Noorderlicht Photography Organization needs your help!

[karlori]

Done, forwarded to some friends, best of luck !

[buzzardkid]

Bumperthebump

[HLing]

Thanks for the post! I clicked "Like". I hope all turn out well.
(sorry, I didn't know the urge!ncy from your title of the post, so didn't see it until now.)

[buzzardkid]

Your support on the Noorderlicht Facebook page still is greatly valued. To know what all the fuss is about, pls read the below statement from the Noorderlicht Institute.

Appeal against advice Cultural Council

In a letter to the Dutch Secretary of State Halbe Zijlstra, Noorderlicht has made an appeal against the negative advice of the Cultural Council. On July 13, the Council will react to this appeal.

"At various crucial points the advice is based on inaccurate facts and assumptions. We will address these errors point by point below. In addition, we wish to bring to your attention that the Council has unilaterally altered the criteria on which their judgement was to be based, an action which we regard as exceeding their authority. In the appendices to this letter you will find a substantive response to the advice, as well as several surveys that support the argument.

1) Untrue: Noorderlicht is not an active participant in the art discourse.

As we explain in Appendix 1, the Council conceives the term 'discourse' in a too restricted manner, so as to limit it only to the theoretical debates surrounding art which have been ongoing now for some decades for, and among, a select public. We do in fact make our voice heard in those debates. But we regard the social discourse, which is not carried out only in small circles, but in which a wider audience is involved, as being at least as important. Noorderlicht is arguably one of the most active participants in that discourse.

The times have changed: the basis for social and political support for the arts has itself become open to discussion. An easy way to respond to this development is to retreat into one's own familiar field. That is what Council has done in its evaluation. We however find that the discourse of the 21st century is more interesting: the challenge of creating a broad basis of support, of standing in the midst of our present times, without making any concessions with regard to artistic quality and content while doing so. Noorderlicht engages in this discourse with full conviction, and hopes to inspire others to also take up the challenge with which art is confronted . We do this through the content of our product, in which we focus centrally on the social development of the visual arts; the theoretical framework for the arts is not our end product. We lead by example.

The Arts Council in Groningen (committee on the visual arts, comprised of Gitta Luiten, former director of the Mondriaan Fund, Titus Eliëns, head of collections, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, and Macha Roesink, director of De Paviljoens Museum) recently pronounced on Noorderlicht in unmistakable terms: "This trend-setting platform has national and international status. The foundations for its artistic policy are solid ."

2) Untrue: Noorderlicht = reportage photography.

The characterization of Noorderlicht as an institution for reportage photography misrepresents the essence of Noorderlicht and does justice neither to Noorderlicht, nor to international developments in photography. Visual art and photography are not wholly congruent: the medium has its own discourse, language, history and future. Noorderlicht revolves around photography that makes a statement about our society. In pursuing this, we engage with all genres, from documentary to autonomous art photography. It is exactly the overlap between art and social relevance which distinguishes Noorderlicht, and for which it has become world-renowned. Noorderlicht was the first to take autonomous photography out of the ivory tower and place it in the centre of society. This proved to be a far-sighted act, because this is precisely where all relevant contemporary developments in photography are taking place.

3) Untrue: Noorderlicht is primarily the festival.

This has not been true for many years now. That the Council continues to think this is the case testifies to a failure to adequately take all our activities into account. The activity which is most obvious (certainly at a distance) is not per se the most important, and certainly not the only one. Noorderlicht began as a gallery and added the festival to that, in part in order to be able to reach a wider audience.

We would emphasize here that the term 'festival' is not without significance; it involves a large annual exhibition on par with those in museums – something commonly found in museums also. It is therefore no accident that for years we have received support as a presentation institution.


Since we moved into a new gallery, the gallery and our projects (including Sugar and Warzone) have steadily moved to the foreground. Within Noorderlicht the festival is now on equal footing with these other activities. The diverse tasks in which our organization engages form an ecosystem of activities that sustain one another, are of equal importance, and draw equivalent numbers of visitors.

It is precisely through this organization that Noorderlicht has succeeded in carrying on the discourse at various levels, and in drawing in both a specialized and a wider audience. The gallery is a venue for experimentation, the lessons from which are then embedded in the more accessible festival. Where the gallery, in part through its publications, plays a role in the theoretical art discourse, the festival, according to the authoritative Photo District News and other commentators, is among the five best in the world.

4) Untrue: Noorderlicht lacks connections with national photography institutions.

We dare to suggest that Noorderlicht exhibits the highest degree of cooperation of any organization in the world of soloists that is photography. In addition, the formulation implies a serious misapprehension: namely, that Noorderlicht is not a national institution. Noorderlicht is a national institution, located in the region. In the judgement of the Council it is a leading regional and international institution – but nationally it is not of importance? Noorderlicht is also recognized as a top institution nationally, and from its side Noorderlicht devotes a lot of energy to promoting its activities nationally.

5) The Council has altered the criteria for evaluation.

For an organization as active as Noorderlicht, it is impractical to sketch a complete picture of its work in the limited space available. In the plan we placed the emphasis on all our tangible activities, in conformity with the wishes of the Ministry. Quality, international importance, regional distribution, strategies with regard to increasing one's own income sources, wide public outreach, education: those were the key words in the application, all points on which we have been at work for years.

A remarkable scenario then emerges: Noorderlicht has no problems at all fulfilling the requirements set before it, so that the Council indeed assesses Noorderlicht positively on all these points (see the advice, as well as Appendix 1), in fact even more positively than any other applicant, but still hands down a final negative judgement. The criterion of theoretical discourse which is used to arrive at this is never mentioned by the Ministry, but suddenly emerges as the decisive standard, which the Council unilaterally decided to employ. Had we known that in advance, in the application we would have given more prominence to our role in the photographic discourse.

We would like to add one more thing at this point. It is not without reason that the that the chairman, Joop Daalmeijer, complained on Nieuwsuur, particularly with regard to the narrow framework for presentation institutions. We are an odd man out, and we are proud of it: alert, relevant, pioneering. The statements of support that are now pouring in from all over the world (!) speak volumes, underwriting our substantive critique of the advice and attesting to our valued position in international photographic discourse. Within twenty-four hours of the negative judgement being known, we already had 1000 expressions of support in on the Facebook page that colleagues opened.

Their advice creates the impression that the Council has difficulty with our organizational model. We believe that it is precisely our 'ecosystem' – various elements that reinforce each other, which make it possible to carry on discourse on diverse levels and for audiences of different types – which could provide the way forward for the art sector. Art must be able to develop in terms of content, but it also needs a base of support, certainly now that the breadth of audiences and institutions raising their own incomes are factors being given more prominence.

In closing: it is ironic that precisely the institution which in 2002 put the national dispersion of the arts on the agenda in the Lower House of Parliament by means of a petition, now threatens to be the victim of measures of the first Cabinet which included that distribution in its coalition agreement. We urgently request that you see to the revision of the advice of the Council with regard to Noorderlicht."

[paulfish4570]

that is a fine letter, as clear and concise as possible in an "artistic" vein, easily understood by anyone who reads it. now then, if the council members actually will read it ...