It’s ironic that the Side Gallery’s closure due to Arts Council England funding cuts (Report, 6 April) has coincided with the opening, to great acclaim, of Chris Killip’s major retrospective at the nearby Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art. Killip was a founder member of the photographers’ and film-makers’ cooperative that forged the Side, and his indelible cultural mark on north-east England was first cultivated by a two-year Northern Arts funded fellowship.
Such backstories are important to tell, because great art and photography don’t magically appear, gallery-ready, whenever an Arts Council flagship needs a blockbuster exhibition. Significant new bodies of work arise when artists get no-strings funding and commissions, giving them time and space to take artistic risks and leaps.
A vital developmental feature is rigorously discussing art practices among peers within small, artist-run spaces. Arts Council England should rethink its decision to dispense with the Side. It’s an important grassroots organisation with a track record gained over decades both for “telling stories that hit you hard and leave a lasting impression” (as one contributor to the #SaveSide crowdfunder put it) and for fostering the messy, dynamic interrelationships, unorthodox career paths and multiple talents of practitioners on which healthy arts futures depend.
Susan Jones
Rowlands Gill, Tyne and Wear
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