This conversation took place in the North Staffs Hotel,
Wayne Thexton: Right, was does err…(laughs) What does regeneration mean?
Anna Francis: What does regeneration mean?
WT: To you? What does it mean to you?
AF: erm…
WT: Your next question is, what does it look like?
AF: OK, I think probably in terms of what I do, my work, regeneration is looking at, erm…
WT: No. That’s not the question
AF: No? OK.
WT: What does regeneration mean in a general sense, when you read the word regeneration, we’re interested…
AF: It’s about NEW stuff, but it’s also about what was/what is there and how that is refreshed, I think, and it’s about…growing, and about life going on, that’s what I think it’s about.
WT: OK, alright, what does it look like then, either in a general sense, or in relation to
AF: erm. I think at the moment, in Stoke-on-Trent, regeneration looks like things being knocked down, but actually, broader terms, longer term, regeneration is about, looks like things being rebuilt and new stuff happening, erm and hopefully positive good new things erm, yeah I mean I think regeneration somewhere like Liverpool looks like a building site, and Stoke looks the same, but at the moment Stoke doesn’t even look yet like a building site it looks like an emptying out car park, erm but hopefully in the future it will look like things being rebuilt and new things happening.
WT: mmmm, err does that provoke any particular feelings for you? As either a thing that is really happening, or could happen, or just a concept, do you, does regeneration broadly feel like a good thing? Does it warm your heart – do you think, being in
AF: erm, I dunno. I think it’s because it’s so much everywhere, then it’s like inevitable and there’s nothing, I feel very powerless I suppose, about it, it’s happening and that’s that; it actually feels quite negative at the moment, it feels just like an emptying out of a city, and y’know, it’s very erm sort of unsure, and very feels very erm, not dodgey, but kind of precarious, and that we could go too far, and what if we just empty everything, and then nothing gets put back in those spaces y’know. I mean, going somewhere like Berlin where, there’s still spaces left by bombs from the war, y’know and those spaces have been there forever, it’s really frightening because at the moment, this place looks a bit like a war zone I think erm, so at the moment it does feel quite, quite empty and ugly and erm frightening, but hopefully, hopefully we might soon start to see the other side of it and it might start to be less, less sort of, less about emptying out and more about filling in.
WT: mmm
AF: I mean that’s the hope isn’t it?
WT: yeeeh. Yeah, good. Alright, if everyone’s work could be thought of as a mission, what would your mission be?
AF: When you say work, do you mean practice or?
WT: That’s a good way
AF: or job or?
WT: That’s a good qualifier, erm. Alright, lets lose the word work, practice is a word we could use. Yeah, let’s use the word practice.
AF: Mmm-hmm
WT: If everyone’s practice, although it’s not just actually about that, cause I’m not desperate to isolate artists, and creative - capital C - practice, but yes for now let us say what, in terms of what you do…
AF: If I had a mission statement do you mean?
WT: I’m not after anything that formal, err but actually that might work, strangely, yeah so alright, what err…
AF: erm
WT: What are you keen to achieve, if that’s…appropriate
AF: I think I want to make some sort of sense of where I am, and as I’m in this city, then where this city is. erm and also, I think really, I’m very keen to sort of not encourage, but almost sort of say, anything goes - in a way, to people, almost say look you know, OK don’t wait around for things to happen to you, y’know, don’t feel like you are powerless or that you have to wait for people to choose you for things or accept you for things or erm, sort of err allocate things to you, go and sort of, do it yourself and make your own, sort of existence, or make your own, not luck but make your own decisions and make your own erm exi.. no
I dunno what the word is…
WT: like, design your own life, sort of thing
AF: yeah
WT: be active, be proactive
AF: because actually I think as artists a lot of the time we are waiting for galleries to give us shows, or we’re waiting for people to accept our proposals and give us projects and y’know waiting for recognition in all of those cases, actually you don’t have to because, if you wanna do something, then you wanna do it regardless of those things and you should just get out there and do it. And weirdly, somehow, by doing that, and setting these things up it will maybe come to you anyway, so I guess I’m keen to say erm take control of your own space and the things that happen around you and take control of your own city, and how, especially somewhere like Stoke where it does feel like decisions are being made all the time, and who is consulting us, the people who live here, we should just go out there and start making ourselves known and making ourselves heard and setting up our own things if we believe in it. So, I suppose that’s what my mission statement is, which was quite long in the end.
WT: mmmm, errr. Alright , as a, do you like the word artist or practitioner?
AF: yeah, artist is fine.
WT: Alright, as an artist. What are your strengths?
AF: erm. (Breathes) I think I’m quite good at making connections, erm in terms of linking things in my mind, so I’m good at saying that is like that. And that is relevant to that. That’s one of my strengths, kind of understanding how things link and what is relevant to other things. I think I’m really good at making the most out of nothing, if you know what I mean, erm I think I’m quite good at capitalizing on a very small opportunity or erm and turning it into something which is big. Erm so I suppose that’s being resourceful, erm. I think I’m quite good at talking to people as well, I think I’m quite good at getting people to do stuff, in a way.
