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Wave of arts to connect communities along nation's longest cultural space: England's waterways


Ray T

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PRESS RELEASE

 

22nd July 2021

 

WAVE OF ARTS TO CONNECT COMMUNITIES ALONG NATION’S LONGEST CULTURAL SPACE

New partnership brings outdoor art and culture to England’s waterways

Photos of arts projects available via Dropbox

 

The Canal & River Trust is unveiling a summer of arts along its waterways as coronavirus restrictions lift. The programme is made possible by a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Arts Council England, signed today (22 July 2021), which will focus on communities facing socio-economic disadvantage, disconnected from creative hubs and opportunities, with thousands of local people connected to their canal by talented local artists.

 

Over the past year millions have discovered their local towpaths, and the MoU will help even more people experience the wellbeing benefits of being by water while being entertained and inspired to participate. The Trust’s 2,000 miles of urban and rural waterways run through varied landscapes providing communities with free, accessible blue-green corridors wherever they pass. The MoU will enable the Trust to work with professional artists, amateurs and voluntary arts groups to connect with local people, the young in particular, to produce art influenced by the community.

 

In 2021-22 arts projects will involve many local people engaging with the Trust’s waterways and various arts partners, including a cultural programme for the Coventry Canal as part of Coventry UK City of Culture; street art alongside canals in Sefton, Tottenham and Walsall; a floating short story boat project called Small Bells Ring; Hinterlands, a series of participatory arts activities in Sheffield and Enfield; and new audio works by women artists.

 

Arts and culture bring people to the waterways and encourages them to explore. Measured over the past six years, more than 81% of those surveyed said they were more likely to visit waterways if there were arts events. Once on site three quarters visited other parts of the canal. These statistics highlight the significance of arts and cultural activities for visitors to waterways.

 

Richard Parry, Chief Executive of the Canal & River Trust, said: “The canals have provided invaluable breathing space for communities during the pandemic. The special partnership we have with Arts Council England will build on this recognition that they are unique places, with a new wave of arts projects that will improve wellbeing for local people, support artists, attract new visitors, and make life better by water.

 

“This partnership recognises the vital role that creative practitioners and cultural organisations, with the canvas of the canals to work on, can play in the nation’s recovery. We are excited by the opportunity this programme offers to create a wide range of creative productions that celebrate the waterways and the communities they run through over the coming years.”

 

Darren Henley OBE, Chief Executive Officer, Arts Council England said: “Creativity has played an integral role in supporting our nation’s wellbeing through the challenges the last 16 months have presented.  Cultural experiences have kept many of us feeling inspired, connected, and hopeful – just as England’s waterways have provided many with an outdoor space to unwind, reflect and stay active.  All of which remain so important.

 

“The continuation of the Arts Council’s long-term relationship with the Canal & River Trust will ensure that more high quality and ambitious cultural offers punctuate our country’s great waterways at a time when they are needed most.  Together, we will ensure that people from all backgrounds can experience the sheer joy and benefits of exploring creativity along the rivers and canals that flow through our country’s vibrant communities.”

 

To date, the Trust’s arts programme has seen installations, concerts, plays, creative workshops, outdoor galleries, indoor exhibitions, floating libraries, street art, and reflections of the Canal Laureate produced with professional and voluntary arts partners.

 

More information on arts on the waterways can be found on the Trust’s website: https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/enjoy-the-waterways/waterway-arts

 

ENDS

 

For further information, please contact:

Fran Read, national press officer

e fran.read@canalrivertrust.org.uk  m 07796 610 427

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6 minutes ago, Ray T said:

. Measured over the past six years, more than 81% of those surveyed said they were more likely to visit waterways if there were arts events.

That beggars belief. There are lies, damned lies and statistics.

Oh well, expect more doggerel carved into a lock beam near you soon.

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1 hour ago, Ray T said:

Measured over the past six years, more than 81% of those surveyed said they were more likely to visit waterways if there were arts events.

 

I think we need to know exactly what question was asked to elicit that response.

1 hour ago, Athy said:

That beggars belief. There are lies, damned lies and statistics.

 

Indeed. There are also incomplete statistics, which prove nothing to anyone.

 

 

 

Seriously though, I would think that the Arts Council's efforts are more likely to appear in urban areas than in the quiet countryside waterways we boaters know and love. . 

