A couple of weeks ago, we published a news report on the Save Dartington College website entitled 'Brewerton and Lindsay at loggerheads'. It stated that a meeting between the two, lasting into the early hours of the morning, had broken up acrimoniously with Brewerton storming out saying that he had nothing further to say.
A few minutes after the item appeared, a furious Andrew Brewerton (Principal of the college) contacted me to say that this was completely untrue. Despite evidence to the contrary, we removed the item - after all, he was there...
Last week, together with another campaign member, I met with Vaughan Lindsay in the Seven Stars, on Totnes High Street. The meeting was arranged in order to begin a process of dialogue between us, something which we welcomed.
Among the many interesting bits that emerged, two stuck in my mind. Lindsay said that his relationship with Brewerton was like that between any couple - they had definitely had their moments when relations were less than cordial. He thought this was normal... (I pointed out to him that when the result is divorce, this is a less than optimal outcome)
The second was that his preference was for a unified Dartington and that he would like the college (and all the other bodies on the estate) to be controlled by one governing body. A reliable source has told us that Brewerton's response to this idea was 'over my dead body'.
I have never believed the rationale put out both by Brewerton and Lindsay for the closure (they call it 'relocation') of the college - too many things just don't add up. The inflated figures and distorted projections, the arrival on the estate of personalities like Gavin Henderson, (propelled in a matter of weeks from Director of Dartington Arts to Artistic Director of DartingtonPlus) and the continually shifting sands and moving goalposts all point to a 'weapons of mass destruction' scenario - ie: a desperate attempt to find an excuse to justify a wholly unjustifiable action.
Putting 2 and 2 together in this case gives 4. The trust have, despite their protestations, wanted the college off the estate for years. An intransigent principal like Brewerton is a dream come true for them - Lindsay can sit back and let Brewerton do the dirty work for him, while he issues press releases which talk of 'bittersweet decisions' and 'allowing the college to fulfill its destiny'.
The accomodation issue, inflated to suitable proportions is the perfect smokescreen for both of them - Brewerton, whose expertise is in glass, gets to move to Falmouth, (known for its visual arts, but not for performing arts) no doubt with a nice title and a good salary, no longer dependent on the trust; Lindsay gets rid of an obstinate and difficult partner who is thwarting his efforts to take control and impose his form of order. Once the college is gone, solutions and money will no doubt miracuously appear, and the 'new vision' with its symbols of status and elitism will move in to replace it.
The fact that a whole town and community will be devastated in the process is just one of those unfortunate consequences that we'll have to learn to live with.
Technorarti Tags: Dartington College of Arts
Saturday 30 December 2006
Thursday 21 December 2006
The Power of Community
Totnes is a unique place. Cromwell mustered his first citizen's army on the grounds of St Mary's church. Babbage, inventor of the first computer was born here. Stravinsky and Morton Feldman (to name just two) taught here, at the Dartington Summer School. Last year we were named as one of the '10 funkiest town's in the UK'. You'd be hard pressed to find so many artists and musicians in such a small georgraphical area anywhere outside the great metropolitan areas. Tagore stood on the hill of what is now the Dartington Estate and said 'here!'
The prospect of losing our College of Arts, and without exageration our way of life, to the number crunching steamroller is not something we are willing to contemplate. The question is 'How did we get here in the first place?'
The principal of the college, Andrew Brewerton, and the CEO of the Dartington Hall Trust will tell you that they have spent the last two years in a concerted, but ultimately vain attempt to stave off the inevitable. The state of the student accomodation, the realities of higher education funding, the relentless pressure from the government for small colleges to merge and expand, have all conspired to thwart their efforts. There is, unfortunately, no alternative...
The one place they omitted to look for solutions is in their own back yard. They made the error of not taking into account the will, determination and abilities of their own community. Totnes and the surrounding area is full of people with experience in sustainable, ecologically friendly building. It is full of creative people who could think up ways of generating income for the college, if only they were asked.
Technorarti Tags: Dartington College of Arts
The prospect of losing our College of Arts, and without exageration our way of life, to the number crunching steamroller is not something we are willing to contemplate. The question is 'How did we get here in the first place?'
The principal of the college, Andrew Brewerton, and the CEO of the Dartington Hall Trust will tell you that they have spent the last two years in a concerted, but ultimately vain attempt to stave off the inevitable. The state of the student accomodation, the realities of higher education funding, the relentless pressure from the government for small colleges to merge and expand, have all conspired to thwart their efforts. There is, unfortunately, no alternative...
The one place they omitted to look for solutions is in their own back yard. They made the error of not taking into account the will, determination and abilities of their own community. Totnes and the surrounding area is full of people with experience in sustainable, ecologically friendly building. It is full of creative people who could think up ways of generating income for the college, if only they were asked.
Technorarti Tags: Dartington College of Arts
Thursday 14 December 2006
Its a Vision Thing...
(for info on the proposed closure of Dartington College of Arts, visit http://www.savedartingtoncollege.org/)
Figures, figures, figures. Charts. Projections. International Arts Incubators. More projections. More charts…
Extracting anything that could be called a ‘fact’ from this thicket of spin has not been easy over the past few weeks. One thing though did pop through. At a recent meeting in Totnes, the CEO of the Trust, Vaughan Lindsay was asked about the impact the closure of the college would have on the community. His reply was that ‘it was unfortunate, but we have to move on’.I would have thought that the draining of £4-5 million pounds from the local economy, the loss of 700 young people to the area, and the ripping apart of the social and artistic fabric of our community was more ‘collateral damage’ than ‘unfortunate’.
However it is the ‘we’, and the ‘move on’ bits that I want to draw your attention to.
