Guest Blog: James Scotland On Outdoor Festival THE SUNDAY ART CLUB

The Sunday Art Club (TSAC) is the brainchild of Trix Mendes, Artistic Director of Outside The Zone (OTZ), and is the first fruitful collaboration between OTZ and Khaos. In response to COVID-19, it was really important to us both that we focused on artistic creativity, and having wanted to collaborate for some time, The Sunday Art Club became the perfect expression.

Trix Mendes and I co-curate TSAC and are very excited to have a platform for a diverse range of voices, which I'm confident will be a very unique offering.

Khaos (formerly Outer Gaea Company) was founded through a need to tell different stories, celebrate unsung heroes, and further enrich the independent art scene, which is naturally best equipped for experimentation and reaching new audiences.

Before graduating from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, my fellow alumni and I felt a deep need to take the theatre practices of old and encourage a different kind of process, one that included diverse artists and spoke to a range of people in locations often underserved.

It is with this mission, that many companies within the independent art scene try to establish themselves, and without support, it is nigh on impossible to break through.

The importance of supporting the independent art scene can't be stressed enough, especially if we consider that it required a lot more support than it was receiving prior to COVID-19. Support needs to come from both industry and patrons. I echo Lynn Gardner's call back in February 2020 to support theatre's young producers and protect them from burnout which I and co-founder Sanja Gregorcic experienced as a real danger for us when trying to get projects through to completion.

On one hand, you hope that industry powers (funding bodies etc.) recognise the work that you're making and that can go a long way, and on the other, you'd be content with the public simply engaging with your art and talking about it, effectively helping you cover the overheads. For a long time now, theatre enthusiasts themselves have debated whether or not a fringe show should carry a £20 ticket price, and compare the quality of theatre to larger subsidised theatres where tickets cost upwards of £15.

This has been a major part of the problem, especially from the union side of things regarding low pay or no pay. If audiences aren't prepared to pay £15-20 for fringe theatre, it needs to be understood that ticket sales will rarely ever be enough to pay cast and crew a respectable wage, and that was the reality before COVID-19.

No one quite knows how things will look for arts and businesses going forward, but the one thing we can bet on is that independent arts will not have comparable budgets in which to cushion against lost earnings and low audience turnout. Support for fringe companies and emerging companies by both patrons and funding bodies will be essential. If we fail in this, then only a select number of voices will be heard as we emerge from this global tragedy.

The Sunday Art Club, like some other initiatives, is working on becoming COVID-19 secure and functioning in a state of eased lockdown and complete lockdown, if reimposed. Whilst this may work for a time, the 'not knowing' about the future will have a cost too.

Positive change is within our grasp though, and I know that if audiences head online and connect with the artists/venues that they want to support and hear more from, our attitudes to theatre-making and art consumption will change for the better.

The next Sunday Art Club is on 30 August

Photograph courtesy of Richard Lipman

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