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In this episode Naomi talks to Sarah Blowers, Founder and former Artistic Director of Strike a Light in Gloucester.
Sarah talks about the complexities of accountability and how important it is to be accountable to the people we are working with. She talks about getting funding for co-created work without detailed activity plans as this is to be determined through the process. For her the accountability is less to funders and more to the people she is working with. She has often worked with people who are on benefits and while she believes that people need to be paid for their work, there are unkind systems in place that prevent this.
She talks about the system being really exclusive to people who could be better suited to working in their community. Larger organisations have the infrastructure to be accountable to funders but smaller grassroots organisations have the networks to be accountable to their community.
Sarah talks about the grassroots organisation GL4 and the transformative impact that the accountability to the community has had. She argues that the models of accountability are outdated as the systems don’t work for small organisations.
She tries to work in a way that is not always top down, Artistic Director led. She talks about the diversity of audiences that are attracted to see work in their community and programmed by community producers - this just doesn’t happen elsewhere. She says that the Artistic Directors need to leave their ego at the door and be accountable to the community.
Sarah talks about the importance of proper monitoring and evaluation which paint a picture of what is really happening to be accountable to both funders and the community. She is clear that it is public money and that there need not be fear about accountability. Sometimes it is hard to hold people accountable, particularly if you are working with a friend. She thinks that to be ambitious and to have high expectations is good, but the resources need to be used wisely and to be accountable for their actions. This is particularly hard for producers of co-created work.
In terms of having difficult conversations she thinks it is important to name it early and not let it go on too long. She thinks this is particularly challenging when the systems which artists and arts organisations work in are not very accessible. It is hard to ask for help, especially when working in a world that is so deeply biased. Always approach accountability conversations with care and kindness. Most people working in this field are over-worked and under-paid.
Creators and Guests
What is Let's Create: Do We Know How To??
A deep dive into the qualities, skills and responsibilities that artists, as leaders of co-created art, embody and practice in their work.
Theatre Critic Lyn Gardner 'wholeheartedly recommends' this podcast :)
Episode 1: Open and Humble Ned Glasier from Company Three
Episode 2: Grounded and Energetic Sita Thomas from Fio
Episode 3: Empathy and Care for Others Tashi Gore from Glass Performance
Episode 4: Adaptable and Flexible Kelly Green
Episode 5: True to Yourself Conrad Murray from Battersea Arts Centre’s Beatbox Academy
Episode 6: Patient Kane Husbands from The Pappy Show
Episode 7: Holding Space Tanushka Marah from ThirdSpace Theatre
Episode 8: Managing Energy Levels Jack Parris from Brighton People’s Theatre
Episode 9: Listening and Communicating Dan Thompson Freelance Artist
Episode 10: Inclusive Language Kane Husbands from The Pappy Show
Episode 11: Art Form Skills Conrad Murray from Battersea Arts Centre’s Beatbox Academy
Episode 12: Facilitation Skills Sarah Blowers from Strike a Light
Episode 13: Safety Kelly Green Freelance Artist Released
Episode 14: Safeguarding Jason Camilleri from Wales Millenium Centre
Episode 15: Being Accountable Sarah Blowers from Strike a Light Released
Episode 16: Rights and Ethics Ned Glasier from Company Three Released
Episode 17: Know your limits and involve other people Jess Thorpe from Glass Performance * Coming soon
Episode 18: To create a structure/purpose Jack Parris from Brighton People’s Theatre * Coming soon
Episode 19: To know an appropriate amount about who you are working with Dan Thompson Freelance Artist * Coming soon
Episode 20: To ensure people have a positive experience Tanushka Marah from ThirdSpace Theatre * Coming soon
Naomi: Welcome to Let's Create: Do We Know How To? My name's Naomi Alexander, I'm the CEO and Artistic Director of Brighton People's Theatre. Last year I got some funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council as part of my CLORE fellowship to do some research into the qualities, skills and responsibilities that artists as leaders hold in making co-creative work. This podcast series explores each of the findings in a little bit more depth with a different artist.