1 hour ago, Ray T said:

thousands of local people connected to their canal by talented local artists.

 

Art installations involving the use of epoxy adhesive, perhaps?

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5 minutes ago, Machpoint005 said:

Art installations involving the use of epoxy adhesive, perhaps?

Superglue, cyanoacrylate. Much better for talented artists trying to connect local people to their canal infrastructure than epoxy. Sets quicker, so you can connect more people in a days art creation in order to meet the grant success metrics. Stays connected for longer and is much harder to lever people off, so improves long term engagement.

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4 hours ago, Athy said:

That beggars belief. There are lies, damned lies and statistics.

 

I can believe that. "More likely", I am more likely to visit Slough if there is an art gallery there, and I don't even go to galleries. Not much more likely, just more likely. Probably around .0001% more likely. But still unlikely, below 5%.

 

You can say all sorts and still be correct with precise/pedantic semantics.

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I always think that one of the major problems with British society is that it divides Art and Science, or Art and Technology. The Germans don't have the problem, as anything made by people comes under the term 'Kunst', which encompasses both Art and Technology. As an apprentice turning steel on a lathe, I would look at the swarf being removed which often had wonderful colours - from yellow and orange to blue - and thought what an interesting material for an 'artist'. However, what was more important, the object I was turning, which would help society in a practical way, or the artist's material which had little practical use. I am still waiting for someone to explain where the boundary lies between Art, and Science or Technology.

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25 minutes ago, Thomas C King said:

I am more likely to visit Slough if there is an art gallery there, and I don't even go to galleries. Not much more likely, just more likely. Probably more likely.

I have just proved your point and given CRT a go-ahead for a pop up gallery at the end of the slough arm as well as Walsall and Tottenham.

In my editing survey, 100% of people canvassed expressed a positive interest.

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34 minutes ago, Pluto said:

I am still waiting for someone to explain where the boundary lies between Art, and Science or Technology.

 

Well, the usual high-level definition of Science according to the Philosophy of Science, is a process of forming hypotheses and trying to disprove them. Hypotheses are hence disprovable and precise statements. A non-empty set of related hypotheses that are routinely not disproven and has a satisfactory explanatory power, is informally a theory. But theories (what is and is not) are subjective.

 

I don't know what art is, but I've never heard an artist talk about disproving a hypotheses. That said, I'm sure there is a 'science of art'. It is possible to have a science of anything that is subjective in the sense of something like aesthetics so long as the hypotheses are about that subjectivity.

 

Technology, I think, is sometimes design science (which includes "proper" engineering), sometimes unscientific "engineering" (e.g., people purely writing code without applying the scientific method), and sometimes art and aesthetics.

Edited by Thomas C King
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36 minutes ago, Thomas C King said:

 

Well, the usual high-level definition of Science according to the Philosophy of Science, is a process of forming hypotheses and trying to disprove them. Hypotheses are hence disprovable and precise statements.

The thing is, you could say exactly the same about the various 'schools of art' we have had over the centuries. It is all about perception, and how one person sees the world, and how they explain it to others. There is no clear line between Art and Science, while it could be argued that  Technology is halfway between two ends of the spectrum. The rather unfortunate result in this country, is that it is used to divide ideas, rather than to bring them together, and for that the Educational Standards demanded by Politicians must take a good percentage of the blame. 

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4 hours ago, matty40s said:

I get art, I like art.

I dont like the amount of bullshit flowery longspeak some people come out with about how good it is for me and others to have it imposed on me.

 

The problem is I can't help envisaging that most of it will be "municipal art" or other rubbish.

 

I went to the Tate Modern quite a few times when I lived in London. There was some good stuff in there but if I'm honest it was mostly crap. Of the latter, one exhibit that I do remember was made up of rusty car panels and engine parts (I think it was from an old VW Beatle) made into a 2D representation of an elephant's head, ears and trunk, taking up about 50 ft sq hanging on a wall. The message was of course that mass production and consumerism is destroying wildlife & the natural environment. I couldn't help asking myself whether the profundity of that statement was on the level of a 12 year old child? Not all art has to be profound of course, but I'm sure the artist and people associated with the exhibits took it all very seriously.

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10 minutes ago, blackrose said:

 

The problem is I can't help envisaging that most of it will be "municipal art" or other rubbish.

