TEN4 magazine

Great post – in a way it sounds like youre talking about a “network of networks” something to bring together all the disparate elements of Birmingham’s creative scene and unite them somehow.

Whatever the solution, anything that be done to bring more focus to the area is good.

Ive never yet been convinced by whether the establishment of the city is really, serious about getting behind independent creative activity – when push comes to shove, large scale commercial development seems to be the over-riding priority.

May I also mention Project X Presents (see http://www.projectxpresents) – we are attempting to estalbish ourselves as one of the many hubs of creative endeavour that the city is going to need in order to reach its potential.

Rich
Xx

Fabulous article and a question which needs to be asked repeatedly. Here’s a few words which may help to understand why we don’t have a Birmingham International Festival or event of equivalent stature: Money, support, organisation, apathy, ego.

Apathy is the most important of these, it’ll be interesting to come back to this forum in a few days to see the depth of feeling – or lack of.

One thing is for sure – we’d have a hard job to catch up with Manchester on this one but we could clearly link up a ’summer of culture’ within the existing events if the right support existed. I’m keen to do it – who else is ‘in’?

PF

I think the biggest problem isn’t the people like us on the ground with a passion for Birmingham and arts/culture – it’s the fact that there doesn’t seem to be someone on our side in a position of power who has the authority and more importantly the financial clout to put some money where their mouth is.

If Arts and Culture is Birmingham’s big focus for 2007, why is Urban Fusion funding being withdrawn with no obvious replacement?!

I agree though there needs to be a groundswell of support at the roots to make sure something, anything, can happen.

Interesting discussion. Manchester’s always doing this, and every time I feel a kind of awe and admiration. The question “why can’t Birmingham do it like Manchester?” need not apply solely to the two cities’ festivals but to pretty much every matter than these cities turn their hands to.

I’m a Londoner who knows both cities well and I’ve always been a bit of a Birmophile, always wanted the city to start punching its weight and fulfil its potential, something that always seems – frustratingly – just beyond its reach.

The bad news for you is that the success of the Manchester International Festival is typical of a wider shift in the way that Manchester is regarded here in London. The canyon between the way Manchester and Birmingham are viewed is vast and seemingly unbridgeable. The ‘Second City’ debate is moot down here – the answer is pretty much a no-brainer. It’s not that Birmingham is slagged off, as it once was – no, it’s worse than that: Birmingham is not talked about at all. It’s not really on anyone’s radar down here. It never gets mentioned – almost like it doesn’t exist. Manchester, meanwhile, has become the domestic city break destination of choice for many a Londoner, including those in the capital from overseas such as Aussies, French, etc. living in London for a year or two.

The fact is that Manchester is very *very* good at promoting itself, and – crucially! – very confident. It’s the same kind of confidence that makes cities such as Barcelona such winners. Birmingham and Birmingham people seem to lack that confidence – as if believing their own negative publicity and not having the courage to challenge it. (This is, however, changing… slowly… at last).

It doesn’t help that Birmingham city centre, for all its merits and improvements over the years, somehow still lacks the interesting buildings, the character, the snap, crackle and pop that cities which escaped the 1960s motor revolution have.

In my view, the answer to the problem is simple: firstly, the West Midlands must be renamed Greater Birmingham, and Greater Birmingham must have a mayor. (Preferably not Mike Whitby or Carl Chinn.) No-one outside the UK knows what or where the West Midlands is. And the same applies to plenty within the UK too. Let Solihull and Wolverhampton et al. whine about being ’subsumed’ all that they like; the fact is, they will benefit more and be heard about more by being part of Greater Birmingham than they do by deluding themselves into thinking they’re separate from their conurbation that no-one’s ever heard of anyway.

Having a mayor just *works*. London, Paris and Berlin all have great mayors at the moment. Ken has done much right, and much wrong – but everyone can agree he busts a gut to promote this place, and it has been a successful effort. Barcelona’s transformation is largely down to its one-time mayor, Pascall Maragual; New York’s to Rudy Giuliani, when he was in office; Athens’s to Dimitris Avramopoulos in the 1990s, and so on.

