly everything you can, but the reality of just being an untenable set of odds stacked against you in being an artist needing to raise the funds to make the work and make a living.
In our show Santa Must Die! our brill writer Rosie MacPherson gave this fury voice in a searing monologue for Nadia, a slice of it being:
NADIA: My favourite is people trying to figure out how to introduce me.
‘Steve, this is Nadia she works in sales, it is sales right? Or are you still in that café?
But she’s in a band! Aren’t you love? Cruel industry, yes, terribly cruel.’
And then we all nod in agreement about what a tough industry it is and there’s this uncomfortable silence…
And people don’t really know where to look or what to do with their hands so we all just sort of, dither.
And not one of these jebends offers to buy me a drink!
If you are lucky enough to be a Steve in this world then you should be buying everyone in here a drink.
We don’t want to turn this into a self-depreciating moan (though if you meet an artist in a pub, please do offer to buy them a drink). We’ve worked tirelessly over the past five years to bring archipelago to a point of relative sustainability. We build contingency into our plans and are fortunate enough to have low overheads, and the capacity to cover core costs (for the time being!)
With this in mind, we think it’s really important to take positive steps, aka how we’ve responded to ACE’s provocation: think about what you will do if we cannot fund your activity. We’ll address this from archipelago’s perspective below, but first here’s some words from two brilliant artists about their experience with this and how they navigate it within their practice.
Yolanda Mercy
Over the past two years, I’ve encountered countless rejections — and honestly, it’s been tough. It’s forced me to sit with a lot of reflection around how I keep making the work I believe in. This has been a huge part of developing Failure Project, which opens at Harrogate Theatre on 13 May, before touring to Soho Theatre, Norwich Theatre, and Traverse Theatre.
I started this journey last year with a run at Summerhall during the Edinburgh Fringe, where I won a Bestie Award. Along the way, I also wrote about the challenges of arts funding for The Stage. Right now, collaborations and community have been key to keeping my work alive — but I’m also really keen to keep finding new, sustainable ways to make activity happen and to keep building spaces where creativity can thrive.
Adam Z Robinson
What I Will Do if They Cannot Fund My Activity: A thirteen-step guide
Touch base with everyone involved in the project.
Remind them they’re brilliant, thank them for their work so far. Tell them I’ll be in touch with plans about resubmitting. Tell them I’m going to stay positive. Then…
Sulk.
Remind myself that it’s ok to feel annoyed, angry, slighted and like I’ve been treated unfairly. The adrenaline surge I get every time I see “Your decision letter is available…” in my inbox is because I care about what I’ve proposed. Getting a “no” in a funding application is painful. It’s ok to feel like I’ve been hurt.
Take time off.
An hour, a day, whatever. Be conscious that having to re-apply for my own job over and over again is exhausting. Read a book, watch a movie, play a game, be inspired by something brilliant, and remind myself why I want to keep at it.
Remind myself that a “no” isn’t a comment on the quality of my work.
It isn’t a determiner of my worth as an artist or as a person.
Remember that in terms of Arts Funding in England, it’s been cuts, cuts, cuts for more than a decade.
My project not getting funding means that someone else did. When I get funding, it means that someone else didn’t. There isn’t enough in the pot to go to everyone who deserves it. Remember that over the years I’ve been supported by ACE a lot, it’s why I was able to establish myself as an artist in the first place. Tell myself not to give up.
Share the funding news with my peers, friends, family.
Accept their sympathy and support and understanding. Be grateful for them.
Figure out (if I haven’t already) what I’ll do in the time-chasm left in my year by the project that isn’t happening now.
Try not to panic. Plan, explore, reach out to peers and colleagues and partners, plan, plan, plan.
Once the sulking clears, read ACE’s feedback again.
If it’s non-specific, remind myself this may be because we did a great job in the first place. If it is specific - even if I don’t agree with it - think about how I can address it, respond, build an application closer to what they’re telling me they’re looking for.
Figure out a new timeline.
Juggle, rejig, contact venues and my team members. Break up the jigsaw and reassemble. (Sulk again, but more briefly).
Remember why this project is going to be worth it and resubmit.
Wait.
Be prepared to go to 1. again in eight to twelve weeks’ time.
Hope that I don’t have to.
Adam is running a four-week online creative writing course called Writing for the Hell of It, starting next Tuesday 6 & Wednesday 7 May (two identical courses). Tickets here: https://linktr.ee/tbodal
For more info on Adam's work and upcoming events, visit www.adamzrobinson.com
At archipelago this is how we’re dealing with our no and thoughts about how we can all support each other outside of yeses and nos:
A no right now is not a no forever.