 

I went to the Tate Modern quite a few times when I lived in London. There was some good stuff in there but if I'm honest it was mostly crap. Of the latter, one exhibit that I do remember was made up of rusty car panels and engine parts (I think it was from an old VW Beatle) made into a 2D representation of an elephant's head, ears and trunk, taking up about 50 ft sq hanging on a wall. The message was of course that mass production and consumerism is destroying wildlife & the natural environment. I couldn't help asking myself whether the profundity of that statement was on the level of a 12 year old child? Not all art has to be profound of course, but I'm sure the artist and people associated with the exhibits took it all very seriously.

Sturgeon's Law applies to art as it does to pretty much every form of human creation. Poetry, prose, music, architecture, gadget design, scientific papers, CWDF posts etc. The 10% makes the 90% worth putting up with.

Jen

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6 hours ago, Athy said:

 

image.png.d6e49b092e7996893625bed3884adfaa.png

 

That beggars belief. There are lies, damned lies and statistics.

Oh well, expect more doggerel carved into a lock beam near you soon.

 

 

Having commissioned and managed a number of research surveys in the past, I can believe it.  So called Surveys can easily be constructed to get the answers you want. If they simply asked the question "Are you more likely to visit waterways if there were arts events?" it is likely to receive a "yes" response from most peple, as very few are likely to answer "no", but if you asked at least two qualifying questions elsewhere in the survey, the response could be very different. Examples of qualifying questions might be "Are you interested in the arts?" or "Should the canal environment be maintained as natural as possible?" the responses to those questions could alter the final assessmemnt of the respondant's answers.  I used the Social Resarch Unit at Bristol University to construct and undertake the surveys I commiossioned, but these days what seems to pass as surveys, are merely questionaires constructed by someone with no research training sitting in an office.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by David Schweizer
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52 minutes ago, Pluto said:

The thing is, you could say exactly the same about the various 'schools of art' we have had over the centuries. It is all about perception, and how one person sees the world, and how they explain it to others. There is no clear line between Art and Science, while it could be argued that  Technology is halfway between two ends of the spectrum. The rather unfortunate result in this country, is that it is used to divide ideas, rather than to bring them together, and for that the Educational Standards demanded by Politicians must take a good percentage of the blame. 

 

I don't know that much about art. But are you saying some schools of art have actually formulated hypotheses in the scientific sense of being able to predict something, and then attempted to refute them? That could be the case, I hypothesise that these abstract shapes will be pleasing to 90% of people, for example. I'd consider that science of art though. Or do you mean that schools of art have defined hypotheses, but using a non-scientific (or an artistic) definition?

If anything, I'd consider art to be closer to mathematics than science. Because you might have some first-principles, and aesthetics are very important, as in mathematics.

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"Art" used to be a word commonly applied to technical skills, such as "the mechanical arts". and titles such as artificers.

 

In patent law, there is a fictional person whose notional skill and knowledge is virtually always referred to when determining if an invention is obvious, and he was always referred to as "the man skilled in the art", the "art" being the particular technology under consideration. In these PC days, I think "person skilled in the art" is now the preferred expression.

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19 hours ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

Sturgeon's Law applies to art as it does to pretty much every form of human creation. Poetry, prose, music, architecture, gadget design, scientific papers, CWDF posts etc. The 10% makes the 90% worth putting up with.

Jen

 

Sturgeon's Law sounds like a more extreme version of Pareto Analysis. 😁😂

 

https://www.projectsmart.co.uk/pareto-analysis-step-by-step.php

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1 minute ago, cuthound said:

 

Sturgeon's Law sounds like a more ectrem version of Pareto Analysis. 😁😂

 

https://www.projectsmart.co.uk/pareto-analysis-step-by-step.php

 

Yes. The two are often mentioned together, with Sturgeon's Law being the aesthetic and cultural version of the more numerical Pareto Analysis.

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1 minute ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

 

Yes. The two are often mentioned together, with Sturgeon's Law being the aesthetic and cultural version of the more numerical Pareto Analysis.

 

I was thinking that a 90/10 split was more extreme than a 80/20 one. 😁

1 minute ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

 

Yes. The two are often mentioned together, with Sturgeon's Law being the aesthetic and cultural version of the more numerical Pareto Analysis.

 

I was thinking that a 90/10 split was more extreme than a 80/20 one. 😁

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