{"id":59190,"date":"2014-07-21T09:30:34","date_gmt":"2014-07-21T08:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/?p=59190"},"modified":"2017-03-27T11:12:28","modified_gmt":"2017-03-27T10:12:28","slug":"recap-report-wales-centre-artistic-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/?p=59190","title":{"rendered":"Recap Report: Wales as a centre of artistic freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pNv1J0_jRQY\" width=\"700\" height=\"394\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Index on Censorship&#8217;s ArtFreedomWales launched on Friday with the first online conversation about artistic freedom of expression in Wales with playwright Tim Price, singer,\u00a0actor,\u00a0writer Lisa Jen, poet\u00a0and\u00a0writer Kathryn Gray and visual artist Leah Crossley \u2013 though unfortunately we lost Crossley\u2019s connection early on.<\/p>\n<p>The live-broadcast, hosted by Julia Farrington (Associate Arts Producer Index) opened on the question: &#8220;How free do you feel to express yourself as an artist in Wales?&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Price kicked off by talking about the constraints posed by the Welsh language. \u201cWe are a bilingual nation, but we [artists] are not all bilingual\u2026There is a whole element of Welsh experience that isn\u2019t available to me because I don\u2019t speak Welsh.<\/p>\n<p>Gray agreed, \u201clanguage barrier blocks expression and collective understanding of our differences and similarities. This is disabling for the arts in Wales.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jen, whose first language is Welsh, moves comfortably between the two \u2013 singing in Welsh, writing plays in English \u2013 as this seems the most natural way to express herself. But there are massive problems \u201cwhen you try and do things bilingually like run a workshop in Welsh, and bilingualise it &#8211; then it\u2019s impossible. English always oppresses the Welsh\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Our next broadcast in Welsh in August 1st, will look specifically at the opportunities for and obstacles to expression for artists working in Welsh.<\/p>\n<p>Price also stressed that for most people access to opportunities to express themselves through the arts is the greatest obstacle of all. The panellists all agreed that this was as much to do with a \u201ccollective low self-esteem across the country\u201d or as Jen put it: \u201cWhether you are a Welsh language speaker or not, we are a flipping insecure nation.\u201d Price said that the most common problem he finds when he runs writing workshops \u201cis that many people believe that no one can possibly be interested in what we have to say.\u201d The legacy of being England\u2019s oldest colony and Westminster\u2019s failure to invest in infrastructure, were cited as contributory causes.<\/p>\n<p>Other obstacles discussed included self-censorship &#8211; how cultural institutions and the subsidy culture influence what is sayable, the imbalance between the considerable support for poets and the lack of support for playwrights who want to make the big step into the professional arena. Gray also pointed to the Welsh media\u2019s lack of critical engagement on an artistic or political level that \u201cwould help people to understand the regime we are living under\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>There were strong positives too \u2013 the support for emerging artists, a great DIY culture amongst fellow artists at grassroots level, new cultural infrastructure \u2013 and the acknowledgement that Wales was an exciting place to be an artist now. Jen: \u201cWe have freedom to do whatever we want but few playwrights are making big, political work with a big massive voice.\u201d She went on to say that there is no shortage of issues for Welsh artists to make work about but \u201cwe are playing safe. I am sick of seeing safe work that doesn\u2019t tell me anything. I want to feel scared, feel danger.\u201d Gary agreed, \u201cArt should be about smashing things up. May things come from the ruins.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But is there an appetite for more courageous, challenging work amongst the audience? The panellists agreed that the audience in Wales is innately conservative \u2013 the fact that Radio Cymru said that Jen\u2019s music was not suitable for daytime listening is evidence of this \u2013 has to be taken into account. As Price said \u201cWe are a nation under siege from England, so culture remains about preserving and sustaining what we have.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Follow and participate in the discussions\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ArtFreedomWales\">@artfreedomwales<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/2014\/07\/artfreedomwales-project\/\">Find out more about Index&#8217;s\u00a0UK arts programme<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/2014\/07\/recap-report-wales-centre-artistic-freedom\">This article was posted on July 21, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"460\" height=\"259\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pNv1J0_jRQY\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>ArtFreedomWales launched on Friday with the first online conversation about artistic freedom of expression in Wales.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":59304,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[5641,6581,7,581],"tags":[7443,3669,1941],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59190"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59190"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87413,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59190\/revisions\/87413"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/59304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}