Place-based partnerships: Delivering more together

At The Space, our work is often focused on partnerships with local arts and culture organisations. We believe working in partnership is invaluable at a time when funding in the sector is exceptionally low. 

By working together we can share resources, learn from each other and build skills and networks that enable underfunded organisations to move towards a digitally self-sustaining future. 

We’ve seen how bringing our expertise – digital content creation and distribution – into partnership programmes can significantly help organisations amplify their voices and increase their online profile.

In this article, I explore the benefits of through two different partnerships: Leeds Year of Culture 2023 and Creative Black Country. But first, I want to consider the importance of digital when working with regional place-based artists.

How digital can support place-based projects

Place-making is central to much of the work we do at The Space. We’re interested in building local communities and celebrating what makes a place what it is – its people, history, and culture. 

Digital technology by its very nature is placeless – we can access it from anywhere, anytime. But that also gives it enormous potential to amplify the importance of a place. 

When digital work is grounded in a locality, it gives resonance to that place and allows the messages and voices of its communities to reverberate more widely than is possible with a one-off exhibition or event.

As digital partners, part of our job is to ensure we listen closely to the conversations happening locally. We want to know what makes this place unique and capture its character in a sensitive and timely way. 

By working closely with partners, we aim to build digital skills from the ground up, so that artists and organisations are left with sustainable practices to take forwards independently. Our work with Leeds 2023 and Creative Black Country are examples of what can arise from these collaborations.

Leeds Year of Culture 2023

After being shortlisted for City of Culture 2023, Leeds used the momentum from the campaign to devise a year-long programme, celebrating diverse stories and experiences from across the city. We partnered with them to help them raise the profile of their year of culture through digital platforms. 

Specifically, we helped produce four works:

·      Future Perfect: a co-production with LEEDS 23, Sky Arts, Studio 12 and The Space that resulted in four short films on the topic of ‘Future Perfect: What’s worth fighting for?’.

·      Looking at Leeds: five audio essays written by Malika Booker, Jeremy Dyson, Michelle Scally Clarke, Ian Duhig and Khadijah Ibrahiim, and broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in partnership with Thomas Carter Productions.

·      Requiem: a performance of Mozart’s Requiem screened on the BBC, and produced in collaboration with Opera North, Phoenix Dance Theatre, Jazzart Dance Theatre and Cape Town Opera.

·      One Way or Another: a digital interactive experience co-designed with schoolgirls aged 12-13, in partnership with digital studio Four and Women of the World.

This partnership with LEEDS 2023 was an example of how one organisation’s expertise – in this case, our knowledge and skills in digital technology – can bring immediate benefits to a short-term, finite project. 

With a whole year of live events to commission, promote and programme, the LEEDS 2023 team would have struggled to deliver additional digital and broadcast projects. As partners, we not only provided digital skills mentorship but also introduced them to broadcasters who could help deliver their projects. Our role was as much about making connections as it was about offering practical advice.

Polly Thomas, a producer for Thomas Carter Projects on the Looking at Leeds audio essays, particularly appreciated how the partnership opened up new conversations: “We were drawing on a wider palate of ideas and cultural experiences,” she said. “This invaluable public sector collaboration is widening our engagement with audiences and introducing important cultural material and voices.”

Overall, the programme engaged more than 200 creative practitioners and reached audiences of over 300k online.

Creative Black Country – Digital Firsts

Our ongoing partnership with Creative Black Country takes a very different approach from our work with LEEDS 2023. Rather than raising the profile of a city-wide cultural programme, our aim is to nurture talents and voices from across the Black Country. 
Our focus is on building digital creative confidence with artists in an organic, sustainable way, to give them confidence to relate their personal lived experiences through digital media.

The projects, collectively called Digital Firsts, are in the early stages of development but there are already promising signs of the benefits of the programme: “What makes this partnership unique,” says Parminder Dosanjh from Creative Black Country, “is that we’ve created a long-term framework together to explore and commission ambitious ideas with place-based needs.”

The Space offers digital roundtable sessions for the successful cohort of artists and then pairs them with mentors to guide them in an area of tailored expertise. All applicants to the programme have access to online webinars with industry experts, covering the topics most commonly requested during the application process.

“Digital Firsts is dynamic,” says Parminder, “uncovering the potential of artists and communities who are exploring digital outputs for the first time in the Black Country. We’re excited to be nurturing a growing infrastructure for this work to thrive, and boost confidence for the future.”

Fiona Morris is Chief Executive and Creative Director at The Space (Digital Arts).
 thespace.org
 @thespacearts | @FionaMorris_

This article, sponsored and contributed by The Space, is part of a series spotlighting new ways of creating and distributing digital content, and exploring the wealth of new technologies and platforms coming online.