Massive Attack among Bristol collective spearheading project to support arts sector

Some of Bristol’s biggest names have thrown their weight behind a new initiative to support the arts sector amid fears of a “lost generation of creativity”.

Massive Attack, Tricky, Maisie Williams, Daniel Day-Lewis, Stephen Merchant, IDLES, Jen Reid, Portishead and Lawrence Hoo are among those backing proposals to create the UK’s first city-wide Business Improvement District (BID).

They have all signed a statement of support for the newly-formed Bristol United Guild (BUG) – a not-for-profit community interest company seeking to help boost the freelance and independent creative community, especially those from the city’s poorest districts.

In a letter to mayor Marvin Rees, the team behind the project say the combined effects of economic, educational and developmental inequalities, limited government support and lack of funding risks creating a perfect storm that “threatens to choke off a generation of economically poor but artistically and creatively abundant people”.

IDLEs are among the big Bristol names supporting the BUG project – photo courtesy of Plaster

Massive Attack’s Robert Del Naja says: “As established Bristol artists, we can see the danger now of a lost generation of creativity. We recognise that social conditions have changed a lot in the last few decades; especially in terms of housing costs and the hollowing out of local services.

“With the BUG project, we want to prevent a forehead engraving culture of ploughing young people into low skilled, insecure work. We want to invest in unlocking potential and expression, and vitally, to encourage independence.”

BUG’s first proposal is to form the city-wide BID, whereby successful businesses pay a small percentage levy of their business rates to aid a community project.

There are already a number of BIDS in Bristol – each focuses on a specific area and uses levy funds paid in by local businesses to implement improvements designed to benefit the entire neighbourhood and those who live and work there.

BUG’s BID seeks to follow similar principles, but cover the entire city and support the interests of the people and small organisations within the arts and culture sectors.

The BID itself would automatically exempt all small and medium-sized business, and any large business adversely impacted by Covid-19 restrictions from contributing the levy – instead, focusing on the bigger firms that have continued to see profits surge. They will be invited to pay a voluntary levy to invest in what is a crucial sector for the city.

United Souls United Goals Stokes Croft Jen Reid mural Mr Cenz – photo Martin Booth

Jen Reid is an activist and BUG supporter who has been immortalised first in statue form and recently with a mural in Stokes Croft.

“The pandemic fallout has made a bad situation much, much worse for freelance and independent Bristolians working in the arts and creative sector and the BUG project is the best chance this city has of releasing its creative human resources from precarity and exclusion,” says Jen.

“This project and the five-year BID will allow businesses with very healthy profit margins to give something back to a city they’re gaining so much from. We want to change the city scaffolding entirely, so that genuinely independent and freelance artists and creatives are not just supported, but provoked into making Bristol’s creative arts scene the most pluralistic, representative and exciting in this country. This is just as big an opportunity for those businesses, as it is for the independent creative sector itself.”

The aim is to support freelancers and small arts organisations – photo of Trinity Centre, courtesy of First Base

The BUG team are seeking the support of the mayor and have written requesting that Bristol City Council now work with them to deliver the BID levy within three months.

The letter states: “We fear that this perfect storm threatens to choke off a generation of economically poor but artistically and creatively abundant people, who would never make it through the risk-averse filters of modern arts institutions, or obtain support from imbalanced centralised funding systems or processes.

“As artists, community projects and members of the creative economy community with a deep love for Bristol and its citizens, and sharp insight into the cultural junctures and spaces where disenfranchised citizens can be constructively engaged, we feel this status quo is unacceptable.”

They say their “innovative, emergency solution” would operate within the Bristol City Council boundary and seek to work in partnership to identify micro-zones, bodies, spaces, freelance individuals, groups and projects who otherwise stand to be overlooked and to invest in them.

Main photo by Benjamin McMahon

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