Collaboration

Rebecca Hayter, 26 September 2012

Group included: Simon H, Nic, NIck, Rebecca, Chirs K, Lee, John B, Matt C.

All levels of Collaboration are important and inherent in the arts. This is true of Artistic approaches to collaboration and in management, administration and funding.

The entire industry/sector is based on collaborative approaches. This particularly true of Theatre and it's approaches.

Collaboration is the answer to people who move into management and therefore more removed from creativity. By collaborating with creativity can be drawn out between partnerships.

Trust and respect is key to a collaboration that is working successfully. The need to take time to establish successful collaborations can sometime take up to two years before it appears to be working successfully.

Artistic collaborations are sometimes more instant as ideas can be share and skills brought together, however partnership collaboration take longer to establish trust and respect.

Life is all about collaboration.

There is tension in collaborations both between employed organisations and freelance artists. There is a need to allow organisations to be open and accessible to encourage successful collaborations.

There is a need to be able to listen to be a successful collaborator. The collaborative approach needs to be infectious.

There is a need to allow yourself to be vulnerable and self critical and be open to changing ideas as a result if partnership and collaborative working. The power in a collaboration needs to be neutral.

Communication is key to successful collaborations. Bringing in the right people at the right time and keeping them informed is also important.

Time to allow a collaboration to develop was prominent in the discussion and all agreed that a two year process is often required.

Lincolnshire arts collaborators are now in the next stage of development and are looking at how to collaborate with partners, individuals and organisations across the county and beyond. Communication in this needs to be in two ways to share the power.

Tags:

respect, lincolnshire, Lincolnshire, partnership, Collaboration, truth, communication, collaboration, life, time