The trouble with opening new multi-million dollar arts centres in the UK today is that such ventures are often beleaguered by a number of failed attempts in recent years. Sheffield’s National Centre for Popular Music is a prime example. The museum, which failed to attract the number of visitors predicted in the original business plan, closed in summer 2000 – within a year of its opening.
Critics have kept a watchful eye on the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, which has proven popular with audiences since opening last year, but has come under attack recently for its financial planning. In Cardiff, work on the Wales Millennium Centre is finally underway, after years of delays caused by financial difficulties.
A significant number of new arts centres, like the aforementioned, are often established by government. FACT, on the other hand – the new centre for Film, Art and Creative Technology, in Liverpool – emerged from a small organisation which has been dedicated to commissioning new video and digital art projects since the late 1980s. The centre opens its doors to the public on February 22 – just a few years after the initial £10 million funding was secured in 1999, and in the absence of the widespread criticism experienced by projects of similar scale around the UK.
Eddie Berg, Executive Director of the new centre and the company behind it – the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology – hopes the unique model will provide a recipe for success.
‘This [FACT] has been developed by a small group of people who are passionate and enthusiastic about the area of work, and who have a strong sense of ownership of the project,’ Berg asserts. ‘I think that’s unusual, but also one of the reasons why I think we are going to be successful.’
‘We’ve taken a lot of time to make sure the resources are in place to run the centre,’ he continues. ‘One of the luxuries of developing the project at this time is being able to look back at all those other projects that failed, and learn from them.’
Designed by architect Austin-Smith:Lord, FACT is the first new purpose-built arts centre to be constructed in Liverpool since 1939. Spread over five levels, the building houses two galleries, showcasing moving image and new media artwork by national and international artists; a Media Lounge with curated online projects; three art house cinemas; a space for exhibitions and seminars; and FACT HQ, the organisation’s commissioning, producing and presenting body for film, video and new media.
Although official planning for the centre got underway seven years ago, Berg explains the idea has been on agenda for much longer. Since 1988, Berg has witnessed – and contributed to – the growth of video and digital art in the UK. He founded the commissioning agency for film, video and new media, Moviola, in 1988, now known as the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology. The organisation held its inaugural ‘Video Positive’ Festival in 1989, which went on to become a biennial event, attracting a significant number of international artists to Liverpool.
‘We wanted to develop a purpose-built space for ourselves, to move what we were doing forward, to allow us to exhibit work ourselves and to provide resources and spaces enabling us to work on artists’ projects right from the outset,’ Berg explains. The original idea, he adds, was to combine an art cinema with FACT’s commissioning work.
‘We wanted audiences to see the whole spectrum of moving image practice, from the theatrical context of art cinema, to the gallery context of the work we [FACT] were doing. That was the initial idea, and it’s pretty much stayed the same,’ he observes.
Since Berg’s ‘Video Positive’ festival began in 1989, the worlds of film, video and new media have evolved to become an increasingly complex genre – and one that is now recognised as an artform not necessarily confined to the cinema. The FACT centre’s opening programme includes works by pivotal film artists such as Isaac Julien, who was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2001. However, this was not the first time a video work had been recognised by the controversial art award. Douglas Gordon’s Confessions of a Justified Sinner was the first video artwork to be awarded the Turner Prize, in 1996, while Gillian Wearing’s winning piece the year after, 60 Minutes of Silence, also video-based, left critics gagging on the ‘What is art?’ question now synonymous with the Turner.
But Berg hopes to intersperse showcases like Julien’s second Blaxploitation documentary work, Baltimore, with works by relatively unknown but historically significant artists.
‘Over the course of the next few years, we want to be able to work with artists who are really at the peak of their creative powers, but also, look at certain periods of time in the history of video art and electronic art practice,’ Berg envisions. ‘Various artists are going to emerge from this, who may not mean anything to a general audience, but I hope this process will help people understand where the current generation of artists have found their inspiration.’
For further information on FACT, visit the website, www.fact.co.uk