Emily Munro

WELCOME /// change / culture / learning / film / equality

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#forall launches today! New writing about community and cinema @glasgowfilm Visit http://t.co/iA6g8JVIbM to read, watch and get involved.

— Emily Munro (@ellomunro) July 5, 2013

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at the centre of the globe there is a certain code key in imagination for a different perception

pamwepo (at together) by Tawona Sithole, 2013

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How can the arts and cultural sector learn that digital accessibility is important if they are not told or shown how to do it?... Why is digital access any different from physical access?

Pesky People: http://www.peskypeople.co.uk/subtitles-now/

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The For All project has finally gone live! I'm so relieved to be able to share it with people. We have a holding webpage and an advert on the back page of our brochure.

For All is an experiment which will link audiences and staff together in a creative conversation about equalities. I wanted to do something fun that would highlight the process of change we are going through as part of the equalities programme but, at the same time, I wanted to do something that would leave a legacy.

We will publish a piece of writing each week, starting from Friday 5th July. These pieces are personal responses from writers on the theme 'for all'. The writers weren't asked specifically to comment on cinema (although some have) but they were asked to consider what the idea of community meant to them. Community is such a broad concept but we're trying to drill down to the core of what cinema means to people and why it matters at all. Each Friday a new animation, created by supreme talent David Galletly, will appear on screen and be spread via social media to lead people to the website to read (and respond to) the texts. Staff at Glasgow Film will pose a question each week in response to the published text which will be posted via social media and (if we can make it work) on a notice-board in the foyer. Tate Modern style but possibly less stylish.

We haven't spoken with the writers involved about equalities, inclusion and access. Clearly these are elements which are the forefront of our minds within Glasgow Film but I was wary of focusing in too soon before we'd looked at the bigger picture, together with our audiences.

In August and September, the wonderful writer Alison Irvine will be hosting a series of 'creative conversations' with pre-selected groups which look at some of the pieces of writing and the themes that weave through them. We want to hear responses to the work but also to understand how what we do already might connect with people's life experiences. Thanks to Artlink for the inspiration of employing a writer to document a project's outcomes creatively. Alison will be using the material from the conversations to create a final text, a story about cinema and its role in people's lives.

We're going to publish the ten pieces in a book with David's illustrations. Looking for guidance on best practice for this, so looking forward to discussing this with people involved in publishing and also with the other organisations working through PEP.

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Coming soon to a cinema in Glasgow...

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'Cultural intervention' & Skype

Our roundtable contributors - @ellomunro @mattmunrolloyd Jim Colquhoun, Lars Kristensen & @stramasharts #fftinyurl.com/roundtble

— The Drouth (@The_Drouth) June 7, 2013

The above tweet relates to a conversation I had on Skype a few months ago. It feels like a very long time ago. I can't remember the exact date but it was significant for us as Andrew Dixon's resignation as CEO of Creative Scotland had just been announced.

To read the whole thing you'll have to buy The Drouth but the published extract gives a reasonable flavour of what was discussed. Skype isn't the best medium for debate but it allowed six of us (four in Scotland, one in England and one in Sweden) to pretend we were in the same room. Actually, someone else was in the room with me, my husband Matt Lloyd is also a contributor, hence the 'I agree with everything Emily says' line.

There are some copy errors in the piece but The Drouth is a sparky wee journal put together by an editorial team of two who also have other occupations, so I hope you'll forgive them.

I'm glad I spoke about audiences here and about leading rather than reacting. I think I still stand by much of what I said. Mostly, probably.

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Have an original point you'd like to make on culture? European Culture Forumis coming and looking for inspiration ec.europa.eu/culture/news/2…

— IETM (@IETM) May 29, 2013

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Relevance

I'm just back from a weekend at the Cannes Film Festival. It's a place of expensive, brash, often fractious, organised chaos. I don't usually attend (the last time was 6 years ago when I briefly worked for a European film policy Think Tank) but went this year to show my support at a meeting of the Europa Cinemas network.

I managed to fit in a few other meetings, including one with Will Massa (Senior Film Adviser) from the British Council to talk about an exciting opportunity with a film festival in Brazil. I saw no films; that's taken care of by our programmer, Allison, who braves the Croisette every year.

Cannes reminds cinema exhibitors of the industry's rank and file. Alongside the actors who come unrepresented just hoping to meet someone who might consider them for a part, independent exhibitors are pretty much at the bottom of the value chain. We only show the films! Attending Cannes on behalf of a not-for-profit, indie cinema it's easy to feel that your contribution to the film sector is about as meaningful as a lollipop stall. With online distribution of films increasing the importance of cinemas as gatekeepers has become questionable.

The issue is one of relevance: relevance to audiences, to distributors and sales agents, to filmmakers and to potential sponsors and funders. People, art form, market. I find myself today writing a letter to the new organisation which will run the BFI's exciting £26 million education fund in the coming years. I'm trying to work out what relevance means and I've come to the idea of the cinema as a community of experience.

