MATTHEW PICKERING
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A Just and Green Cultural Recovery from COVID-19

6/30/2020

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I have added my endorsement to Julie's Bicycle's Letter to the Secretary of State asking for a Just and Green Cultural Recovery from COVID-19:

Dear Secretary of State, 

We are writing to urge you to make the cultural recovery a just and green cultural recovery. 

Along with many others in the UK the creative and cultural community has been badly hit; lives have been lost, buildings are dark, festivals are empty fields, tours are stationary, and thousands of people and business suppliers dependent on culture have shut up shop. Coronavirus has exposed deep-seated social and economic inequalities.

What we decide now will create the sustainable foundations for the future; we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to build a resilient recovery plan that is fair and tackles the climate and ecological crisis with urgency. We cannot let this opportunity pass us by.

Before the pandemic the creative and cultural sector was contributing £111.7 billion to the UK economy – greater than the automotive, aerospace, life sciences, oil and gas industries combined – employing over two million people and growing at 5 times the rate of the economy as a whole. The sector is of national and international significance but not just to the economy; aside from soft power and tourism, we generate civic and community cohesion and well-being. Our track record in climate action is also of international significance. Thousands of artists and organisations from across the creative spectrum have been championing climate action for many years, not least because Arts Council England has undertaken the largest cultural programme of environmental literacy anywhere in the world, and is the first national funding body to make environmental requirements a condition of funding. Having already shown our commitment to environmental action we want the cultural recovery to be a fair, just and green recovery.

The cultural community is ready to galvanise its power to drive change.

We urge government to commit to a rapid, just and green cultural recovery combining targeted public investment, clear policy signals, and implementation of Climate Change Act obligations extended to the Cultural Renewal strategy. We urge that action to protect nature and biodiversity is given the attention it so urgently deserves. And we urge that the singular opportunity to tackle systemic barriers to empowerment that many black and minority people experience, not least across the culture and environment sectors, are prioritised. This last point goes to the heart of a just transition.

The UK’s leadership matters. Whilst the UN COP 26 climate negotiations have been rescheduled for November 2021, we still have to fulfil our 2020 commitments and show increased ambition. Every month we delay action is a lost opportunity to establish the frameworks and investment commitments which demonstrate our dedication. The cultural community will do whatever we can; we hope you use these months well, and help us to help you lead.

We ask that:

1/ The Cultural Renewal Task Force prioritise a rapid, just and green recovery, with designated representation on every sub-group. A just transition must be woven into all themes to ensure that those who have been left out, and the freelance creative workforce are taken fully into account.

2/ The recommendation from the Committee on Climate Change that legally binding “net-zero policy [is] embedded across all levels and departments of Government” is adopted by DCMS and the UK put in place policies to meet its current fourth and fifth carbon budgets which we are currently not on track to meet. 

3/ Public cultural compliancy and funding requirements are aligned to net zero requirements and promote biodiversity, and that larger organisations adopt explicit science-based net zero pathways. 

4/ Any national Green Recovery plan is sector-specific to include the creative and cultural sector, with a focus on inclusion, place-making and communities, including strong incentives for space for nature. 

5/ Specific R&D funds are designated for the creative and cultural community to benefit from interdisciplinary knowledge and partnerships which result in fit-for-purpose and future-proofed cultural services and products. 

6/ A cross-cutting government Task force on Green Creative Skills and Curriculum Reform is created, with representation from Department for Education, Department for Enterprise, Innovation and Skills, and Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs encompassing environmental and cultural expertise to prepare the future cultural workforce adequately. 

Yours sincerely, 

Tony Wadsworth CBE, Chairman
Alison Tickell, Chief Executive
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CVAN North East Creative Space Residency

6/13/2020

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Thank-you to the Contemporary Visual Arts Network North East for awarding me a Creative Space Residency to spend time realigning my practice around a new area of research following the recent completion of my project Martha [Alzheimer's Machine III].

We held our breath

We are at a tipping point in our response to the climate emergency. Many of the issues concerning climate change are connected to our pace of life, culture of mass production and excessive mobility. Yet, our time in quarantine has given a brief reprieve to the environment, and raised valuable questions regarding our treatment of the planet. This presents an opportunity to step back, rethink and adapt, and our public spaces - both physical and virtual - are the forums in which dialogue is made visible and change can take root. How can we re-imagine our urban spaces so that they are better able to support and reflect sustainable ways of living?

The Creative Space residencies were created to support artists based in the North East of England given the current precarity of funds available for practitioners in these uncertain times and to foster solidarity in our region. They are to provide time to develop a new area of practice or simply to provide an opportunity for making, thinking or reflecting.

I will be spending the time afforded by my residency to develop new research and spend time engaging in network events for Culture Declares Emergency: a growing global community of individuals in arts and culture declaring a climate and ecological emergency; using the headspace afforded to do some deep thinking to kick-start the research process and sustain my practice over the lockdown period.

Congratulations to the other selected artists and collectives: Holly Argent / Art Matters Now / Claire A Baker & Nicola Golightly / Saud Baloch / Bobby Benjamin / Alex Charrington / Joanne Coates / Colin Davies / Grace Denton / Kathryn Elkin / AJ Garrett / Helen Jane Gaunt / gobscure / Laura Harrington / Alan Hathaway / Emily Hesse / Alice Highet / Beth J Ross / Jillian Johnston / Harley Kuyck-Cohen / Rachel Lancaster / Nicola Maxwell / Kitty McKay and Archie Smith / Joe Shaw / Slop / Ayako Tani / Christo Wallers / Michaela Wetherell / Matt Whitfield / Adam Wilson Holmes!
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