WT: Good.
AF: yeah. I think people may find me accessible or something like that.
WT: How about…either as an artist or as a person, what might you like to be better at.
AF: erm I’m always told that actually, I’m not that good at visualising things, so erm
WT: Is that appropriate?
AF: erm..Yeah. So yeah I’d probably like to be better at that, and it is something that I try to do more, try to erm y’know show what I’m thinking, I think I have really, I think I’m a very good ideas person but maybe at times the final product erm could have more work or could be better, so I’d like to be better at finishing, and erm and visualising. And I think that’s probably one of the problems I have with, y’know proposals, when I send proposals, like, maybe I’m not being visual enough and I’m not showing what I mean, and maybe that needs work, maybe that’s one of the things that I need to be better at…I dunno. I’ve been told that before so,
WT: yeah yeah, good. Ok. Alright, you’ve already answered the next question, kind of. Is there anything that you want to convince the people of
AF: yes, I also think one of the really key things that I really believe in is that this city is a creative city, and has a history of being a creative city, erm in terms of the potteries, but sees itself rather than being creative, being industrial and it really doesn’t recognise its strengths and that there are really fantastically creative people here. It doesn’t seem to realise that of itself, and it almost despises that, and I think
WT: What does it despise?
AF: It despises being creative, somehow it sees that as something which is for fairies or something (laughs), y’know, not fairies, but you know what I mean like for wishy-washy types, that that isn’t, that isn’t a viable direction for a serious city to take, there’s this kind of erm, I feel like there’s this kind of erm y’know, worthiness that y’know, hands on jobs have, but creative industries doesn’t, it’s like that isn’t respectable to be erm to be creative and to be artistic or I think y’know Stoke really has a problem with that, it has a problem with recognising creativity as something which is valuable.
WT: That’s a really interesting distinction, because I’ve never had that put to me so concisely or even I’ve never even thought of that, but you’re absolutely, I concur with you on that, I will remember that quite pithy way of putting that, and I’m sure I will use it, I’m absolutely convinced. In what context, I have no idea, but that is that, ok. Now, done that. Erm. Which discrete groups, if any, have you already reached as part of your, whatever this work is that you’ve been doing.
AF: erm, well, I think, the artistic community, but they’re not the people that I probably want to reach with it, so, erm.
WT: When I say reach, I suppose I should verify that a bit, we’ve got the people who will take an interest in the work as it’s happening, and when it’s finished, and we’ve got the people who are, in inverted commas, participating in the production of it, or process and unfolding of it, but who are the groups who have been reached in all of that?
AF: Nobody yet.
WT: Oh. OK
AF: because it’s the beginning of the project, this project. I guess, in terms of, it was almost sort of launched in I think it was May, from AirSpace Gallery.
WT: Oh right.
AF: This sort of project which was ‘What this city really needs…’ That, I didn’t know it was going to become this, at the time it was just a sort of, I felt like I wanted to find out what people thought, so I
WT: Is this the Longhouse thing?
AF: yeah
WT: Is there, are you funded? Is your time paid for?
AF: Yes, well it will be yeah.
WT: Is this money you have already had?
AF: Not yet. You don’t have to do anything actually, it’s all about the process, and it’s called action research
WT: I know about action research
AF: Oh right, well that’s what this is, but basically, what happened was, because I already did the Longhouse Professional artist development thing, which do you know about that?
WT: Yeah, I knew about the launch, but I wasn’t there.
AF: Yeah so, that was when…
WT: See actually, Just I mean not clearly read much about that, I assumed that was the end, I didn’t read the word launch, I thought that was the end when people came to tell us about what people had been doing. Which it wasn’t.
AF: It was actually, it was the end of the project, basically, what happened was, the Longhouse PAD thing goes to different places each year, and it works in places where radical change is happening, and it talks about artists and creative people can be involved in that process and it tries to set up this best practice model for people in the city to understand what we as artists do, erm and work with us in some way, so it also means that the artists get some kind of training in how you might access these people and what is possible, then the artists come up with proposals for change in the city, that they’ve worked together in, so that was that, and we all did that, we all wrote proposals and we sent them in, and nothing has happened, very much like Stoke-on-Trent, other places that these PAD things have happened and stuff has then happened afterwards, y’know people have taken on the artists’ ideas and maybe done them, but none of it has happened yet here, it might do I mean, still could do, but erm anyway, I wanted to do this thing where I, I just felt like OK as artists we were invited to look at the city of Stoke-on-Trent, and respond to it, and say what we think needs to change and that was there was 3 people, me, Rachel Grant and David Bethell, who were from here, and the other people weren’t from here, so they were responding to a place that they didn’t know and I felt that actually we need to ask the people of Stoke-on-Trent as well, y’know what do you think about the same question that we were asked, so that’s why
WT: What was the question?
AF: Well, there wasn’t really a specific question, but I felt that the question was erm, what can artists and creative people do, or what kind of ideas would help the city to be better and to regenerate, ok so that was where ‘What this city really needs’ comes from...
MORE LATER>>>
