The Invisible Artist from Northern Visions NvTv on Vimeo.
(with thanks to Andrew Luke):
Northern Visions TV (NVTV), Greater Belfast's community TV station which backed the comics-related film
The Invisible Artist last year, is under threat of closure because of controvrsial funding cuts.
Northern Visions is a non-profit organisation originally formed in 1986, originally serving as a
training ground for Belfast's local journalists and technicians wanting to make
in-roads to working for Channel 4. Sometime after they metamorphisised
into a sort-of public access station, giving an air to community voices
in Northern Ireland's capital as it left the Troubles behind it.
"Beneath all the gloss of the birthplace of the
Titanic and the MTV awards, NVTV
gave voice to real Belfast," feels viewer and comic creator
Andrew Luke, who made
The Invisible Artist documenatry with the support of the station. "And if you wanted to make a documentary,
you'd get professional mentoring and assistance to write, film and edit.
Post-production, the pieces were screened on local television and then
made available for free on NVTV's spaces on
Vimeo and
Youtube."
Sadly, one of the stations's main funding bodies has decided it no longer qualifies for ther financial support.
During the 1990s NVTV were funded by the Arts Council
NI, and from 2007 by film and digital body, NI Screen. Last month NVTV
and the Arts Council were informed NVTV no longer fit NI Screen's
criteria. The Arts Council had delegated their lottery funding to NI
Screen, essentially blocking the station out of the revenue stream. Without this funding, there is no access for paid staff or volunteers to a
central location, editing suite, or the other production costs.
An
emergency meet with the Arts Council last week for core funding ranked
NVTV high with artistic Quality, Financial/Project Management, Preserve
Frontline Services in the Arts, Key Components of Artform/Sector(non-
duplication of Service/Provision) and in Innovation. However, the Arts
Council disagreed with the Moderator's recommendation that NVTV is
digital media and not the arts.
"No funding streams (exist) for any form of activity based around
access to and participation in film, new media arts for
communities," notes Marilyn Hyndman of NVTV. "The central question remains which is - where do the
communities Northern Visions work with fit within the arts, film and
digital media – community groups, young people, older people, ethnic
minorities, interface groups, local heritage groups, women, people with
disabilities, victims of the Troubles, disadvantaged communities?"
Andrew Luke tells us
talks with the Arts Council are ongoing, for "without core funding NVTV will close, but in the meantime, he's urging fans of
The Invisible Artist to join hundreds of others and drop a note to support the work of NVTV at
http://www.northernvisions.org/index/commentsfromsupporters.html
"I realise many of you have seen my own film," he says, "which would not have happened without station staff who kept the project
turning. While my disabilities played up, producer Carl Boyle took over
the final production in the editing suite. You no doubt found it an
educational and representative piece, so please just drop a line and
tell them what it meant to you."
The campaign to reinstate funding is backed by North Belfast MP Nigel Dodds. "At a time when the Department of Culture, Arts & Leisure is
advocating community based work in disadvantaged areas, it is a tragedy
that an organisation of nearly 30 years standing, which has pioneered
community digital media and community arts with hundreds of groups in
socially disadvantaged areas or at risk of social exclusion should find
that they too, are excluded," he said in a letter to Northern Ireland's First Minister. "I count on your leadership to preserve the
only community digital media and arts resource of its kind in Northern
Ireland."
Over
100 groups each year benefit from Northern Visions services within the
voluntary and community sector, the arts, film, music, vulnerable
minorities, older people, victims of the Troubles, people with
disabilities and minority ethnic groups. Its volunteer scheme involves over 125 active citizens and its seems to me that this is a service which has promoted the comics form – and will surely do so again – and deserves support.
• If you doubt, or would like to see more on NVTV's impressive work, here's a proportionately tiny list of Andrew's recommendations:
• Giro's (20m version), (54m version)
Charting the tales of those who ran Belfast's infamous grass-roots
community club during the punk and new wave scenes of the 1980s.
Vibrant, engaging, refreshing, fascinating.
• Market Memories (60m)
Valuable narratives, rare interviews and footage across four
generations of families and friends at the city's beloved central
market, St. George's.
• Sailortown (13m)
Before the machines and the tourists, labourers worked the Belfast
dock-side and build up a community. This film reflects on another near
forgotten age; those who remember the stories tell them.
• Paint for Peace (40m)
Documenting
the relationships of two A graffiti artists, one from the Protestant
Falls Road and the other, from the Catholic Shankhill. This film
examines their friendship and collaborations in one another's areas as
well as at John Lennon Roundabout, Liverpool.
• SeaWorthy (22m)
Lough Neagh boat enthusiasts talk about their development of traditional methods of building and sailing their craft.
• The Invisible Artist (34m)
An expertly informed history of contemporary Belfast comic book and cartooning culture, co-produced by Andrew Luke and NVTV
The style of British comics has changed many times over the years. The type that we grew up with were the picture strip weeklies which were heavy on comic strip pages and light on non-strip pages, while today many British children's comics are light on comic strip pages and heavy on non-strip pages be they quiz, info or pin-up pages.
Yet for most comics fans the story paper era is an all but forgotten mystery, dating as it does from the time when their grandparents were young, while the intervening years, as well as wartime paper recycling, have left few copies of the titles available for collectors to find.
So it came as something of a surprise that now, over twenty years after the last issue of Golden Fun appeared, Alan is back with a new comics fanzine entitled The Sloperian which concentrates on those early days of British comics.
