Interview: Candice Jacobs

Where are you from originally, and what brought you to Notts?
I'm from Stratford-on-Avon, and I came here to do Fine Art at Trent. I was very nearly going to go to Cardiff, but came to Notts to visit. And it just felt right here.

What kept you here after you graduated to help form Moot?
I was lucky enough to be part of a big group of people in the same situation.  There were about twenty of us graduating at the same time who were all close friends, and we came to a realisation that we wouldn't be able to afford to live in London. We discovered a warehouse on Dakeyne Street that was available to rent from the city council, so we saved up for a deposit.

So it was simple economics.
It meant that we could afford to have a studio and to rent a flat.  In London, we’d be paying £500-600 for a room in a house per month, plus £250 a month for a studio.  Whereas here it was £50 for a studio and about £200 a month for rent. The best bit of advice I was ever given was that time is worth more than money, and if we lived in London, we’d be working all the hours God sends just to afford the rent, never mind the studio, so your practice gets affected.

Practically every artist we've interviewed loves Nottingham for its empty shops and warehouses. Is the only way that artists can get a leg-up in provincial cities is - indirectly - through other people being put out of work?
There’s a longstanding history of artists in all cities and countries taking over redundant and empty spaces. It’s the way things work. It’s wrong to assume that it’s because people have been put out of work; it’s because there are always areas of a city that have not yet been modernised or regenerated, which are unappealing to most yet provide opportunity to artists. Artists enliven a place, and then encourage investment. The downside is when people do start to invest, the artists get pushed out.

How hard was it for Moot to get established in town?
At first it felt that no-one was interested; no-one really came to anything we did at first.  We just did it because we were interested in it and we were learning from it.  Somewhere along the line other people started to become interested in it too, but it was difficult to begin with. And then the city council's ears sort of pricked up a little bit; they decided to organise the Nottingham Creative Business Awards, and we won the visual arts award twice. The funny thing was, we had such an international platform of artists, curators, collectors and audiences who were engaging with us - but no-one knew about us in Nottingham, even though we were putting the place on an international level.  When we were doing art fairs Nottingham became a city that was next to Zurich, next to New York, next to Paris… but no-one in Nottingham knew.  We did our best, but no-one seemed to have an interest in us here. There seems to be the separation between what artists are doing for a city and what a city understands the artists are doing for the city, maybe because we’re not making vast amounts of money.

And just when people cottoned on to Moot, it wound up.
Moot was a curatorial project, and it was always going to have an end point. We were the only run artist-run space back then; now there's quite a large number of things going on in the city.  Moot operated at a time when Nottingham Contemporary had been conceived, was being worked on and then opened - so I guess we were maybe putting in place some sort of understanding of contemporary art before the big guns came. The contemporary art scene has really flourished; hopefully what we did back in 2005 with Moot helped that development.  Now that we've got Nottingham Contemporary, New Art Exchange and even places like Quad in Derby, the whole area is thriving really.  It's a really good place to be because it's quite small, yet busy.  You really get to know the scene and meet really interesting people all the time.  For the moment, I have no intention of going anywhere else.

As someone who is at the top of their game in the Notts scene, do you think established artists have a responsibility to bring other artists into your spotlight and provide them with the attention that they deserve?
It's an interesting question.  I don't know whether it's a responsibility as such, but I think if you establish yourself with likeminded people you are essentially creating a support network for your ideas and bringing people together will essentially create a structure that will carry you and them along - so you're not out on your own, essentially.

Do you personally benefit as an artist by bringing other people in to work with you?
I do; it's an important part of my practice. I think it's come from my degree course at Nottingham Trent. When I was there, which was about ten years ago now, they encouraged you to do projects outside of the university - to find old disused spaces and put on shows and just be really active in the artistic community.  That started the process of bringing people together, which has been important.

It seems like the local art scene has practically been shaped by the spaces it’s fitted itself into.
The studio environment has changed since we started in 2005.  We started with a very open plan studio at an old warehouse in Sneinton, where Backlit Studios is now. Having
that open plan space was meant to mimic the environment that we had at university, and encourage conversation and dialogue, which was really important then.  We've just had eight new graduates move in to our attic space upstairs, but we also have these individual spaces at One Thoresby Street, as we felt that we needed space to concentrate more. Whether that's because we've got slightly more of a professional practice where we've got more projects on, and have to do less socialising and more concentrating, I don't know.  But it seems to be important for the group of people that we're with at the moment to have this individual space.

The local arts scene appears to be driven by Trent graduates and topped up by more graduates year-on-year. So is there a danger of it becoming an old boy/girl network with little relevance to locals? 
Art should always have a relevance to people, it doesn't matter who it’s made by.  It’s up to the people to engage with it, if they want to.  In my opinion there shouldn't be a conflict with who is making stuff; everyone should support one another to carry on doing interesting things in the city.