Another Rosie MacPherson golden nugget for us was her failure record. Rosie kept a list of every no or yes she got year on year to keep track of her failure percentage. Once she set a baseline, if her failure was within the usual level for her (which was sometimes more nos than yeses) she knew she was doing enough to live as an artist.
Mother of the Revolution, by far our biggest piece of work to date, was out in the world for three years before we were funded to realise the final production. Which for transparency this included: 3 nos for commissioning funds, 2 first application yeses for Arts Council grants for R&D development, 1 no from the Arts Council to realise the full production which then on reapplication was then approved leading to a 10 month delay to the project.
The reality of the kind of work that we make, alongside most of our peers, is that we can’t make it without the support of grants. We would love the Arts Council to publish data on reapplications because we bet, from the amount of anecdotal conservations we have with other artists, the rates are staggeringly high. And something we truly hold to is that if a project is a good idea and that it’s wanted (which is what we believe about Shirley) it will happen - you just have to keep putting it into whatever useful space/fund until it does.
Take control of how you work.
This comes from honesty of privilege (please let’s talk about this more - we may in fact do a whole blog about it), but as we’ve said we have worked a lot to have this current position of breathing space. In terms of our non-negotiables, we don’t work for free anymore (as we have done a lot, subsidised by a range of different external work and often ploughing that back into our company), which means often the big work of a project can’t happen until funding comes in.
Something we’re trying to do more to balance the power of funding relationships is to be more creative with our own investment. On reflection, what we feel like we’ve done at times is to be too scared to spend reserve, in case it goes away forever, and spend all of our time writing applications for more. The reality is we can’t predict the future of our work but can only do the next best thing in the present. If we have committed funding to a project, consider what we can do with that in the meantime - We’ve found this hugely empowering! It also lets us get a head start on any timelines we’ve had to change…
We’ve recently used some of our resources to fund singing sessions as New Wortley Community Centre - being able to personally create some really valuable opportunities for participants and work for artists. We’re also starting to explore some of the early ideas for Shirley - we’ve done our first development day as a creative team so we can hit the ground running when our yes (fingers crossed!) arrives. We’re also developing some song demos that we want to share with you soon to let you know what to expect from the work. We know that we won’t be able to deliver a full production without funding in place, but we can get a head start on a project we’re passionate about. These are positive actions which enable us to continue doing what we do, in ways that are achievable on more limited financial resource. We know that this gives us more control over our own work and ideas.
And on this…
Take control of how you want to talk about and promote your own work.
It’s a huge privilege and such an exciting thing to do what we do for a living. Sometimes we take this for granted and forget about the joy of it! We want to lean into our belief that creative ideas and provocations are interesting even if they’re ideas rather than realities at the moment.
We first started talking about Mother of the Revolution when our first R&D was funded, again the reality of this is that it was 3 years before the production was realised. The title was out there and artists, participants and audiences knew it was something in the works.
In an arts industry that is often built around season or show announcements coming from regular financially backed venues or production companies, it often feels insincere or inappropriate to talk about work that doesn’t have confirmed dates or tickets on sale. ‘What’s next?’ can be a terrifying question when you’ve just had a no.
But what we actually learnt for Mother of the Revolution for our work is that transparency builds appetite and confidence. The more we talked about the ethos and ideas of the work while it was still in the works, sharing snippets, songs, videos regularly, the more people wanted to be a part of it and/or come see it. In no coincidence, the show sold-out and some of our choir were off-book before rehearsals began.
For us, secrecy or exclusivity isn’t exciting; showing our workings is. That’s why we’ve announced Shirley: An Awakening and will keep sharing more as it develops.
Advocate and Support
If you’re not an artist and you love to be engaged with culture, we hope this gives you some insight into the delicate process of making new work. Here are a couple of things to think about:
Spend your cultural capital wisely. Streaming is a great way to find new things in a risk-free environment, but it is completely and utterly not fit for purpose when it comes to allowing most artists to be adequately paid for their work. Find ways to support the people making the work you love. If you can: Take a punt to go and see an emerging musician/comedian/show; Head to Bandcamp or Patreon and buy artist’s work; Share/Like/Review the work of artists and companies you love (Beth was solely responsible for getting 20 different people to listen to Hamilton when it first came out - so be relentless in sharing the things you love with others); If there is an option to pay slightly more for culture you love - and you can afford to - do it!
