Festival developments
15th December 2010
Well, here we are, the first blog from the festival team and we find ourselves at a point that seemed so far away- the launch of our website! A time has arrived where we can start to really interact and engage with the industry, our local communities and of course our international audiences. ‘But what have you all been doing until now?’, we hear your cries (or is that the soothing sound of an email pinging into the look11 inbox?) ‘How can I be part of it? What’s going on? When- we must stop you there, all will be revealed!
Kickstarting the delivery of Look11 in July, the festival team set to work establishing some of the partnerships and covering some of the ground work involved in creating a new festival. This involved making sure that the festival could be as far reaching, as high profile and as visable as possible in it’s first year. (Check out our partners page as an indication for the scale of things to come and this is developing all the time!). We have brought our creative minds together, worn down our finger tips through typing and tried to tell as many people as possible about the festival’s arrival. We have been developing the curated programme with venues across Liverpool, contacting artists, looking at how we can meet audience needs, instigating a variety and range of events for the look11 festival period, exploring our theme, being passionate about the theme, setting up community projects, employing photographers, questioning and analisying the industry, facilitating volunteer opportunities, keeping on track of how the country is unfolding in the headlights of cuts and social unrest, sorting DJ’s, writing the website and trying to get the money to do it all at the same time! It’s a good job that we’re surrounded by and working with photography as we’ve not been able to squeeze in much opportunity to pick up a camera!
Inspired by our socially and politically engaged theme of ‘ A Call to action?’ ,we have been recieving many many great proposals for festival inclusion from local and national photographers (we shall be arranging a proposals event in early January) and have been working hard to facilitate these, generate collaborative relationships and create wider ineterst to secure new spaces- we want photography to be all around and come to the front for the North West’s biggest Photo-fest.
We have been astounded by the support, the enthusiam and orgionality that has been input so far but our festival developments have not been plain sailing! Times have changed in the arts and creative industries. Like in all sectors, organisations are having to ligitimise what they do and for our sector, promote and prove the value that the arts can hold for all people. We have seen freelancers, small companies and big organisations unable to access the funds they need, forced to restrict their offer by closing public venues and reducing services for those who are in real need. Now has never been a time for action! Is Liverpool still as radical, as passionate, as empathic and active as it has been throughout history? We think yes, but can we harness this visually with photography and can we have a footprint?
We present our website to you for it’s launch as a blank canvas, a space that will evolve, be a focal point for photo related happenings and space to be owned by the festival audience. We will look to facilitate, instigate, challenge, question, affirm, present and highlight. We seek to do this through the artistic programme we present, the way that we work closely with communities and how we translate the messages and relevance of photography today.
It’s time to get inter-active.