I'm joined today by Sarah Blowers, who is the Founder and current Co-Artistic Director of Strike A Light in Gloucester. She's been an arts leader for over 20 years, working extensively in schools, theatres and communities, predominantly in areas of deprivation. She was also the leader of Battersea Arts Centre's Co-Creating Change Network. So welcome, Sarah, to this podcast episode, which is about the responsibility of being accountable. So Sarah, reflecting on this responsibility, can you tell me why you think it's important for artists leading co-creative practice?
Sarah: To be accountable, yeah. I think you are firstly accountable to the people you're working with and potentially for. That's really important. And then the second stage of that is you're often accountable for whoever's paid for the work. And I think that's less important because there's a whole conversation to be had about that. But ultimately, yeah, it's really important that we are accountable to those people that we're working with.
And I think a huge amount of the most of the work that I've done that has been in a co-created way, the responsibility of being accountable to those people feels much higher than if I'm running a workshop that I've been employed to do and I know exactly what it is. Yeah, it's a much, much, much more complex thing. You're asking a lot of people to co-create. You're asking to bring themselves. If you're facilitating a participation workshop, you are often still exhausting, but you're often just teaching a skill and that's fine and people can learn it or not. When you're in a co-created environment, we are asking people to bring themselves and often all of themselves. And for a lot of us, myself included, that is often hard. And so, yeah, we're really accountable to those people. Leave time for check-in at the end. Leave proper time for check-in at the end and maybe the next day when things come up.
Naomi: I'm just wondering if you experience any tensions around being accountable to funders and being accountable to maybe the institution, the organisation that has employed you. Do you experience that, like the tension of multiple accountabilities that might be pulling you in different directions?
Sarah: I've got a few thoughts on this. A piece of work I did a few years ago was actually predominantly funded by ACE. And in the application, it was really clear that we were not going to say what the output was going to be. We knew what the outcomes were going to be in terms of we were fairly sure the process was going to improve people's health and stuff that we all know. I think what I'm saying is in this application, it was a risk, but we were very clear it was a co-created piece of work and we wanted to ask for a large amount of money, but we were not going to say exactly what we were going to spend the money on apart from the creative process. And remarkably, we got the money, which I was surprised and really pleased about. And it felt quite good that I hadn't written a ridiculous activity plan that I completely knew I wasn't going to do.
I'm always very clear when embarking on a piece of co-created work that what we do is going to have a positive, impactful benefit and often change for the people that we're working with. And so that for me is what's important. So I feel less accountable to funders actually. I feel that I want the money to be spent well. I've never gone over budget. I'm strict as anything over budgets. I don't feel accountable to funders. I'm pleased and grateful that they've given us money, but I know that money is going to be spent well and we're going to do a good job.
No, the people I feel accountable to are mainly the participants. And I think there can sometimes be tension within an organisation that you may run or you're employed by around risk assessments and safeguarding. That's what I think. I think sometimes in a co-created world, those risk assessments are really important. Sometimes you may want to bend the rules. That was a risk assessment, maybe how you pay someone or something. I feel I have to be a bit careful about what I'm saying.
One of the things around accountability is I've often worked with people who are on benefits and I believe that they deserve to be paid for their work. Legally, you're not really supposed to do that. So finding ways, I think, to honour people, I can find a tension within an organisation that I might be working for because I think ultimately, a lot of the systems, particularly around money, are not very well set up and they're not very kind. So yeah, there have been tensions before around that.
Naomi: Yeah, and I guess there's an accountability to yourself in that as well about your values and the way you want to work, the way you want to value people.
Sarah: I mean, I personally find those things difficult because I can be a bit loose around those things, never around safeguarding, but maybe around paying someone or something like that. I would try and find a way around the system.
Naomi: Can you talk about what you do in practical terms or what the organisation that you work for does to hold the responsibility of being accountable?
