Exec SummaryIntroduction
Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive (GMPTE) and ArtsCouncil North West (ACE:NW) commissioned The White Room andLiam Curtin to undertake research and development for an Arts Strategy for the Greater Manchester Transport Network.The aims of the brief were to increase numbers, improve the passenger experience, have positive impact on environment, enhance partnershipworking, contribute to area regeneration, develop new audiences for art,link to and add value to current cultural venues & programmes, provideinnovative background for renowned artist and opportunities for communities and emerging artists and to raise the profile of Manchester internationally as the Original Modern City.This strategy is the result of considerable consultation with transportoperators, regulators, planners, artists and communities. The central ideasemerging from this process and tested at a forum held in Manchester in July 2009. The overwhelming view was one of support for the ideas in the strategy plus the promise of on going support and participation.Collective thinking will be a driving force when implementing the strategy.Transported is the Arts Strategy for GMPTE. It is a bold and innovativestrategy that disrupts existing notions of ‘public art’ and creates aplatform to all art forms to connect, communicate, collaborate andinnovate across the region. Transported is the working title for thestrategy. It combines the roles of public transport which transports usphysically and art which transports us metaphorically - to another place.The Public Transport system is ‘the great connector’ and the ideal vehicle to bring the arts to the people and people to the arts.
The Plan
Transported will curate and commission only temporary works andinterventions; unless or until they are made permanent through publicdemand. The rationale for this approach is drawn for the permanentnature of most journeys.The Strategy will work across all art forms and will take place on buses, trams, bus stops, tram and train stations, at key community buildings andspaces along those routes.It will exist online and in other forms of media. It will be dynamic,interactive, seasonal, time specific. It will be delivered on vehicles, on theground, on buildings, to mobiles, message boards and online to your desktop. Whilst it is driven by the best international artistic practice, community engagement and local ownership is at the heart of the strategy. Theprogramme will build capacity in the community to commission, and insome cases, make the art itself.The plan is to create a linear series of artworks along a bus, train or tramroute. It will be an annual 365 day Route Festival. At the end of the year the festival will rotate to another route so that within 5 years all localauthorities will have been involved.
Passengers and Communities
The artworks will be partly curated by the community with the help of professionals. Guest curators will also be selecting different strands of the scheme. Operators and partners will work together to develop these themes with the artists.
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