- Art from the back of a lorry
Prologue
Bringing art to the masses;
Art sets you free?
Prologue
Bringing art to the masses;
Art sets you free?
Freedom is the absence of coercion:
x - coercion = freedom
- Friedrich A. Hayek
Back in the country
The ‘rural’ area is not really rural, at least in an homogeneous sense – See Id of the Ingenu, June 2010: Galería FAR, How to invigorate struggling rural economies; para 10, City to countryside - transects
This article is a complement to the above piece, which outlines the broader context. This article offers a practical possibility – solutions for a shrinking planet.
Small and medium sized villages sit within rural landscape, but are themselves often quite compact – urban - albeit in a small concentration. These are served by main villages, which are usually quite close by. As such, the issue of transport becomes more salient, but usually because there is less of it than larger fully urban areas, which have continuity of built up areas between centres, unlike rural places. This discrepancy therefore masks a number of issues, most significantly that that rural areas are often considered to be completely different - the opposite - to the urban.
We take transport in cities for similar reasons to people in rural areas – to get from one area to another which provides something that the area where we live does not have, be it shopping, friends, employment or leisure activities. So despite very different appearances and experiences of moving around, there may be much more in common between urban and rural areas than is often credited. Two areas where there is very little in common, however, seem to be general attention and inward investment to rural areas, be it economic or infrastructure (social and physical).
Rural areas can have a tendency to only provide a more subsistence type of services and facilities. This would tend to include some leisure, such as eating, drinking, sport, but typically not much culturally related. Whilst we must remain aware of the dangers of the notion of foisting art on the masses to ‘improve them’, there is the broader implication that merely having ‘art’ as a presence will offer an additional strand of influence, so opening up new possibilities and opportunities for people living away from metropolitan centres. This only really represents an ‘evening up’ of the exposure between those living cities and those in rural areas. Why would people in rural areas be any less likely to enjoy and benefit from cultural activities than people living in larger urban areas. Rural area dwellers can also be urbane.
A lorry load of art
The shipping container offers a standardised way to transport goods, even if those goods are pieces of art. And if used as a gallery ‘ready made’, ie with the pieces already mounted on the inside of a container fitted out as a display space, it provides an almost immediately available gallery. Because the container is standardised and common, it offers a much easier and cheaper way to transport and display pieces of artwork, and therefore be able to more regularly change the display at any given location. It does though require other services to form a complete array of gallery services.
The containerised galleries simply plug into (back-up to) the core facility building, which permanently holds administration, other galleries, lecture facilities, shop, toilets, etc. This offers complementary spaces and services to the, admittedly narrow, container galleries.
A container could also just be in car parks, but the idea is that people come across these facilities, particularly at the village level, in the same places that they would be when going about their regularly daily business, not a special destination per se. The people that already go to cultural destinations will already tend to go to existing cultural places, so serving them does not achieve an expansion of exposure of cultural works, although perhaps more easily visited if it were available in smaller towns.
Although the larger scale two facilities need to be incorporated into the urban fabric, they could be part of an out of town retail park or shopping mall. Also, these places being frequented by many people, means the car park would offer a viable location for just a lone container, albeit staffed.
The art facility falls into three types, each to serve a different catchment area, but to develop regularity and links of usage between each other both up and down the scales, to tie in with how people use the various urban centres available to them over different time periods: daily, weekly, monthly, seasonally, annually.
The three facility types sit hierarchically – nested - in that each is assumed to provide the services, facilities and amenities of that of the scale below. Outlined here are centre profiles which each of the three types will serve:
Main village
Serves as hub for smaller (residential only) villages nearby: has banks, cafes, bars, restaurants, food shops, some comparison retail, clinic and post office;
Employment only serving facilities provided;
Local town hall;
Bus service to at least nearest market town;
Population circa 2000
- trips daily/ weekly. Less than half an hour away
Market town
Serves as main centre for that district, including weekly market, significant comparison retail, leisure and library;
Employment serving facilities provided, as well as some general businesses, but only limited to those serving that district area;
Employment training and enterprise development;
District town hall;
Train station;
Population circa 20,000
- trips weekly/ monthly. Less than one hour away
Regional centre
Serves as capital of metropolitan region;
Includes services and amenities up to theatres, galleries, symphony hall;
Regional Government offices/ administration of political region;
Employment up to companies operating at a national level;
Colleges to degree/ masters level;
National rail station and airport;
Population circa 200,000
- trips monthly/ seasonally. Less than two hours away
(Schools are not included in the three centre profiles because they are provided to 18 years of age at the smallest: the main village scale, so are common to all three)
As outlined above is only the typical scenario. It is, for example, possible for an international company to be established in a medium sized village – a company not primarily serving the area in which it is situated, but merely taking advantage of the area for the services and amenity that area affords its staff . This provides the opportunity for some employment over and above that serving the local area.
As outlined above is only the typical scenario. It is, for example, possible for an international company to be established in a medium sized village – a company not primarily serving the area in which it is situated, but merely taking advantage of the area for the services and amenity that area affords its staff . This provides the opportunity for some employment over and above that serving the local area.
By developing connections through the presence of all three key scales of centre, people can use the most local outlet to find out about other events at the larger facilities, and a small part of an exhibition can be displayed around villages on quite a rapid turnaround, almost as a taster of the full exhibition which it can plug back into back at the main facility.
They would also form hubs for readings, performances, internet access, information about related events, employment opportunities in the creative sector, and grants for enterprise around cultural businesses.