Sarah: Yeah, that's something we think about quite a lot. And actually, I was having a very good conversation with, here's a plug, Pippa Jones from Create Gloucestershire only two days ago about accountability. And we were really thinking about that in terms of financial accountability and governance and thinking about what a rubbish system we have is that there are so many organisations and community producers and grassroots people who are doing incredible work across the board, but because they're not able to fit into the classic accountability model, it's really hard for them to access funds. And something I feel quite strongly about is that organisations like Strike A Light, and this is something that we do, is that we may hold money or we may funnel money so that we are accountable and we trust that those people are doing good work. And this is a conversation I'm hoping to pick up with some of the larger funders.
At Strike A Light, we work closely with an organisation called GL4, who are phenomenal. It's run by two women who are based on a social housing estate in Gloucester. They do amazing, amazing work. And I think the Arts Council would love to welcome them in to their NPO in the next round to be a national portfolio organisation. I'm just not sure it's the best model for them. And what I mean is I don't think, I do feel quite strongly about all this. I think the let's create strategy on paper is great. But actually, we are expecting a lot of people who are doing good work to fit into a system that's really exclusive, and takes up a lot of time when actually you might be out working your community. So I think a role of an organisation like Strike A Light, for example, more and more is maybe holding accountability. And then we go back to holding holding accountability and enabling others to go and do the job that they're really good at.
Naomi: So you're almost like an intermediary, is that how you're seeing yourself there?
Sarah: Yeah, at times, this has now become about funding. But we have had conversations with local funders. And also in other posts I've held, I've had conversations with quite large funders about how it's an interesting model if mid-scale arts organisations can hold money and take some of that responsibility and then able to funnel it out to grassroots organisations where actually pound for pound, there's going to be better value for money, because there's less core costs and the organisation's overheads, etc, etc. So I think that's a model that really would be helpful. I think the bigger the organisation, when you get some money, a lot of it goes on overheads and core costs, which is always hard to fund for, but you're able to funnel money out really quickly to organisations or artists or local groups, more value for money, probably better work.
Naomi: Yeah. And you've got the infrastructure to be accountable to the funders, whereas I'm getting the organisation G4L that you're talking about are excellent at being accountable to their local community because they are in that community from that community. And so in terms of their accountability, can you just talk a little bit more perhaps about them or another example, if that's easier? I'm just really interested in what happens when being accountable as a responsibility is held effectively. What happens?
Sarah: I'm happy to talk about GL4 because I'm a sleeping director. So GL4 is now a community interest company and it's run by two incredible women called Sarah O'Donnell and Naomi Draper. Big shout out to them. And they provide incredible culture in the heart of the Matson Estate.
They have a participation programme, they run craft classes and they bring touring work into the estate and it's deeply, hugely successful. But as they've grown, of course, the accountability and the governance and HR becomes more and more. And these are two extremely capable women who eight years ago quite proudly said that they'd never been to the theatre and now they're running an arts organisation with international artists coming in.
Naomi: Could you just talk to me a little bit more about GL4 and what happens within that community when this responsibility of accountability to the community is held so effectively?
Sarah: Brilliant things take place and amazing shows take place in community spaces. Youth theatre exists for local children and young people. Adults who are really quite vulnerable come and do regular craft classes. The community come together and put on a meal with fantastic entertainment and Santa's Grotto is made with an artist and hundreds and hundreds of people come and see it. And you can see from the team at GL4, which I'd like to say with great pride has really grown from two women to now having four people employed and a raft of freelancers just beaming and being in their full power.
And yet the responsibility of a lot of reporting, I just think the models are outdated. The models are outdated and I think Arts Council would be delighted to welcome GL4 into the national portfolio in the next round. And I wonder whether those systems are right for organisations like that and they definitely deserve the money. And when they're accountable to their community, they do great things. And I would hate to see them feel really burdened by just paperwork, that's a little bit meaningless.
