Lizzie Cottrell

Dissertation Title: Redefining the Regions: Will Taking a De-centralised Approach Provide a More Sustainable Future for UK Art Activity? 

Having lived most of my life in regional and rural areas of the UK, the issue of regional activity being regarded as subordinate to the happenings in metropolitan centres, or more specifically London, is one which I find from personal experience, frustrating and untrue. The regional art scene is seriously underrepresented as an area of critical inquiry and artistic production in the contemporary art sector; yet in reality and against the odds, regional work is growing more and more in its vibrancy and autonomy. There is a real urgency surrounding this area of research, as London is now no longer a sustainable living or working space for artists and many other creative practitioners. My dissertation focuses on the need to redefine the regions as active and crucial sites in the current UK contemporary art sector.

The dissertation explores whether taking a de-centralised approach will provide a more sustainable future for UK art activity, what those models may look like and how they might take form in relation to pre-existing networks and institutional relationships. Modernist tendencies and metropolitan-centric viewpoints remain dominant in the majority of contemporary art discourses, both nationally and internationally. In the UK, this is projected through negative terminology used to describe areas outside of London such as ‘marginal’, ‘peripheral’ and ‘provincial’. That which is not the centre becomes a ‘non’ place, a ‘non-London’ and thus an area of little value, interest or potential. As a curator invested in regional practices, my intention is to highlight the proactive and productive work taking place in varying regional sites from global institutions to artist run project spaces. Through my practice, I hope to put a spotlight on the potential of these spaces which have been continuously overlooked and undermined by realigning the regions away from traditionalism and the ‘rural idyll’. In an age of increased cultural, information and technological exchange, regional cultures must be seen as heterogenous and constantly evolving, as they too are made and remade through new external influences and inhabitants. Furthermore, it is similarities between regional and urban spaces which are already in place but unnoticed, that will help to allow changes to be made. So many areas of the UK fall between ‘rural’ and ‘urban’ it is hard to distinguish exactly where one place ends and another begins. The co-operative networks that have been established across different regions, whereby art is produced, exhibited and promoted, demonstrate it is possible to stand autonomously in contemporary art discourse whilst bypassing the centre. 

Through my practice as a curator I hope to challenge the metropolitan focus of the majority of institutions and give a platform for artists working regionally.