Hello 👋
I doubt I should have to introduce myself , seeing as I have been involved in official complaints procedures with most of you on and off for a decade
But I suppose should you wish to feign ignorance of the Numerous legal disputes I have been dragged into with you people or perhaps insist that the aggressively dismissive attitude that seems to be adopted as standard procedure any time I try to raise point , offer suggestion or Raise valid critique is simply coincidental , for the sake of argument and in .....well let's make this a public response to your recent Facebook advertisement for calls for collaboration i.e the clipper on Union Street ...
About me ....
The Arts Hole international pop up initiative ..
Well , I'm a bit like you really ... I have a habit of taking on grubby old run down real estate and transforming them into desirable gallery / commercial / residential spaces, I have a proven track record of taking on near derelict properties in emaciated parts of town , across continental Europe and even further afield and quite by accident implementing desirable and utilisable spaces for community engagement and academic faculty support .....
How far along am I with my business
Ha ha ha ...well veteran in a forced state if perpetual transience, each exhibition has a different name and is in a different city ...
As you should certainly be aware , I have been responsible for developing and delivering a creative core based syllabus at one of the local training facilities ....just down the road from you , as part of the probation and rehabilitation outreach services . Of which I'm sure I don't have to emphasise are exceptionally pertinent within this particular aspect of the urban landscape
I have broached the subject with yourselves on numerous occasions , and made the proposal that the local charity and training provider that I am sub contracted to ... Could indeed make use of a potential retail position .....the students within our key and indeed target demographic are individuals that are making categorical efforts to improve their quality of life and in many cases even attempt to reintegrate into a society that systematically assaulted them with 15 years of ideological austerity
The pioneering Art aspect that I have developed for this local delivery demonstrates the positive influence that the creative tendency not just limited to expression of the ' Arts ' can have. I personally begrudge the incessant comodification of almost every human experience in this esculating age of madness however , in just the short time that I get to work with the students that are assigned to me there is a real and demonstrable untapped talent and potential ...that which should be both encouraged and applauded ! No better way would be for the local community builders to offer an exhibition opportunity in a venture such as your own ....
Again I will reiterate that shouldn't be news to you ,
Why do I think that the clipper would be good for me ....
Ha ha ha ...pass
No seriously, again as I am sure you are aware, I developed what was coined at the time as ' the Valerio institute for alternative learning ' up in the north of the city about a decade ago .....a grubby old factory that I took in and turned into a bespoke space without grant, subsidy or loan, ....suffice to say I had a falling out with the local authority ( not an unusual occurrence for many small businesses in the city ) stood my ground , finished the project which culminated in an architectural showcase the likes of which has bit been rivaled in the city ....but quite by chance , the greenalize thing materialised a few months later !!!, In the end I told them to get stuffed, the judiciary backed the proclamation and I went on my merry way . A few years after this debacle as far as my understanding goes a couple of ex community connections employees basically did a. Gov backed version of my original little enterprise ...as you can imagine I took quite a personal offense to this ....
You paid nigh on ten grand for a mural .....
Your funding and seemingly in bed relationship with the council and it's basket case of estate agent affilliates and questionable sponsors
So why do I think the clipper offering a collaborative effort, by way of making available space to encompass display and public engagement options for our recently qualified and or exceptional students ...on a nice neat 6 - 12 week rotation ....
Well I suppose you could refuse to offer collaborative support to this enterprise ....again !
But that does not seem to be in keeping with pretty much all of your published materials ? And self ascribed mission statements ? Funding criteria ?
Well I suppose if nothing else , despite all the aforementioned questionable circumstances ....it would give me something positive to say about you and your organizational efforts after all ....
How do I feel that I might contribute to your mission and local community ....
I can do three times what you do on a fraction of the budget .....
