{"id":62226,"date":"2014-12-15T08:17:49","date_gmt":"2014-12-15T08:17:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/?p=62226"},"modified":"2017-03-29T11:00:29","modified_gmt":"2017-03-29T10:00:29","slug":"%e2%80%8bart-freedom-wales-%e2%80%8band-beyond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/?p=62226","title":{"rendered":"Exploring \u200bartistic freedom in Wales and beyond"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u200bIndex on Censorship has been\u200b\u00a0exploring artistic freedom of expression and contemporary forms of censorship in\u00a0the \u200bUK.\u00a0Who or what controls what is sayable in the arts?\u00a0W\u200bho has a voice in the arts?\u00a0Do the answers vary as we move around the different\u00a0\u200bmember \u200bnations of the UK\u200b?<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qtd8eLwyhdA\" width=\"620\" height=\"349\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Looking at our culture through the prism of artistic freedom of expression\u00a0opens up questions about\u00a0the power relations between artists\u200b, venues\u200b, audience\u200bs\u200b,\u00a0\u200bthe \u200bpolice,\u00a0the \u200bmedia and community interest.<\/p>\n<p>Our\u00a0initial \u200bcase study <a href=\"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/2014\/11\/beyond-belief-policing-free-expression\/\">Beyond Belief \u2013 theatre, freedom of expression and the police<\/a>\u00a0offered insight into how these relationships are\u00a0\u200b\u200boften\u00a0played out in the present day\u200b. \u00a0Deepening our exploration,\u00a0conferences in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/takingtheoffensive\/\">London in 2013<\/a>\u200b and Belfast \u200bin early 2014,\u00a0\u200bhave been followed by a programme of work in Wales in the latter half of this year. Art Freedom Wales was Index&#8217;s exploration of whether Wales is enjoying its right to artistic free expression.\u200b<\/p>\n<p>\u200bAcross all three projects, \u200bit is\u00a0becoming\u00a0clear there are massive pressures on what is sayable in the arts&#8211;rifts around \u200bwhat is acceptable to funders, to the audience,\u00a0to \u200bpublic opinion,\u00a0or \u200beven health and safety.\u00a0It is also clear that there are significant questions\u00a0around the issue of access to artistic expression&#8211;for established and aspiring artists, as well as the public at large. Events this past summer at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/2014\/09\/exhibit-b-censorship-pure-simple\/\">Barbican around Brett Bailey&#8217;s Exhibit B<\/a> have underlined recurring questions around the role of the police and the media in shaping what\u00a0gets to be seen.<\/p>\n<p>In 2015, Index is planning\u00a0\u200bto explore the state of artistic freedom in Scotland\u00a0\u200bbefore holding a state of the nations event which will\u00a0bring together\u200b key players to discuss how to reinforce support for artistic expression across the UK.\u200b<\/p>\n<p><strong>ArtFreedomWales<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Over the past few months Index\u2019s project ArtFreedomWales has hosted a series of online discussions with artists from across Wales\u200b&#8211;established artists, emerging artists and artists working in Welsh. \u200b<a href=\"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/2014\/11\/27-nov-art-freedom-walesfree-speech-hearing\/\">You can \u200bcatch up with everything that\u2019s been said here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pNv1J0_jRQY\" width=\"620\" height=\"349\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u200bThese discussions, and the issues they raised\u200b,\u200b\u200b informed our approach to a\u200b Free Speech Hearing in Cardiff on 27 November.\u00a0As a\u00a0culmination of the project,\u00a0the hearing invited\u00a0practitioners\u00a0from\u00a0across art forms\u00a0alongside\u00a0policy makers and cultural gatekeepers to \u200bcome together to\u00a0discuss the question &#8220;Is Wales enjoying its right to freedom of artistic expression?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>To open the hearing, Index invited\u00a0Turkish playwright Meltem Arikan, an established artist, with direct experience of censorship\u200b who is now living in exile in Wales,\u00a0to\u00a0survey the Welsh arts scene\u00a0from\u00a0the eye of an outsider.\u200b<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/S-kDYZ5KnG0?list=PLlUhPA3TuB5475DLmeYcSNPtwjp6vJUMF\" width=\"620\" height=\"349\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u200bThis was followed \u200bwith an array of evidence volunteered from across Wales, short presentations surfacing a number of topics from offence to rumour, and self-censorship to cultural education.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4H9XtrQ5OR0?list=PLlUhPA3TuB5475DLmeYcSNPtwjp6vJUMF\" width=\"620\" height=\"349\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Moving from the stage to discussion between peers, major themes and concerns were examined in more detail in breakout sessions.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7k6uKHvSiKc?list=PLlUhPA3TuB5475DLmeYcSNPtwjp6vJUMF\" width=\"620\" height=\"349\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Finally, a panel discussion featuring\u00a0Dai Smith (Arts Council Wales), John McGrath (National Theatre Wales), David Anderson (Museums Wales), Lleucu Siencyn (Literature Wales) and Elen ap Robert (Pontio) asked how leading organisations in Wales might take on some of the issues raised during the afternoon?<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/IjMbUpA6yVk?list=PLlUhPA3TuB5475DLmeYcSNPtwjp6vJUMF\" width=\"620\" height=\"349\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\u200bhttp:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/2014\/12\/art-freedom-wales-\u200band-beyond\">This article was posted on Dec 10, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Index on Censorship has been\u200b\u00a0exploring artistic freedom of expression and contemporary forms of censorship in\u00a0the \u200bUK.\u00a0Who or what controls what is sayable in the arts?\u00a0W\u200bho has a voice in the arts?\u00a0Do the answers vary as we move around the different\u00a0\u200bmember \u200bnations of the UK\u200b?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":62504,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[6581,581,21],"tags":[7443,3669,1941],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62226"}],"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=62226"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62505,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62226\/revisions\/62505"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/62504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}