Nick Ahad: The economics might not make sense but the end result is pricless

In February I met Tessa Gordziejko, and wrote up an interview with her for this paper. Tessa is the director of a project called Imove which is a charity in charge of the cultural arm of the Olympics in Yorkshire.

She has been given £1.7m of public money to spend on creative work in Yorkshire, which is why I interviewed her, but despite Tessa’s obvious enthusiasm I’ll admit that I wasn’t entirely convinced.

When I met Tessa, Imove had already put out a call to artists in Yorkshire, encouraging them to pitch for a share of the £1.7m. The language Tessa used to describe the response sounded like so much management speech I thought my head might explode.

I can’t remember exactly what she said, but I do remember phrases like “movement of the body” and “the human body in motion”. It’s the kind of jargon you often find being used by arts organisations, but Tessa seemed sure Imove would deliver and I had to remind myself that sometimes its best to put personal opinions aside and simply stick to the facts.

It turned out two genuinely brilliant Yorkshire artists, whose careers I have followed from very early days, Madani Younis of Freedom Studios and Alan Lane of Slung Low, had successfully bid for a slice of the Imove cash. They’re good at that sort of thing.

Madani got £70,000 and Alan £90,000 to make pieces of work that explored the concept of movement.

As a supporter of the arts, I believe public funding is totally necessary for our cultural organisations and utterly justified. But even I balked at the idea of £160,000 being spent on projects that would last just a matter of days.

Madani’s Freedom Studios created with the money The Mill, a promenade show around an old Bradford Mill, which was beautiful and moving.

In Slung Low’s case, Mapping the City (review, page 12) lasts six days and will be seen by around 150 people – at a cost of almost £100,000. Madani’s project could only play to a maximum of around 60 people each night.

Both projects were totally, totally worth the funding.

The truth is, I didn’t really understand Imove fully because I’m a journalist and not an arts professional. But I didn’t need to understand the whys and wherefores.

As long as there are people like Alan and Madani creating this special work for us, we should put trust in the fact that these artists know what they are doing.

We might not “get it” when they start these projects, but as the audience we just need to “get it” at the end. The reaction of the people around me at Mapping the City reminded me of an advert: Mapping the City ticket: £12. Cost of the production: £90,000. The experience the audience had in some of the run down parts of Hull where the production took place: Priceless.