AC/09/01
UNIVERSITY OF EXETER
Arts and Culture Task and Finish Group
Minutes of the Meeting of 8th December 2008
In Attendance
Janice Kay
Marc Jordan
Jonathan Barry
Paul Beerling
Marion Wood
David Harvey
Gina Cox
Elena Isayev
Michele Shoebridge
Nick Kaye
Pete Hodges (Students’ Guild)
Helen Taylor
Tim Dunne
Rick Rylance
Kate Tyrrell
Pippa Warin (Culture South West)
Nick Mather (Davis Langdon)
Michael Wykes
1. The Chair welcomed the Group and in particular the external members who
joined us for the first time; there were no apologies for absence. The Minutes of
the previous meeting were confirmed.
2. The Western Morning News article reporting on the £20m value of literary giants
to the South West was received and considered to be a timely report and good
advert for Exeter’s strengths in this area. In particular, Special Collections and
our close links with the Du Maurier family are noted.
3. The report of the event to mark the 10th anniversary of Ted Hughes’ death was
received. There was clear agreement that this was a hugely successful and
ambitious event which sets an excellent precedent for the future. It was noted
that the event was heavily dependent on the goodwill of several individuals and
owed a great deal to the work of the Head of Special Collections, Jessica
Gardner. The group wanted to explore the possibility of repeating the film to allow
a wider audience and the involvement of more members of the public than the
strict limit of 120 guests had permitted. There was broad agreement that such
events would form a key component of regular Art and Culture activity at the
University. They would involve stakeholders and provide opportunities for
Knowledge Transfer and networking. This will require financial resources of at
least £5k/annum, plus significant personnel requirements.
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4. The Revised Terms of Reference were received and approved with the minor,
but significant change of re-ordering the list of the five strands of activity for the
group to ensure that the impact of this group on the University’s major capital
building projects was perceived to be more of a priority. Due to the need to
respond swiftly to arts and culture developments within the forum, the Chair
invited members to contact her if they wished to be part of a smaller sub-group
which would meet with the architects to carry forward this work.
5. The audit of cultural activity in the School of Arts, Languages and Literatures was
received, and a similar audit of activity in the School of Geography, Archaeology
and Earth Resources was tabled. The Group welcomed both of these audits and
felt that they provided an immediate opportunity to see connections between
Schools, as well as providing resources for making grant applications and
demonstrating capacity in particular areas. The Group was keen to know how
such audits would be disseminated within Schools, and how they would be
updated and ‘owned’ by the Schools. The suggestion was made to include a
section on ‘public engagement’, and that the audit could benefit from being
broadened out to include Education and Student activity as well. Furthermore,
attempts should be made to link art and culture activity to government priorities,
and in particular to the landmark Creative Britain paper issued by DCMS in
February 2008.
6. Introducing his paper on the University of Exeter Cultural Audit Marc Jordan
welcomed the significant progress made by the audits of SALL and SoGAER.
The group should now look to build on these audits to create a strategy which will
highlight what it is that is special about a University’s contribution to art and
culture: i.e. what it is that a University can do, and in particular, Exeter, which a
consultancy or arts centre can not. Schools should be encouraged to maintain
their own audits of activity whilst the Group should focus on an overview and
University strategy. The Chair signalled that the Group should receive two further
audits from the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, and from the
Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry at the next meeting.
7. Introducing her report, the University Arts and Culture Development Fellow Helen
Taylor outlined the scope for Exeter to take advantage of the potential for
becoming a major force in this field. However, this will require a significant
‘raising of our game’ and concerted effort to coordinate and promote our arts and
culture activity. In so doing we should be selective about what we consider to be
distinctive to Exeter, and focus on those areas which create high impact and
attract major funding. The Group was tasked to consider which ‘themes’ would
form the framework of our future strategy in view of the key criterion to identify
areas where Universities made a significant impact.
8. The Group was very pleased to welcome Pippa Warin, joint chief executive of
Culture South West to introduce their recent strategy documents ‘A Better place
to be’, and ‘People, Places and Spaces’. Presenting the importance of the
Government definition of culture and the creative industries, and the increasing
importance of Unitary Authorities in local administration, the Group considered
the role of Universities in this area. It was suggested that Universities’ roles
would be found in Knowledge Transfer and in those porous and invisible
boundaries between Universities and their stakeholders.
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9. The Group welcome Nick Mather, of Davis Langdon, the Project Managers for
the Forum Project who presented the computer simulated ‘fly-through’ of the
proposed Forum building. The Group would be called upon to provide key input
and recommendations for how art and culture, visual and performance arts,
should be incorporated into the Forum, and there was clear enthusiasm for this.
The Group discussed the need to integrate research into the design, to maintain
a long term relationship between the Forum and the Northcott Theatre, and to
ensure that disruption to the University’s cultural activities was well managed
during the construction. The Group had a rich discussion around potential
projects as well as broader questions such as water attenuation from the vast
roofing structure, and the potential for other major building projects (the
extension to the Business School and proposed centre for Kurdish Studies) to
provide art and cultural spaces. It was also clear that this should be a question of
the performing arts as well as the visual arts.
Date of the next meeting
The Task and Finish Group will meet on Thursday 26th February at 14:00.
JMK/MW
January 2009
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