Poking and Prodding the Goo (Or: How To Get Ahead In Bureaucracies)

by Anthony Schrag, 5 Oct 2007

I’ve just spoken to Mark O’Neill – head of Museums and Galleries in Glasgow. After the talk How Sectarianism Hurts Our Churches I had had an idea to kidnap Council, and Gallery administrators – folks who decide that this is an issue to present to the world – and steal their mobile phones & wallets, dump them in the middle Darkest Glasgow, telling them to hack their way back to GoMA’s hallowed halls, through the knives and Stabbing Locals, and discover the true face of Sectarianism today.

I suppose I wanted them to feel as uncomfortable as many of the folks from Toryglen feel when they come to GoMA or other official building – places that represented neither their experience nor their perspective of Glasgow.

I soon realized that this violent kidnapping would probably 1) make me Public Enemy No.1 and I would never work in this town again and 2) not actually address the issue. While I normally have no problems making enemies, I felt it wouldn’t really be accomplishing anything, and given the reality of the situation and the position in which I found myself, I felt I needed, at least, to try.

That gut physical response of being suddenly in an unfamiliar place and ‘dangerous’ place, surrounded by folks who are living with the ‘issues’ daily was still important, both to my work AND to the issues. But, it was, I realized, an issue of policy as well as reaction.

Ben Harman (one of the Curators at GoMA) and I banged heads for a bit one morning and he helped me clarify my confusion. I wanted the “folks in positions of authority” to become aware of the disparities, but also to merge the physical spaces and ideology. Instead of just dumping them in the middle of an estate and running away, we came up with the idea of a round-table discussion about these topics, ostensibly to be held in GoMA’s hallowed halls, but actually located – round pine discussion table, deep-red comfy chairs and all – in the middle of Toryglen’s crumbling estate.

(Word of advice, in ANY bureaucratic system (Local Authorities especially): Go straight to the top, to the highest person you can go to and get their approval. Be honest. Be incredibly positive. Their blessing is Carte Blanche. Wait for no other approval. Smile. Be efficient. Tell no one details, only say: The Big Man approved this and carry on, head bowed and industrious. Otherwise, you’ll be sitting around, filling forms in triplicate, stopped at every entry, hounded from offices, disrupted, halted, turned around and you will get nowhere. This is the truth of the matter when trying to meld the ordered and rigid system of councils with the fluid and changing system of art…They may not understand you, your project or even your intentions, but they do understand hierarchy.)