Thoughts on the Afterlife: A Challenge to the Funding System
Susanne Burns reflects on how Fevered Sleep moves forward, shifts and settles into the work which comes with greater levels of funding, and the challenges that this new way of working brings.
In 2016, when Fevered Sleep secured long term funding from the Wellcome Trust through the Sustaining Excellence fund and a similar long-term commitment from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, it provided a degree of security and stability that is not common in the cultural sector. Combining these two sources of funding with the pre-existing NPO funding secured from ACE, the company was able to fundamentally change the way they had been working within an insecure project funding paradigm. It was described by the Chair as
“a major confluence of three long term funding agreements.”
“In the past we had to go where the money was. But now we are able to afford to do the projects we want to do artistically. We are able to work carefully and attentively with people in localised projects that have depth and that do not have to be high profile. For example, This Grief Thing would not have been possible without the funding security. The funding has enabled us to work in this way.”
— Executive Director
But, there are a series of challenges inherent in this. The funding will end in 2020 and the company are already addressing the reality of this and considering how they will be able to sustain this way of working beyond the funding period.
“We have refreshed and expanded the Board bringing in new skills and we are confident and strong. The funding could have generated complacency but we have not allowed that to happen. Instead we have focussed on the fact that it has been game changing and we must sustain this somehow.”
— Chair
Is it realistic to aim to sustain the depth and intensity of the new way of working without long term funding commitments? Is there a responsibility on the funders who have enabled this change to continue to support at levels that allow this way of working?
“The funders must know that they can’t be there and then not be there.”
The company themselves are working on potential solutions including the development of long term strategic partnerships with venues and agencies that are sustainable and the development of a body of work that can be toured and recommissioned – Men and Girls Dance has a longevity and there is demand for the project internationally as well as across the UK.
It has generated greater confidence in the team both artistically and creatively. It has also changed the way the company works by enabling the overlaying of projects and this has stretched capacity in significant ways.
Firstly, it has supported creative freedom and risk taking and on occasions, it has taken the artistic directors out of their comfort zones and into new roles and methods of working. They have been able to be provocative and have had the space and permission to explore what matters to them as artists. Two examples serve to illustrate this. Institute of Everything has afforded the opportunity to work for a year with a school in an experimental way to better understand how the artists can bring creative solutions, critical thinking and different ways of being to the school development agenda.
“The backdrop is a real school with real expectations and real children. We are having to manage expectations very carefully. There is a degree of nervousness and this is stretching us and is very challenging.”
— Project Manager
This Grief Thing stretched their role as artists as the project was primarily a space where people were given permission to express something that is often hidden. The conversations that took place were rich, deep and meaningful. The fact that this space is also a shop where products could be bought was a secondary level of interaction. The project was described by one of the Artistic Directors as
“the most difficult thing we have ever done. It is challenging and exhausting.”
— Artistic Director
It was also described as
“exposed – we were sitting in a cold shop in Middlesborough - away from base and home - and I felt the need to be ‘held.”
— Artistic Director
Secondly, the overlaying of projects has implications for the internal working of the company. When operating project to project there are hiatuses and gaps. But this way of working has created ‘traffic jams’ – a permanently ‘busy time’ where multiple projects are being managed simultaneously and where new skills and capabilities are needed. Taking forward the learning from one project to another is a further challenge when time is short.
The resources have been deployed internally to be “better” not “bigger”. Thus, enhanced capacity in research and learning has been a priority alongside communications, partnership development and production. This in turn has created challenges as the team have different working patterns with some being part time and others full time. Communication can be challenging in this context and it is stretching the culture of the company which is open and supportive.
“I call the office a lot as I need to feel connected – I want to ask ‘how are you? ‘and to be asked the same in return. This connection and care is a part of our culture.”
These challenges are being addressed openly and collaboratively. Attending Team meetings has enabled me to observe the genuine care with which the issues are addressed, the equality afforded to every view and perspective and the care that is taken to support workloads and concerns. The intention is always to improve the quality of everyone’s experience.
Fevered Sleep’s particular approach to making work is research led, inquiry driven, deeply participatory and localised. This challenges the funding system. It is not necessarily linear, it doesn’t fit traditional touring paradigms or even artforms. The depth they have been supported to work towards is not achievable within existing structures. Is it time for the very structures to be challenged if we genuinely want to sustain excellence?
