Interview with TERRY SANDELL
Director of Visiting Arts

by Ramona Mitrica

Q1. What are the goals of Visiting Arts?

Our main remit is to encourage and promote foreign arts and cultures in the UK. We are the national agency for developing greater international awareness through the arts.

Q2. You were a ‘crown servant’ (i.e. literally a servant of the Queen) when you worked for the British Council. Does this mean that you were required to follow Her orders?

The British Council is legally constituted through a ‘Royal Charter’. When one is a ‘crown servant’ one is not thinking on a day-to-day basis that one is working for the Queen and she certainly does not give orders or interfere in the running of such organisations and institutions. Being a ‘crown servant’ is not even anything particularly patriotic. The heart of the matter is that ‘crown servants’, unlike civil servants, are not following government policy on a day-to-day basis and therefore they often feel they have a sort of political independence in which they usually take pride.

The Visiting Arts, where I work now, is an NGO and independent of government, although we receive some government money. We are legally constituted as an educational charity and a limited company. A large number of arts organisations here are charities and limited companies and subject to strict legal, governance and accounting rules.

Q3. Does Visiting Arts feel that its priorities are to assist Romanian artists and arts institutions or British institutions?

Our primary aim is to focus on Romanian artists and arts organisations. We are doing this because it is important to have contact with foreign cultures and it is good for British people to have contact with artists and cultures from overseas. It enriches the cultural life of the UK, increasing cultural understanding and social tolerance and it makes a big and distinctive contribution to cultural diversity.

Visiting Arts activity often leads to collaborative arrangements and something that begins in one direction may lead to something happening in the other direction.

Q4. You were head of the British Council in Moscow after glasnost and are familiar with the former Soviet Union so might be considered a student of post-communist cultures. How does Romania differ in its post-communist development?

There is a great danger that one generalizes about post-communist countries when in most respects all the countries were quite different though the effect of communism was to create a certain amount of homogenisation and ‘sameness’. When they moved to what we call a post-communist stage the homogenisation and ‘sameness’ started to be lifted and then the differences and traditions became much clearer in both positive and negative respects. Comparing Romania, being non-Slav, with Slav countries without taking that into account can miss important differences.

Former communist countries do share similarities. Culture tended to be similarly defined and the idea of culture was extremely important, not least as an instrument of control. The definition of culture was something very narrow and specific – ‘culture’ was anything that the Ministry of Culture did and anything for which a Ministry of Culture did not have responsibility or control was not ‘culture’. The tradition of the Ministry of Culture being a controller rather than facilitator, a gatekeeper rather than a door-opener and having a very restricted view of what culture is still affects many former communist countries.

Q5. What would your priorities be if you were Minister of Culture of Romania?

There have been changes but not enough to produce a real paradigm shift. It has been right for ministers of culture to concentrate on preserving everything they could in the face of the hostile economic environment but many countries are trapped in a post-communist phase when it is time to move to a ‘post-post-communist’ period.

There are three key issues. The first is a redefinition of culture, the second is a change in the nature and role of the state which symbolically means having a Ministry for Culture rather than a Ministry of Culture; the third is the principle of accepting that there will be losses and casualties but this should happen through a policy of ‘preserving the best and re-inventing the rest’.

If you retain a narrow concept of culture and its function, in difficult economic circumstances there are very serious consequences for culture. Given a stark choice between a new building for a hospital or for a theatre when culture is narrowly defined and seen as a ‘luxury’ the theatre will be marginalized. If one redefines and repositions culture another scenario is possible. This takes a completely different starting point and sees culture embracing a wide understanding of culture to include things like design, architecture, and fashion etc. Culture and the arts can fit into other agendas and have a real relevance in other sectors including employment, urban regeneration, rural development, sustainable economic development, health, social cohesion and community development, education. It has a potential to contribute to the nurturing of creativity, which is a key success factor in post-industrial modern economies.

When culture starts meeting other agendas it will start drawing funding and resources from other budgets. It is quite useful in this context to look at the European Union. The EU has a special directorate for culture. Its budget is small. An analysis of all EU budgets shows that in reality quite a lot was being spent on culture but it was not coming from the ‘culture budget’. It came from the big budgets for social and regional regeneration and development. EU money was going into the rebuilding of a town centre and this included rebuilding and refurbishment of theatres and cinemas. Money was coming from an urban regeneration budget not from a culture budget. Arguments were made demonstrating that culture and arts contribute to other agendas. Research shows reduction in crime in areas where a theatre is opened in a regenerated urban area because it brings people out on to the streets late in the evening. The theatre audience needs to eat and drink and that can lead to new cafes or restaurants and that m akes a formerly unpleasant part of a town a desirable place to live, helping property prices and encouraging further development.

Creating new jobs in industry is expensive. Creating jobs in the cultural/creative sector can be relatively cheap. Where unemployment is an important political issue and job creation is a government priority this opens up real opportunities for a Minister for Culture working with an ‘instrumentalist’ approach to culture. The creation of a culture ministry in Britain is very recent and its existence, headed by a Cabinet minister, is not attributable to a sudden appreciation of culture in the UK but because of recognition of the cultural sector being a major sector of economic activity. The redefinition and repositioning of culture could contribute greatly to Romania’s development. Romania should invest in and develop its culture because its culture, properly harnessed in the best sense, will develop Romania.
Q6. What kind of structure/organisation should we create to promote Romania abroad?