We have passion, expertise and a human link to the public; this is, surely, what we have to work with. Probably we need also to expand our skills and understanding of how the market is currently functioning so we can try to influence this. If we want cinemas to exist, exhibitors have to address the reality of a profit-driven industry but also work with audiences to curb the worst excesses (and limitations) of this. Interesting times.

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Today Tawona Sithole, a poet, came to visit me at GFT. He's involved in a project we're about to announce which is part of the equalities/change work. It also has something to do with the picture above, which I took today during a rare sunny spell. More on that soon. Tawona was very intrigued by the mosaic in the foyer and he sat for a while watching people walk over it and made notes. Then he got to play in the projection booth. I enjoyed introducing him to various members of staff and I wish I'd done that with the other writers who are contributing to the project. Maybe I will.

Yesterday I was able to attend the first 'Insight Cafe' run by Glasgow Museums. The session was broadly about community engagement, so I thought it would be relevant. It was run by Gerri Moriarty who is a wonderfully warm facilitator. A lot of the exercises we did were familiar to me through a leadership programme I did with the British Council a few years ago but I enjoyed the conversations I had with museum staff (as one of very few interlopers from outside). I discovered that Glasgow Museums have been active in an exchange programme called Heritage Without Borders. One of the women I spoke with had just been to Ramallah. I had no idea this work was happening and hope to learn more about it.

A few ideas I took away with me from Gerri's session:

1. Paul Lederach 1997 The Moral Imagination - an influential book which describes the skill involved in conflict mediation. He says that transformation is achieved through a combination of 'vertical capacity' (decision-makers at highest level), 'horizontal capacity' (the people on the ground / 'ordinary folk') and 'bridge-builders' (those who can interpret, bring the two other groups together and act as ambassadors).

2. Not everything needs to be solved in order for progress to happen. You can still move forward.

3. The importance of commonality and humour, as well as the ability to be able to interpret themes, can help bring people together.

4. Chaos is likely to occur at some point. To get through it, you need to maintain focus but, more importantly, keep people with the process.

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The health care system in the US costs companies billions. A positive outcome, perhaps, is that businesses have helped fund a load of research on what is known as 'wellness'.

Here's a recent article on a study that involved 32,000 employees in thirty countries. The bottom line? Both employers and employees need to value and invest in each other for a company to thrive.

'The key factor, the study finds, is a work environment that more fully energizes employees by promoting their physical, emotional and social well-being... [and] a strong sense of purpose.'

I'm not sure how I feel about the wellness research. It seems to suggest that employers police their employees personal habits which is incompatible with what I understand as freedom (maybe work is too...). But a place where employees feel valued and that they can make a contribution? I can't see a problem with that.

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Creativity & Difference

Last week I was invited to participate in a seminar on 'Diversity in the Cultural Industries' organised by the Scottish Universities Insight Institute (!) I think I was recommended by FloCulture, so thank you for that.

It was grand.

The first speaker, Chris Bilton from University of Warwick, really set the tone for me and articulated some things which I'd been trying to wire together myself, without quite making the lamp light up.

Lightbulb moments:

1. Difference - or diversity - is essential for creativity. Chris mentioned Arthur Koestler here, whose work I understand is a bit controversial but nonetheless fascinating. Koestler (1964) describes the act of creativity as one which involves putting contradictory things together to make something new happen. This is what we might call 'originality' (if you believe in such a thing).

2. Creative organisations are able to tolerate contradictions and may thrive on divergent views and/or practices.

3. Creative teams require both innovators ('idea people') AND adaptors (the ones who make the crazy into something realistic and practical). Cultural organisations often 'lead from the middle' - that is, they draw from the 'top' (vision) and the 'bottom' (ideas, trust, teamwork) to make things happen. This is a good thing.

Chris pretty much suggested a plan of action which makes a virtue of this leading from the middle approach:

a) Promote ideas from below

b) 'Suss' the vision (not a fan of the word but he also used the words prioritising and unifying)

c) Map the bigger picture

d) Link with stakeholders

Easy.

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the principal mark of genius is not perfection but originality

Arthur Koestler, The Act of Creation (1964)

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This is an old logo of ours, from circa 2009. See the motto underneath? It's also outside our building, under the canopy. Is it on the mosaic in the foyer as well? I'll need to check. More on this to come...

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My name is Emily and I work as Head of Learning at Glasgow Film. As part of my job, I'm currently overseeing a programme of organisational change under the catchy title Promoting Equalities Programme (PEP).

I'm quite excited about this.

PEP is being funded by Creative Scotland and is managed by FloCulture. It's a brilliant opportunity for our organisation to reflect on our creative practice as well as how we run our business. I personally see it as being about our role in society.

This blog will be my sketch-book for the journey. It's for people involved in the programme to read and, perhaps, contribute to. That would be nice. I don't want to have a conversation with myself. Well, only some of the time.