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Derry on its Hobby Horse
Colin Darke, March 2003
Derry's artists got together with some friends on
7th March to make some art together. We collaborated to make a large sculpture
from art publications and carried out a performance piece which referred
with a touch of irony to Anthony Gormley's "Field for the British
Isles".
Not the best art any of us has ever made, certainly, but we were still
delighted with our efforts.
The work was part of a day-long protest against the closure of Derry's
Orchard Gallery, organised by a group of artists living and working in
the city. We had just three weeks previously formed ourselves into a campaign
group, calling ourselves Derry's Artists for Derry's Art (DADA)
and this was our first public act, having previously written a letter
of protest to Derry City Council, with a couple of copies to the Arts
Council of Northern Ireland.
(Funny how a name can determine behaviour - when discussing the form
that the protest should take, we found ourselves arguing whether we were
being sufficiently DADAesque in our thinking. This approach to deciding
on stunts designed to attract the media is in itself, of course, very
unDADA; Tzara said in his Dada Manifesto, 1918, "The magic of a word - DADA - which
for journalists has opened the door to an unforeseen world, has for us
not the slightest importance.")
After more than twenty-four years as the central focus for contemporary
art in the city, the Orchard Gallery has become the victim of shortsighted
bureaucratic philistinism. The gallery's doors close at the end of
the financial year and from April Derry will be a city with just one gallery - the
Context, sited at the Playhouse Arts Centre. The Orchard will be replaced
by the "Orchard Agency", aiming to find alternative venues for
exhibiting work, along with commissioning public art works around the
city. A fine idea, and one which we of course support. We always have
supported this initiative, as the Orchard has included this approach almost
since its inception in October 1978. Dressing up an old and up-and-running
idea as something new and innovative is an old political trick, and it's
more than a little insulting to think that we might fall for it.
The Council published a 'Draft Cultural Strategy' last year,
written by the Orchard's first director Declan McGonagle (who has
also run London's ICA and Dublin's IMMA). McGonagle had previously
produced another report for the Council, relating specifically to the
future of the Orchard and outlining proposals for the development of contemporary
art in the city. The second report acted as the basis for a consultation
period, with public meetings held around Derry to discuss the proposed
strategy.
As is so often the case with such initiatives, the consultation process
was poorly publicised, and few of us were even aware that it was taking
place. The Orchard's administration are claiming that artists simply
did not bother to involve themselves with the consultation process; yet
the gallery, which holds all of our names and addresses of in its mailing
list, never thought to canvas our opinions directly on the proposals made
in the Draft Cultural Strategy. Even if we had taken part, the information
contained in the second report was inadequate for any real discussion,
as its visual art element always referred, quite naturally, to the first
report. This would, of course, be fine, if this document were available.
Not so. Requests for copies of the original document, outlining plans
for the Orchard and the proposed expansion of visual art provision, were
met with the response that it was 'not in the public domain'.
Having commissioned a proposal for a cultural strategy from someone with
artistic development and integrity as the basis of his thinking, the City
Council has removed these qualities, in the interests of political and
financial expediency.
At the time of writing, this report remains invisible, but we shall be
receiving our copy soon. We do know that it includes proposals for the
Orchard Agency, a new Orchard Gallery and a Derry Biennale. What we are
getting is the first - the cheapest and least innovative - and with
no information on what it will contain or how it is to be organised.
Derry City Council has behaved abysmally here. It has removed an institution
which has made an enormous contribution to the artistic identity of Ireland,
it has distorted Declan McGonagle's efforts at developing the arts
in Derry and it has alienated the city's art community from its visual
art programme.
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