For the last two years I have been working in the reform services , within the neighborhood that you operate ....even during the height of the imposed lockdowns - fighting the council to get people re housed ' lodging environmental health complaints - battling social services and fighting with my own manager insisting we keep the door open as the legislation at the time did allow for education and training facilities to have the option if remaining open ( even though none of the other academic facilities within the city were willing to take that risk ) my argument being that the duration if the lockdown was starting to really negatively effect people's mental health , and that people that were being forced to live together in the awful tennament style lodgings that make up well over half of this cities housing stock .....especially within this cluttered part of the city ! We're better off coming for a little socially distanced , socially interactive respite than remaining in these festering pits of damp, despair , forced co habitation !
During my spare time I managed to convert a 3 story fire escape ( my roommates only available outside space in the horrible urban scene we were confined to ) into a kind if improvised hanging garden and pine forest, again inadvertantly kicking off several little garden and green space initiatives
Being so fed up with the city and the idea that citing myself next to a main thoroughfare staring at traffic and an economically emaciated city scape and populace was any kind of opportunity to be had ...
So once again after a lengthy and completely unnecessary legal free for all with my old mates ....the faceless bureau rats that seem to run the world , I moved back out to the rural fringes
....in the last I don't know . A little over a year I guess I have seen multiple sets of students through to completion of the course materials , delivered in parallel with the general conscious mindfulness and positive practices we have seen individuals flourish , literally flourish, in a time when the country is suffering such hardships as to be historically influential ! Mining ...well painting en plein air , finding rocks , turning those rock's into paints , exploring out the sources of those rock's ....again demonstrating the fundamental necessity to get out of the urban environment with all its digital entrapments and to get out into the 3 dimensional world with the 3 Dimensional people and effect the change in the world that is so sorely needed in this age of ours
All of this the basic mainstay of the basic intrigues that have somehow rendered my existence ' commercially viable ' ....even it seems without the streams of available funding that are often hoodwinked by mediocrity before my mad little enterprise even gets a look in .....
I used to prefer to operate in as fiercely independent a persona as I could muster ...and to be fair that scale of bravado can be useful when you are trailblazing something in a city you don't know in a country you are not familiar with with a language you don't speak .... there is a definite sense of self determination on relying solely on the trade you can muster from the products that you render ....but it can be infuriating observing thousands of pounds being rolled out in these bribe funding schemes for the bin delivery of half an idea ....
collaboration is proven to be the more fruitful endeavour over competition and as such I do try to embrace this more and more these days .
My contact details.....
Well you know ....I'm just down the road on the Thursday and Friday ....generally teaching people to paint or petitioning the council to support the planting of a tree over the implementation of another parking space or student bedsit , or indeed insisting that they destroy the 30% of the degenerate aspect of the grotty housing stock they insist on keeping in circulation !
Otherwise I'm out in the countryside , Amsterdam for about a week every 6 - 8 weeks plus the odd sporadic excursion to sunnier climes for more than mere self gratification and indulgent recreationalism ....
Would I like to collaborate ?
Oh dear , well the proof is in the pudding as they say ....
Would I like to collaborate .....well we find ourselves in a bit of a standoff
So I will be honest ...I've no patience to suffer a fool and I am genuinely concerned that a great deal of the funding structures that exist are wholly corralling and in effect censoring, I worry that a few well placed bribes kicked out as ' funding support ' from Dido Harding's account , just muddies the water of this already very muddy pond, like why have we got money for all if these bloody CIC enterprise dance troupes and art groups but the NHS funding model is a mess and the roads look like Pompeii , I worry that these greasy wheels are being used to usher in favourable relationships in lieu of a righteous indignation ....are we just keeping the middle classes busy with a load of coffee morning nonesense while the integral infrastructure of the country is being sold off for scrap ..... So, Yes I would like to collaborate with a few of the actual grassroots authentic proactive individuals and organizations that do have a genuine interest in improving the aesthetic appearance and integral functionality of this city and outlying region we all co habit
I would /could just go and petition a belligerent authority that would only offer me dead ears anyway , and well given my experiences in this particular city against the comparible successes of well pretty much every other city I have ever made camp....on an international scale I refer to this place as a societal equivalent of a bear trap ...but we've sewn up all routes of possible alternative entrepreneurial expression so what recourse can there be ?
...and besides I think it'll be interesting to see how this goes .....
I look forward to hearing your thoughts on these or related matters