Who are we? We are the thousands of people who love our town, our community and the ethos and principles of Tagore and the Elmhirsts that were bequeathed to us. We don’t care that much about status and wealth down here. We love the music and the art and the social interaction. We love having young people on our streets. We love the buskers and the jewellery makers and the artists whose paintings hang on the walls of our local cafés. For us, Dartington and Totnes are inseparable. Think Brixham without a harbour, and you will understand the notion of Totnes without Dartington College of Arts.
We are ‘moving on’. We have been for some time. We have in our midst Schumacher College, the world leader in sustainable living, ecology, environmental awareness and alternative models, both economic and social. Totnes is the first town in the UK to become a transition town – hundreds of people have attended meetings to listen, to learn and to contribute their vision to a future that is based on the new reality that faces us all – dwindling energy supplies, the collapse of consumerist and expansionist economic models, the ravages to our society that the domination of a spreadsheet culture has brought upon us.
Culture, art, music are at the centre of our vision. Tagore was a century ahead of his time. He said over and over again that they were fundamental components of a healthy community and society. Dartington College of Arts is not only a symbol – it is the embodiment of a principle that is at the very heart of who we are and what we want to be.
The CEO of the trust Vaughan Lindsay, and one or two of his trustees, instead of embracing the wealth of talent, experience, knowledge, vision, enthusiasm and good will that surrounds them, prefer to turn to corporate and private wealth, to the superficial status and prestige that comes with it, to exchange spin for substance, dollars for dedication, crassness for community.
The moving on that he talks about is really a step backwards, not forwards. The spreadsheet culture that he is addicted to has long passed its sell by date and cannot even claim the dubious status of being a short term fix. Whereas he turns to Mc Alpine when buildings need repair, we would turn to the many local people who are experts in environmentally friendly, ecologically sound and sustainable building. Whereas he sees the future in involving the private sector we see the participation of the local community. We want to promote art and music for and by local people, he wants to fly them in from abroad. We see the effects of this mentality all around us – in our universities which have become business parks, in our hospitals which have been turned into corporate enterprises, in our schools which have become venues for advertising hoardings. Now they want to make our arts into business ventures.The big problem that he and the very few people who share his vision face is that Totnes is a unique place and the opposition he faces is pretty much unanimous. Never have I witnessed such a huge outpouring of outrage and dismay on a community issue.I would like Mr Lindsay either to join us or leave us – the choice is his.
Technorarti Tags: Dartington College of Arts
Figures, figures, figures. Charts. Projections. International Arts Incubators. More projections. More charts…
Extracting anything that could be called a ‘fact’ from this thicket of spin has not been easy over the past few weeks. One thing though did pop through. At a recent meeting in Totnes, the CEO of the Trust, Vaughan Lindsay was asked about the impact the closure of the college would have on the community. His reply was that ‘it was unfortunate, but we have to move on’.I would have thought that the draining of £4-5 million pounds from the local economy, the loss of 700 young people to the area, and the ripping apart of the social and artistic fabric of our community was more ‘collateral damage’ than ‘unfortunate’.
However it is the ‘we’, and the ‘move on’ bits that I want to draw your attention to.
Who are we? We are the thousands of people who love our town, our community and the ethos and principles of Tagore and the Elmhirsts that were bequeathed to us. We don’t care that much about status and wealth down here. We love the music and the art and the social interaction. We love having young people on our streets. We love the buskers and the jewellery makers and the artists whose paintings hang on the walls of our local cafés. For us, Dartington and Totnes are inseparable. Think Brixham without a harbour, and you will understand the notion of Totnes without Dartington College of Arts.
We are ‘moving on’. We have been for some time. We have in our midst Schumacher College, the world leader in sustainable living, ecology, environmental awareness and alternative models, both economic and social. Totnes is the first town in the UK to become a transition town – hundreds of people have attended meetings to listen, to learn and to contribute their vision to a future that is based on the new reality that faces us all – dwindling energy supplies, the collapse of consumerist and expansionist economic models, the ravages to our society that the domination of a spreadsheet culture has brought upon us.
Culture, art, music are at the centre of our vision. Tagore was a century ahead of his time. He said over and over again that they were fundamental components of a healthy community and society. Dartington College of Arts is not only a symbol – it is the embodiment of a principle that is at the very heart of who we are and what we want to be.
The CEO of the trust Vaughan Lindsay, and one or two of his trustees, instead of embracing the wealth of talent, experience, knowledge, vision, enthusiasm and good will that surrounds them, prefer to turn to corporate and private wealth, to the superficial status and prestige that comes with it, to exchange spin for substance, dollars for dedication, crassness for community.
The moving on that he talks about is really a step backwards, not forwards. The spreadsheet culture that he is addicted to has long passed its sell by date and cannot even claim the dubious status of being a short term fix. Whereas he turns to Mc Alpine when buildings need repair, we would turn to the many local people who are experts in environmentally friendly, ecologically sound and sustainable building. Whereas he sees the future in involving the private sector we see the participation of the local community. We want to promote art and music for and by local people, he wants to fly them in from abroad. We see the effects of this mentality all around us – in our universities which have become business parks, in our hospitals which have been turned into corporate enterprises, in our schools which have become venues for advertising hoardings. Now they want to make our arts into business ventures.The big problem that he and the very few people who share his vision face is that Totnes is a unique place and the opposition he faces is pretty much unanimous. Never have I witnessed such a huge outpouring of outrage and dismay on a community issue.I would like Mr Lindsay either to join us or leave us – the choice is his.
Technorarti Tags: Dartington College of Arts
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
