New Art Exchange invited me to reflect on how Metal, a company working at the intersection of art and social change, is bridging divides at a turbulent time.
Here’s a collection of hopes, practices and tactics for mutuality and togetherness we’re using right now. Metal works deeply with communities in Liverpool (since 2004); Southend (since 2007); and Peterborough (since 2011), as well as nationally and internationally. These practices ground our artistic programmes, which we want to inspire social change, like Artists for Future Policy, where artists contribute to inclusive policymaking; In Other Words, an artist residency and publication asking where to find hope while holding systems to account; and The Unlonely City, a 10-year programme testing ways to increase community power and bring people together through creativity.
The first practice is beginning with love and remembering that people are having a tough time. Metal is working with artists worried about freedom of expression, local authority officers facing deficits, community organisers losing space, and many more people who aren’t okay. Understandably, this can make even the most collaborative and hopeful of people feel hopeless, tired and less able to work together. We want to stay open-hearted rather than adding to complex situations in ways that create or increase division. Practically, this means offering kinship, hearing what is needed and how we can help, providing a welcoming and inspiring space, learning from others’ experiences, or just being a bit silly.
That is not to say we don’t get frustrated when we encounter unnecessary behaviour, close-mindedness or bureaucracy. I have a fantasy tactic of agreeing on a Metal swearword – a curse sounds too strong – and inviting people to invoke the word for a bit of collective release, and to remember why we do what we do. Metal’s team read Sarah Ahmed’s The Feminist Killjoy Handbook and Claudia Rankine’s Just Us at Metal’s anti-racism book club, which helped ground us in intersectional feminism, calling out behaviour with an open heart.
No conversations that start with ‘there’s no money.’ We found ourselves in a cycle of conversations with partners and friends that started this way. Now, we’re trying to acknowledge the economic climate and the difficult situation it puts us in without limiting our ability to imagine together. This is not to diminish what a scary time it is. UK arts organisations like Streetwise Opera are publicly sharing their financial jeopardy or, like Coney and The Good Literacy Agency, closing. Other artistic and executive directors are privately sharing the reality of their cash flow, not yet ready to go public. Councils are serving 114 bankruptcy notices. For us, changing the narrative changed the conversation and made space for dreaming.
Collaboration over competition. We believe in equal collaboration that plays to everyone’s strengths, shares what resources we have and subverts common power dynamics. Creative Break Time, Metal’s partnership with Southend schools, Focal Point Gallery, and The Other MA, an artist-led education model for people facing barriers to the ‘art world’, wants to free teachers from rigid planning structures and instead nurture creativity, connection and inspiration. The programme is designed with the ‘collaboration over competition’ ethos and a big heart, and the relationship draws on Essex’s long history of testing new ways of living, radical collaboration and utopian ideologies.
Imagining new forms with new people. We think deeply about how art and creativity can offer new perspectives and inspire change, particularly when marginalised people are part of decision-making. Metal Peterborough recently lost their home of 10-years. It wasn’t our choice, but leaving the building made us dream about what a queer, accessible, anti-racist space would look like from scratch. Our closing programme invited artists to reflect on what is possible when things go wrong for land rights, democracy of space, and the body. We’ll use this model of thinking together when chaos or crisis inevitably arrives again.
We question who holds power and want to invite more people to the party. We’re changing Metal to involve more residents from Liverpool, Peterborough and Southend – where we’re based – in both governance and programming. This ranges from artist-led citizens assemblies to panels, juries, new models of governance groups and mapping where power and knowledge exist at Metal. We’re bringing together community leaders in the three cities to learn these practices. Sometimes there is a real party.
We see citizen-led decision-making as an artistic practice and have artists in conversations about what is commissioned. Starting with artist and theatre-maker Luca Rutherford’s Power and Cultural Democracy commission, we’re inviting artists to test and design Metal’s unique decision-making structures.
We want to make the revolution irresistible (Toni Cade Bambara, which came to me via Metal Liverpool Director, Jen Porter). Metal exists to inspire positive change through art and creativity. We try to have fun so people will want to join in. We have a long-term fantasy project of making everyone in Liverpool, Peterborough and Southend laugh. There is a serious – and political – need to have a good time and be together right now.
Metal’s practices will necessarily evolve, but beginning with love and generosity is in our bones.
Susie Thornberry, Artistic Director and CEO, Metal Culture