TOM BRYAN looks at the role of Katrina Gordon as the Cultural Co-ordinator for Caithness. |
Katrina Gordon took up her post as the Cultural Co-ordinator for Caithness in January. It is a two year part-time pilot project, based on working with both primary and secondary schools. In Katrina’s case, it means one day in Thurso, one day in Wick, serving all of Caithness. I asked Katrina herself what the challenges were.
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“Perceptions and perspective!,” she insisted. “How teachers perceive artists, how artists see schools, how Highland Council sees both schools and artists, and how can I possibly get all three to work together to the greater good when they all have such different sets of priorities?! Obviously budget constraints are a challenge, too, but I think altering perceptions is the bigger challenge.”
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Katrina Gordon is part of a Highland-wide team of cultural co- ordinators, each serving their areas: Ali Macdonald (Lochaber); Cailean Maclean (Skye and Lochalsh); Caroline Storey (Inverness); Linda Jolly (Badenoch and Strathspey); Shona Arthur (Moray); Jane Bregazzi (Sutherland).
Those of us involved in the arts know all the soggy clichés that are trotted out to challenge the work we do, and even what we are. Let’s get them out in the open then. Culture? Something the snobs try to impose on us, like opera and ballet. Money better spent on public toilets, crime prevention, etc.
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Co-ordinator? Who says we aren’t already coordinating? Coordinate what? Katrina also acknowledged this factor.
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“A grand job title, isn’t it? I really dislike it. Arts and Heritage co-ordinator would be more meaningful to most folk I work with. The ideal would be to have an Arts co-ordinator working closely alongside a Heritage and Environment co-ordinator as a team in schools - all full time, or course! As it is, I spend lots of time explaining what my perception of “culture” is so that teachers and artists know what I could do for them.”
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In the Highlands, culture is usually meant in its widest, most universal sense as the culture of all the people - landscape, folklife, language, customs, history, and the whole shebang, what the Gaels call An Dealbh Mhor, “the big picture”.
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This is where Caithness shines likes its famous open landscape or its Aurora Borealis (“Merry Dancers” locally). “Co-ordinate” by its nature implies lots of stuff going on, a bit like artistic air traffic control. Caithness is a relatively small county of 25,000 people but the amount of real cultural activity is remarkable.
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© Tom Bryan, 2003 |