Naomi: Yeah, absolutely. There's something about the role of funders in co-creative process and practice, isn't there, and about their learning and understanding about ways that organisations and artists could be accountable in perhaps a different way.
Sarah: It is a conversation that we are having a lot at Strike A Light. We sit on quite a lot of commissioning boards. We work a lot with the City Council. There are now new national portfolio organisations within the city and we rarely go to a meeting without one of our community producers. And I think the way in which we are working, we are trying to share when it's appropriate with newer organisations in the city or even outside the city and just say we don't make those decisions on our own. We are accountable to our communities. We're trying to not work in a way that is always top down, artistic director led. And again, it's that tightrope. It's about those skills. But we know that if we programme a show in partnership.
If we take one of our community producers, for example, Halima, who I've been working with for a really long time, came to see a musician called Shomik Datta, who's just an amazing, amazing Indian musician, she just leaned over and said to us, I wish we could bring this to Gloucester. So we did bring this to Gloucester. But Halima programmed it. And because of that, the audience who came to see that was just extraordinary. And Shomik Datta and the company were like, where's this audience? We've never seen an audience like this. We're on tour. We're at the South Bank. This doesn't happen. How did this happen? And that's because Halima programmed it. And then she tells her community who trust her that it's going to be great.
And so I think so many arts organisations, we are accountable to our city and the people that we work for. And that is actually why we're funded. So my first responsibility is always to the people that we've been funded to work with. And it's public money. We need to, I think, as artistic directors and facilitators, leave your ego at the door as well. Actually, our role is to use that money wisely and support people. We're accountable to people, not the funders. That's what I reckon.
Naomi: Yeah, great. What are the challenges with holding this responsibility of being accountable?
Sarah: Well, endless report writing. Yeah. Oh my God, which I'll be doing straight after this. It's lots of lists, isn't it? Keeping track of things. You also need to run a tight ship. And being accountable, I guess, the other end. In a warm sense, we are accountable to the people that we're working with. In a hard sense, I will check my budgets a lot. I will check that they're okay. And I will make sure that I can report well on what we're doing. And that's a challenge because it sometimes takes quite a lot of time. But do you know what? It's always interesting reading back your evaluation report a year later. And sometimes you're like, oh yeah, that was good. I was good, I wrote that. Yes, that is quite good. Make sure you get your numbers. Make sure you get all those stats in. It's really important.
Naomi: Yeah, because it paints a picture, doesn't it? Just as the budget tells the story, the numbers also paint a picture of what's happening.
Sarah: I feel that we are that arts organizations. And often, artists who are working on their own, who haven't got a wider support network, often feel really anxious about being accountable to the funders, that they might have done it wrong. I think it's quite good to flip that narrative a little bit. And it is public money in a lot of cases. I think there's a lot of fear about accountability. And I know when I speak to individual artists, they're often quite worried about filling in end of grant report forms or something like this. And I think there's quite a lot of fear and mystery around that sort of accountability. And the more you do, you realise you've done a good job and that's fine.
Naomi: Yeah, absolutely. I recognise that pattern as well. I've seen that. What are the risks, Sarah, if you don't hold this responsibility effectively?
Sarah: Well, I can't bear seeing money being wasted. That's a risk. People don't stick to timescales. I think depending on how you're working, it's really important for regular communication to just have a good plan. And things can slip and things might not happen well. It's sometimes hard to hold people accountable, particularly if it's somebody you like, and they might be a friend or something and you realise they're not doing it. But I think there's something quite concrete about setting targets and checking in along the way. And if those targets aren't being met to try and understand why, you can always change a target. But again, it's that tightrope. It's that tightrope.
Naomi: And that's interesting, isn't it? Because there I'm hearing you speaking with your producer hat on, I'm imagining talking about setting targets for artists and kind of checking in. And so it's that responsibility that you as a producer are holding on behalf of the organisation, in a sense on behalf of the community, to ensure that the artist is delivering. And then, like you say, having a conversation to find out what's going on if things are slipping.
