• Attentiveness to artists’ needs • Listening and providing feedback • Trust • Forging long-standing relationships • Attention to detail • Bridging inadequacies or inequalities • Encouragement and support (both practical and emotional) • Advocacy • Championing • Seeking out development opportunities for artists • Patience (to let art find the form it needs) This notion of ‘care’ was a defining feature of the ‘Common Practice: Public Assets’ seminar (Common Practice, 2015). Described as ‘intangible assets’ of artist led organisations (alongside specialist skills, experience, reputation and networks), programmes of care provide ‘holistic experiences’ for artists which larger institutions fail to achieve because they are more ‘audience focused and competitive with each other’. Conversely, ‘care exceeds hierarchy in small organisations’, which tend to be more networked and supportive of each other, based on common interests. This is exemplified in what artist Céline Condorelli has broadly classified as ‘support structures’ for cultural practice – variously that which: ‘bears, sustains, and props… cares for, assists … advocates, articulates … stands behind, frames, and maintains … those things that give support’ (Condorelli, 2009). In this way, artistic collaboration, co-operative activity, expertise and friendship are central to the process of making things public, through approaching issues and audiences in context-sensitive ways. Put bluntly, ‘care’ is the ‘non-instrumentalisation of human relationships’. For artist led organisations this means the ‘noninstumentalising of artists, artworks or audiences’ for institutional gain. However this care is poorly valued, and can be exhausting. Particularly appealing was the notion that artists, theorists and curators are the ‘carers of concepts and ideas’.
FOOTFALL: REPORT
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