Arts Centres: Crisis or Crossroads

Last month, I took up the Artistic Director post at Macrobert Arts Centre in Stirling.

It’s a fantastic organisation set in the stunning University of Stirling campus.

I’m proud to take over and at the same I have a nagging suspicion that the image people have of Arts Centres has become a little fuzzy. For some people arts centre means pottery wheels and country cafes, for others they’re mixed use rehearsal spaces chock full of noisy musical youth, for others they’re places with loads of classes for kids… and they’d be right, many arts centres are these things but they’re also so much more. It seems arts centres, as a brand, have something of an image problem.

So I’ve been wondering: are Arts Centres in an identity crisis or are they at a crossroads...ready to rediscover how to be inspired by their radical founding spirit...

Arts Centres sprang up across the UK in the 1960’s/70s. Inspired in large part by the counter-cultural explosions of the 60s which led to a public demand for a much more democratised access to culture – a democratisation that would value both the watching and the participating equally. People wanted the chance to experience the arts, to take part, to have affordable, local, relevant access to all kinds of culture and creativity.

Communities and artists, then as now, need creative spaces. It stands to reason that as artistic practice diversified, artists and communities needed multi-use, multi purpose spaces.

So it was with this original spirit and purpose that many Art Centres – large and small- were founded. A spirit of engagement, opportunity, celebration, access, relevance, activism and public benefit.

And it’s with that exact same spirit and purpose that over the coming year or two I’m intending to develop the creative programme at Macrobert Arts Centre. As you might expect, a new Director always has Big Plans and in that I’m no different. Like all Big Plans, no doubt some things will work better than others. We’ll learn from the ideas that don’t take-off just as much as the ones that win awards.

From launching Open House – a professional artist development opportunity providing entirely free rehearsal and development space for Companies working in performance, to 121 – a solo artist seed bursary scheme to generate new work for the boutique scale, from going local and co-producing with the National Theatre of Auchtermuchty to going global and hosting international mini-festivals of diversity, from classes for kids to presenting some of the best gigs as live music becomes a growing part of our programme, we’ll remain true to the spirit of the original arts centre purpose.

We’ll be an open space, a place for both artists and communities.

Because that’s really what arts centres do best – they connect artists and communities.

Arts Centres create opportunity, broaden access, and enable opportunity. Arts Centres democratise culture. Arts Centres are local. Arts Centres are affordable. Arts Centres are radical. Arts Centre foster community and cultural activism. Arts Centres celebrate and create.

They’re for anyone and everyone.

Hopefully, I’ll see you here at Macrobert one day.

Ed Robson
Artistic Director & CEO

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