Sarah: I think when we first started speaking, I spoke about being ambitious. And I think to be ambitious is good. And I think to have high expectations is good. And it's also nobody wants anyone to work ridiculously over their hours. I feel that's really important. But use your resource wisely and actually be accountable. I think it's really important for everyone to be accountable for their actions, yeah, and to take responsibility. Those are the hardest conversations, I think, particularly if you're a producer or you're managing something and you think something's not quite going to plan and there isn't accountability, they are really hard conversations to have.
Naomi: What do you do to enable yourself to have those conversations? Because you're right, you have to have them and you know they're going to be hard. So what is it that you do personally to enable yourself to have that conversation in a way that feels authentic for you?
Sarah: I think it comes back to clarity, actually. Clarity. And my ex-husband had a saying that I find quite useful, which is you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. And knowing that holding on to we're all good people trying to do a good job. Let's just work it out and work out how we can don't let it go on for too long. That's the other thing. Don't let it go on for too long.
Naomi: So if you spot that something's not working to actually name it as soon as you spot it, rather than to let it go and then have to deal with a bigger problem later on.
Sarah: This is such a complex issue. I was discussing this yesterday. I think if people are set into systems that are really alien to them, it's hard to be accountable because you've been asked to do something that you don't really know what to do. And I think sometimes people have got a huge amount of capability, but the way it's presented and what we're asking is in such a sort of narrow-minded system. And if you are having a conversation with someone that might feel uncomfortable about accountability, sometimes we might want to consider access and the systems within which we as artists and arts organisations work in, I think are very narrow systems and it's almost impossible for them to take into consideration all the access needs that people need.
So as an example, I have ADHD and I have somebody to help me a couple of hours a week. I would not have been able to log on to this this morning without that support because it just would have thrown me. And so I like to consider if I'm talking to someone about accountability, what is it that might have prevented them because it's very, very hard to ask for help. And often there's not help there either. It's a real mix. I think accountability, depending on who you're speaking to, might also come from some sort of access need. And also we live in a world that's deeply biased and a lot of people that often we work with in a co-created way may not have all the skills and tools at their hands to be fully accountable.
Naomi: Do you use ‘Access Rider’? Is that a process you use with the artists that you work with?
Sarah: It is. And depending on how long a piece of work is within the community, we will also use that for participants. And that's where your access budget.
Naomi: Can you just talk through, just in case people aren't familiar with the term ‘Access Rider’, could you just talk through what that process involves?
Sarah: It might be called something different. It's basically what do we need to put in place to enable either the artist or the participant to do their best work? What are their access needs? And they might just be really varied. So actually, I might not call it an ‘Access Rider’. It might be something like what do you need to do your best work? And I think having a flexible approach to that just feels really important.
Naomi: Brilliant. Thank you so much, Sarah. We're coming to the end of this episode. Is there anything else you would like to say about the responsibility of being accountable?
Sarah: It's really hard sometimes. I think it's a huge thing. And I think if people are working within organisations and the organisations are growing and stuff, it ties in with HR and all sorts of stuff, communication is just massively key. And often, if you're having a conversation with someone about being accountable, it's worth considering that that person might be struggling. So you can approach that with care and kindness. Most of us who are in this job are really good people who are overworked. Yeah, support is needed.
Naomi: Yes. And underpaid and undervalued. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much, Sarah. So just reflecting on all the responsibilities that have emerged in the research, do you think there's any other responsibilities that are missing?
Sarah: Probably, but I'll think about that in two hours' time. It'll pop into my head in two hours' time. That’s what will happen.
Naomi: Brilliant. Okay, we will leave it there then. Thank you so much for your time today, Sarah Blowers. It's been an absolute pleasure talking to you. If you're interested in finding out more about Sarah's work at Strike A Light, please follow the links below the podcast episode. Thanks, Sarah.
Sarah: Thank you. Bye-bye.