Birmingham and its mayor must then start to promote themselves properly. At the moment it pitches itself embarrassingly. Its city logo is poor and unmemorable. The 1992 one was much better. Its slogan ‘many worlds one great city’ is so yawn-inducingly common as to beggar belief that no-one realised it’s been used before by city after city after city…

So please, no more mentions of having more miles of canal than Venice. No more ridiculous claims such as “Birmingham is one of Europe’s most sophisticated cities…” (from a tourist brochure circa 1996). No more Mike Whitby seizing upon the Chamberlain Square beach or an extra daily flight to Dubai as ‘proof’ that Birmingham is a ‘global city’ and a player on the world stage. I mean, please. No more fake American tourists trying to persuade Brummies to visit their own museums either…

A simple slogan is needed, and needs to be used in all campaign literature, every single ad, brochure… anything promoting the city. Glasgow had ’smiles better’. Birmingham’s should be: ‘Birmingham is changing’. Imagine it in big letters on a poster in a London Underground station. It conveys both the desired message and the truth, for the city *is* always changing – it never stops. It is not a ridiculous claim. It cannot be laughed at – and a slogan promoting Birmingham must be scoff-proof, after all.

Finally a better understanding of design and how much a city can benefit if good design infuses every part of its being, from its corporate identity to its public transport maps to its street furniture to its buildings to its signage, and so on. Again – sorry to bang on about it and sorry that *everyone* says it – I must refer you to Barcelona, a city that ‘got’ the power of design before any other city did.

(I would also add that a city Birmingham’s size should have an Underground, and would, if it were in any comparable country in Europe. But that’s another issue, and not really Brum’s fault in any case. Stingy Treasury…)

Anyway forgive me if I have rambled. Birmingham has so, so much to offer, so please have some self-belief and sort out your PR once and for all, otherwise Manchester will keep whipping your asses 5-1.

Manchester is indeed kicking our arse in many ways, but it’s crucial that we don’t tackle this by saying “how can we do it like them?” Birmingham is prone to looking enviously over its shoulder at other cities while having very little faith in the things that make it special. As Jean-Luc eloquently described, apathy is not the problem – it’s a lack of self-confidence. And a gaping abyss between the people who put stuff on and the people who make important decisions.

Birmingham’s lack of a cultural strategy and limited infrastructure tends to encourage self-sufficiency; hence lots of little festivals (and promoters, artists groups, venues. etc) springing up, all beavering away at building their own audiences. Are we guilty of thinking too small? Perhaps. But if these festivals are doing their job, they should be helping to make Birmingham an exciting place to live and creating a *scene* that people from outside want to be part of. (This was the aim of Tony Wilson et al 20 years ago, and look what that did for Manchester.) To ask ‘where’s the international impact?’ is to run before we can walk – we need to get the basics right first. Someone clued-up bringing the promoters together to pool ideas, bash out some common goals and attempt some coherent advocacy would be an excellent start. There is a hell of a lot of energy and talent that could be harnessed much more effectively. Other things that might help: a decent local listings magazine; a plan for making empty buildings available and affordable for independent retail and cultural activity; improved transport links (o, for an underground); a shake-up of promotion within the city that enables the levels of visibility and awareness which Dan has outlined and which never happens for any Birmingham festivals.

Much of this is touched on in the Parkinson report (http://tinyurl.com/2gl5tr), chunks of which should be recited back to the city council on a daily basis. Money and national PR are only a part of the answer – if Birmingham had at its diposal the £6 million which MIF is spending this year, it probably wouldn’t know what to do with it. (Part of Manchester’s budget is from the capital of culture runners up pot, money which we basically spent propping up our existing arts budget) Equally, it won’t work just to lump all existing events into one big programme. But if this activity can be assimilated into an overall plan which enables people to think long-term rather than stumbling from project to project – then who knows where we might be in a few years time?

Interestingly the new economic strategy for the region (out to consultation at the moment – see http://www.advantagewm.co.uk) talks a lot about Birmingham’s importance as a key driver for growing the region. Adressing misconceptions about the city is likely to be a reccomended action and the role of culture and cultural events are explicity recognised. Now that’s all fine strategy speak that can too often turn into nothing but the one thing quangos like the RDA have that the council doesn’t is political stability.

I always feel that things as dull as a Regional Ecnomic Strategy go underused. I can barely find the will to read it myself and it’s kinda part of my job. But this next one may be helpful to the Arts. It will say: Birmingham needs to be on the map culturally because if it isn’t it then less people will want to live here, talented graduates will leave, businesses may go with them and overall it will stop us being a wealthy, growing region (which is what AWM wants us to be – that’s its whole purpose). The strategy acts as guide for partners such as city councils and others. In fact its delivery plan will tell us exactly who should be doing what.

So those in the Arts who are close to power (and there are many) need to utilise strategy (this and others) to give coherence to their requests for funding. I have high hopes for the new regional economic strategy and the role it asks culture and the arts to play. The only problem is grinding your way through all those tedious documents (although I have been toying with the idea of a ‘Strategy – the digested read’ blog to help people as lazy as me to find their way through it).

Dave