The environmental impact of touring, and new sustainable models for international artists’ exchange.
This section of the 2020 Handbook builds on the Slow Boat conference organised in June 2009 in London by the British Council and Artsadmin. The event brought together around 100 delegates to discuss and propose ways in which to reduce the impact of international touring of performing arts work. The initiative will continue here and with future events in order to promote new research and proposals for increasing the sustainability of our international work.
At the 2009 Slow Boat Conference, participants collectively proposed the actions we could do now, and in the long-term, and also formulated a list of the knowledge or resources that we need in order to make further steps. These suggestions can be found below or you can download the PDF. Please pay particular attention to the ‘What we could do now’ section, and let us know any progress you have made in these areas.
The questions we asked:
Making
How do we design, direct and devise our work for touring and how could we change that?
Moving
Why do we tour our work in the way we do and how can we reduce its environmental impact?
Presenting
How can venues work together in their programming and can we get rid of ‘exclusion zones’? What can visiting companies ask venues to do in order to reduce the audience’s carbon footprint?
Following the circulation of the 2009 Conference report, both Artsadmin and the British Council have consistently been told how useful the document, and our conversations on the day, have been to other initiatives in the area of arts and sustainability. Julie’s Bicycle, Greening London Theatres, Arts Council England, and Artsadmin’s European partners in the 2020 Network have been able to use Slow Boat material for advocacy and to feed into new research and activities.
The Stage asked David Evans to write a report on the event which was published in August 2009. (Click image for high resolution scan)
Following the Slow Boat Conference 2009, Duncan Sones created a report to collect participants views, ideas and responses to the day. This reported was circulated to participants and uploaded to a wiki site for the addition of feedback, notes and comments. The final updated report is now available:
The Slow Boat Conference 2009 was organised by Artsadmin and the British Council as part of Two Degrees 2009. The day brought together around 100 artists, producers and funders from the performing arts sector to consider the environmental impact of international artists’ exchange and touring.
International touring, co-production and collaborations have become more and more important to companies and venues in the UK, and are in many cases are a central part of our activity. But in the light of the damage caused to the environment by our touring patterns, we asked:
Can we continue to work in this way?
What are the obstacles to making change?
Which companies have already changed their working methods?
How will our work be affected if flights become prohibitively expensive?
How would these changes affect our artistic working practice, our income?
What are the implications for producers, for artists, for programmers, for funders?
The event started with dinner at Toynbee Hall on the evening of Thursday 18 June, and continued in Toynbee Studios on Friday 19 June.
Speakers and facilitators included:
Alison Tickell – Director of Julie’s Bicycle, a company helping the music industry cut its greenhouse gas emissions and create a low carbon creative future.
Peter Tom Jones – researcher in ‘Industrial Ecology’ at the University of Leuven; an engaged scientist, and author of several books and articles concerning ecology, ecological economics, climate change and transition management.
Lucy Neal – co-founder/director of the LIFT Festival (1981-2005); co-chair of Transition Town Tooting, a collective creative response to peak oil and climate change built on Tooting’s strong ethos of community cohesion, diversity and celebration; and director of The Mary Neal Project.
