There was a lot of media attention given to The Great Exhibition of the North. What did you think about it?

MG: For many artists, musicians and others involved in the creative world of Newcastle and Gateshead GETNORTH — the Great Exhibition of the North — was something planted down with little attempt to connect with what was happening locally, especially at grassroots level.

It became increasingly clear just how limited its engagement would be with local centres of creative activity or those communities where Tory welfare reforms and austerity have increased already entrenched levels of poverty and disadvantage.

There was a small grants programme but few artists we know were successful in getting any funding from that. GETNORTH’s “inspired by” programme was simply an act of appropriation, making claims for festivals, projects and cultural activities already planned and in the calendar.

And it gave the illusion of its reach into Newcastle and Gateshead’s local arts community, when the reality was that it barely moved from the established cultural venues along the Quayside and city centres of Newcastle and Gateshead.

GETNORTH was less about celebrating cultural, scientific and engineering accomplishments than a promotional device for George Osborne’s Northern Powerhouse. Unlike other arts festivals in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool or Middlesbrough – and like the Northern Powerhouse’s devolution plans – it was hatched in Westminster.

It was simply an example of artwashing – using culture to give a positive gloss to a cynically inspired political programme designed to distract northern communities from the reality of a centralised political and cultural machine, pursuing neoliberal economic policies and making ordinary people pay for the reckless and criminal actions of finance capitalism in the 2008 crash.

How did local artists, musicians and other creative workers react to the project?

MG: The cynicism of GETNORTH and its neoliberal capitalist roots was made clear by its list of sponsors, including BAE Systems and Virgin Trains. Only someone with a tin ear to what was already happening in museums and galleries, where protesters had already for several years been taking action, would think it a good idea to approach BAE Systems and Virgin.

The Art not Arms campaign against BAE Systems’ involvement in GETNORTH and BAE’s subsequent withdrawal was a galvanising moment for artists and demonstrated how we didn’t need to simply put up with it.

Northern Powerhouse minister Jake Berry incensed artists when he referred to them as “snowflakes” chasing ‘”subsidies.” It was obvious he was clueless as to the precarious working conditions of artists, who on average survive on less than £10,000 a year.

In April we put a call out through social media to anyone interested in creating an alternative GETNORTH, which would be grassroots-led and involve the communities that the official programme wasn’t interested in.

We organised a meeting and about 20 to 30 people turned up – artists, performers, musicians, writers and activists. It seemed like we’d struck a chord. We organised a protest march in the city centre and quickly planned and delivered The Other Great North Exhibition (OtherGEN), a series of alternative events, exhibitions and workshops.

Now GETNORTH has ended, what does your group intend to do?

TE: OtherGEN will continue to build links with communities to create events, plan artistic developments with a whole range of people, and provide support for artists. Community art, sometimes seen as less important or serious than “high art,” is being used to challenge the idea that success is measured by the price of artwork.

This is particularly relevant as the recent Arts Council England report Cultural Democracy is supposed to encourage arts organisations to open up decision-making and physical spaces for local communities and artists.

In fact, the report is another top-down approach that appropriates the radical concepts behind cultural democracy and the work of communities and art activists. OtherGEN will continue to hold the government and its institutions to account while it continues to artwash its programmes of austerity, inequality and discrimination.

What kind of pressures are artists under these days?

TE: Universal credit has hit many artists hard, as benefits are cut because of irregular wage income. We are facing zero-hours contracts, less local government and public funding for the arts, cuts in visiting lecture work and huge cuts in schools’ art budgets, as well as the time devoted to the study and practice of the arts.

This inevitably affects the funding available for all kinds of art work. Avenues of funding have been decimated by the austerity programme.

The corporate takeover of the arts manifests itself as sponsorship deals, which do not put money into artists’ pockets or provide regular, adequately paid work. Instead corporations are using taxpayers’ subsidies to present a squeaky-clean image while they avoid tax, pollute the planet and exploit lucrative government outsourcing deals.

MQ: What would you like a Corbyn-led government to do, in terms of arts and culture policy?

TE: Reverse the austerity cuts and reintroduce universal, accessible library and museum services. The arts will always need subsidy, so investment at local and regional level is imperative in order to avoid a centralised approach.

The arts need to be at the centre of communities. They are too important to our wellbeing to be restricted to weekend visits by the better off to cultural venues. Those who work in the arts need employment protection like any other worker and to have their trade unions automatically recognised.

Diversity in terms of class, ethnic background, sexuality and other factors needs to be addressed, both for those who work in the arts and those who access and engage with it. And much more needs to be done to be totally inclusive and representative of our communities, especially working-class and poorer communities. The general consensus from the discussions we have had is that our kind of ethos – participatory, egalitarian, based on mutual co-operation and support, and rooted in local communities – is what cultural democracy should be about – and not only for artistic activities, but other cultural activities too.

It’s not something that can be imposed from above. It’s a process of genuine empowerment of communities and the artists in them. If resources and power are located in grassroots groups, and the means of cultural production and enjoyment are developed, managed and enjoyed within democratic structures, as they have been within OtherGEN meetings, then it’s genuine cultural democracy.

But if power and money are located in professional cultural organisations, following templates and monitoring systems set by national bureaucracies or private corporate sponsors, then it’s not cultural democracy.

Like health, education and key industries like the railways, culture is too important to be left to the so-called free market. There needs to be a genuine and significant amount of shared, social ownership and democratic control of cultural services. Just like other more material resources, working people also need to have more ownership of cultural production, communication and enjoyment.

For the full version of this interview, visit culturematters.org.uk