What’s the goal with One Thoresby Street?
It's about creating a creative space.  We don't really do very many workshops or teaching, but what we do do is just help each otherto develop new work.  So if someone's working on an Arts Council application, for instance, then there are lots of people here with experience that can help people to write those sort of documents or to make applications for MAs or for residencies.

What’s the selection process for new artists who want to work at One Thoresby Street?
It's really important that the people that we work with are willing to work as a group.  One Thoresby Street is collectively run, so everyone has an equal voice. New artists are normally recommended by people that already are here. They then present their portfolio online, which gets democratically voted on by each member in the studio.  It’s all about artistic integrity and trust; their age or what stage in their career they're at doesn't matter.  It's all about who they are, what they want to do and what they want to contribute towards this kind of community.

What would you say to people who felt they had something to offer the local arts scene, but hadn't gone down the graduate path?
That’s great, get involved.  Go to things.  If you have an opinion, tell the people who put the event or exhibition on, if you like what you see then tell people and try to get involved, every artist or gallery needs people to help them out all the time.

You’re an artist, curator, an essayist and even an entrepreneur. Is there one of those disciplines that you feel more drawn to?
I don't want to just go down one avenue.  I see myself doing lots of things - being an artist, curating projects - which I see as part of my practice anyway, so I don't really see them as being that different.  Doing the research is important for creating the work and the projects that I do, along with setting up spaces and setting up projects.  I think it's always going to be what I do.

Now that we’re in a recession, there’s a danger that arts buildings are seen by the general public as a waste of money. What do you say to that?
The arts can help to regenerate places. I think we've proved that with Nottingham.  First of all we were on Dakeyne Street, now we're here. Sneinton Market has just been regenerated by artists, and its market square is brand new, which encourages a flow of people to travel from Sneinton into town and people from town to go into the market. 

What’s exciting you about the Notts art scene at the moment?
The calibre of artists that are coming in and out of the city is going up all the time.  There's some really interesting projects going on, and a really eclectic music scene as well.  The shows at Contemporary are great; the audience they bring in are really good for us too. Backlit have just moved in to a new space – they’re building some great studios there as well.  Primary is a new studio that's just opening on Ilkeston Road.  They've got great potential and lots of plans for both an exhibition programme and they've got some really amazing studio spaces there as well.  The Surface Gallery down the road is still doing great things.  New Art Exchange are doing some great shows -  they've got an interesting project coming up which is trying to involve the community a bit more in investing in art.  The Castle's just had the Anish Kapoor show, that's a major exhibition to have.

When we interviewed Alex Farquarson before the launch of Nottingham Contemporary, he said that having a huge arts centre would guide more people towards the independent venues, instead of overshadowing them. Two years later, was he right?
In a way, yes - although I believe that creative people in the city shouldn’t presume that NC owes them anything.  It’s up to you as an artist to make the most out of it, by learning about artists’ practice and theory, networking and expanding your knowledge What NC does is provide a platform for the things that go on outside of the building by promoting what they do - linking to websites from their website, putting flyers out, and supporting craftspeople in their shop.  And it’s in their interest for there to be a flourishing art scene outside of itself, so that they can encourage people from outside of the city to visit and stay here for a significant period of time.

What challenges do you think the Nottingham art scene will be dealing with over the next decade?
Obviously, Arts Council funding will be much more difficult to secure. They've been superb in supporting the arts in the East Midlands up until this point, but I think artists are going to have to think creatively about how to continue and sustain their practice in other ways.  Whether that means thinking commercially, but in an interesting way, or whether that means having to go back to those times where you had to fit art around other things.  I don't know.

What advice would you give to the next generation of artists?
All artists should shout more about what they do to people who perhaps don't have an interest in the arts, establish relationships with them. We got this building from BioCity, which is the company next door. The head director, Glen Crocker - he gave us this building for free because it was on his land.  He didn't necessarily have a complete understanding about what it was that we were going to do here or what it was that we did.  He took a risk. I think more business and investment people need to take risks in supporting young artists, because we've proved that we help to regenerate places and make them more interesting. 

So what needs to happen next?
I think because of the strength of what's happening in the city, the institutions and organisations that exist here are being presented with better opportunities than they’ve ever had before. I think it’s time to be really ambitious - maybe Contemporary should try and get the Turner Prize. And we should definitely try to get the New Contemporaries touring exhibition here. I think there's a number of great things that Nottingham can go for;  It just needs to grab the bull by the horns.

You’ve just finished an action, event or other thing that occurs or happens again at One Thoresby Street, the Trade Gallery and Bonington…
It was quite a major project for me - probably the biggest thing that I've done on my own since Moot Gallery came to an end, which is about two years ago now. I really pushed myself with that project; it really solidified my ideas and my research avenues, and is leading on to a number of other things as well.  But it feels really nice to have a bit of a breather now, and make a bit of a plan for what to do next.  I've already got a few projects in the pipeline.

And if you could rip anything in Nottingham out of the ground and have it as an installation in your studio, what would it be?
The secret tunnel/bridge near the Playhouse.

Candice Jacobs website