There is an alarming trend beginning to emerge that audiences will happily pay extraordinary amounts of money to watch heritage acts, but not pay anything to support emerging ones. (God bless Paul Heaton and his cheap tickets - you’re excluded mate). Remember, if you go and watch a band who were big in the 90s or an American artist with a private jet this summer, you aren’t supporting the development of emerging work. Yes, stadium gigs are entertaining, but they are only a microcosm of the work that is being made and are almost definitely not the most imaginative.
If you are an artist we hope that something here resonates with you. This climate of making work can often feel really isolating, especially when it's a no you’re facing, and drives a scarcity mentality.
Whilst it may be true that we are often in competition for funds, we believe that we are so much better as a community of artists who are radically uncompetitive in how we can show up to support each other in solidarity as well as using our collective power to advocate for change.
On that, if you haven’t already, fill in the ACE review which will feed into the Hodge Report to outline a course of action for the future of public funding of the arts. ITC have published a summary of what they’ve submitted, we agree with so much of this and have used it as the basis of our thoughts - consensus can be incredibly powerful. One thing particularly that we’ve backed up is the visibility of relationship managers. Going back to the stats from earlier - your grant success rate goes up EXPONENTIALLY when the application includes a conversation with someone from ACE. This is not a coincidence, ACE need to be more accessible in communication with applicants, one line feedback can’t continue to be a norm.
Ultimately we cannot articulate how much we owe to the supporters of, and collaborators in, our work. Building a network for us has been the biggest antidote to pockets of gloom, finding the people who will do anything to push you forward, share their resources with you and use their power for you, celebrate the wins and hold you in the rejections is invaluable. If you don’t count us as your network yet, drop us an email, we’d love to chat.
On top of using your cultural capital to support the art you love - and obviously Yolanda and Adam’s work - here’s a few other of our cultural reccs for the month ahead:
Seán Recommends:
A read: I got Bodies of Sound: Becoming a Feminist Ear for my last birthday (shout out to Adam Ryan for some excellent gift-giving!) and have been gradually devouring it over the past few months. It’s a collection of essays that are not always for the faint-hearted but explore and interrogate multiple intersectionalities in an intellectual but accessible and dynamic way.
A listen: One for the dads…! I’m looking forward to Matt Berninger’s Get Sunk on 30th May. I’ve always found it really satisfying to hear someone from a band you know well producing material outside of said context, and hearing their constituent contributions platformed and explored differently. I think all members of The National do this well! I’m expecting: dulcet tones, snappy, melodic guitar layers, punchy drums and poetry.
A watch: Opening 2nd May (tonight!) and running until Sunday, Site Gallery are hosting SADACCA F.M. Screenings. This sounds like a really interesting selection of films which I’m going to get along to at some point this weekend.
An event: A double bill of John Hoyland exhibitions, Strange Presence and These Mad Hybrids, is on at Sheffield Millennium Galleries until the 18th May. BIG. MASSIVE. ART…. GO!
Beth Recommends:
A read: In the Brontë brain, if you’re underserving Anne in the Brontë canon (soz Charlotte but we’re already giving you some sun and we all know that Emily’s poetry is her best work… and don’t @ me on these opinions!), you all should be reading The Tenant of Wildfell Hall . It’s a radical, feminist masterpiece… when you finally get to when Helen tells her story for herself. Worth every bit of the work.
A listen: I used Falling Short in a Youth Theatre show years ago, and it’s still one of my favourite moments that I’ve directed, so of course I’m forever a Låpsley fan. Her new album I’M A HURRICANE I’M A WOMAN IN LOVE comes out today, her first release on her own label Her Own Recordings.
Just listen loudly to all the power of that! Obsessed.
A watch: I was brought up Catholic; and though I don’t practice or agree with a lot of the doctrine, I hugely respected Pope Francis as an advocate for global peace. Since his death, I’ve watched The Pope: Answers, where Spanish-speaking young people from across the world ask him some really direct and knotty questions. I just found it a really wonderful expression of the power of opening yourself up to the communion of asking questions about our humanity.
An event: Three of my favourite artists making work today: Zia Ahmed (who is just the best and wrote our A Call to Care), Evie Manning (is leading the world with everything she has led with Common/Wealth) and Dermot Daly (one of our all-time faves and one of Yorkshire’s biggest legends and champions) are collaborating on Public Interest for Bradford2025. We got our tickets months ago and can’t wait for this immersive call to action about Young People taking the power back from the youth justice system with a grime, drill and baseline soundtrack.
You need to know it’s happening to be on standby for any last tickets because it’s currently SOLD OUT!
Bradford is not sleeping for a second on City of Culture and I’m HERE.FOR.IT.