We should begin with asking ‘why is one promoting Romania abroad?’ What are the real motivations for doing so and what exactly are you trying to achieve?

There are other problems. For example what happens if there is a very interesting Romanian work, which will be incredibly interesting for a British audience but it is ‘difficult’ (i.e. may contain some elements that some people in Romania could consider negative) yet could have a very positive effect in Britain? I can think of a specific recent experience when I saw a Romanian film which was brilliant and as a result reflected on Romania extremely well. A Romanian friend agreed that the film was good but felt it was wrong for it to be shown because it did not show Romania “in the right way”. I came away thinking what a wonderful film-making country Romania must be. I am very suspicious of countries (or governments?) that only want to project positive images.

To answer your question directly, I would use whatever structures or channels or possibilities available to encourage a diversity of presentations of Romania. I would want to show many Romanias, not just one Romania and that would be the starting point for concrete questions related to structure and organisation

Q7. What is the difference between cultural promotion and propaganda? What do you think should be the role of the state in cultural promotion?

I think many countries, including sophisticated West European countries, come close to stages where positive promotion and the beginning of propaganda come together and this should be an area where one should be careful. It brings us back to those questions of why one wants to promote and to whom.

I think honest attempts to erode stereotyping or outmoded perceptions of a country are perfectly legitimate, healthy and helpful.

Q8. What role do you see for the Romanian Cultural Centre in London?

It is very important for two reasons. The first is that promotion of a country should include non-government as well as government organisations and secondly one needs a plurality of presentations of Romania. There is not only one Romania. It is a rich, diverse, interesting and multifaceted country. The more diverse the representation the better. It is important to share information between those bodies promoting Romania.

Q9. What is the role of a foreign cultural centre in London?

How such centres have operated in the past is not always the most effective way of doing things. Centres with heavy structures and big buildings are not sensible. They invariably lead to the available budget being lost in running a building with not enough money to organize events. It is like owning a computer with no software.

Another problem with a building-led model is that the cultural centre will not usually be perceived as a ‘normal’ or mainstream arts and cultural venue. If you have a good Romanian exhibition, for example, is it best to put it into a Romanian building in London where people who are interested in the arts will not necessarily naturally go or do you put your energies and some resources into putting it into a mainstream recognized gallery where people do go? I think the answer is obvious.

There are good arguments for a cultural centre or cultural representation to have a physical presence not just a virtual one but that should be something very practical where a good quality person can be contacted. That person’s role should be to encourage all types of interest in Romania and encourage and promote Romanian events in appropriate buildings and locations. There is so much happening in London every day of the week that it is vital that there is good marketing and presentation of Romanian events and again a cultural centre of the right type can contribute significantly.

Q10. What are your views about European cultures and their future in the European Union?

I do not think that with the European Union we will ever reach the stage of speaking about a ‘European culture’. The trend will be in the opposite direction and the differences and diversity of European cultures will be what is increasingly valued. Cultures will continue to be distinctive. Romania is in a particularly good and strong position in this respect because culturally it is so rich, interesting and diverse. On the other hand people do not know enough about it and so it needs very good promotion. Romania may not, on the economic side, be the strongest country in Europe and on the political side may not have the most uncomplicated politics but on the cultural side, to take an analogy from football, it is very much in the Premier Division.

Q11. What has been your most exciting Romanian cultural experience?

I have been particularly interested in Romania in the last four or five years and before that it was one of the countries I knew least in eastern and central Europe. It is a country that fascinates me and I continue to be hungry for its culture, from its architecture through to its theatre and music. Obviously the most exciting thing is to be in Romania and experience things there but quite a lot happens here in Britain. Recently I have been to some Romanian events, the most exciting of which was a superb concert performance of Enescu’s opera Oedipe, in the Edinburgh International Festival. There are interesting things happening in the contemporary visual arts almost none of which has been seen in Britain and I hope that the Brancusi exhibition at Tate Modern in London in 2004 can be used to stimulate interest here in more contemporary work from Romania.

Q12. What do you think will happen in the next few years in Romania?

I think a lot will depend on domestic political stability and the degree to which Romanians can move on from the past and begin working properly together sharing common goals, promoting and taking pride in all the positive aspects of Romania including its culture. The economic development of the country is also of critical importance for providing a really positive climate for culture and will determine the degree to which contemporary arts and culture can flourish. It is my impression that accession to the European Union, and the process that involves, could act as a catalyst to help many disparate political, economic and social currents move closer together.

Terry Sandell OBE FRSA
Terry Sandell has been Director of Visiting Arts since 1994. For twenty-five years he has been working in cultural relations and international arts and this has included being British cultural attache in Moscow, Director of the British Council in Vienna and from 1989-1992 setting up British Council operations and offices in the Soviet Union/FSU. He has acted as an adviser to the Council of Europe on south-east Europe, has led various national policy reviews under their aegis and is currently the main adviser for their cultural development programme for the South Caucasus. He recently contributed the chapter on “Cultural Policy and Issues” to ‘The European Union Handbook’ (London 2002). Educated at Nottingham and Edinburgh universities, he also has an MA in Arts Management from City University and has been Special Lecturer in Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Nottingham.