Cuddly Collaborations?

I'm just back from a very interesting discussion event organised by Aileen Macleod the SNP prospective candidate for Galloway - it was held in the Professors Study of the Gem Rock Museum and attended by a very diverse bunch of folk from the cultural, environmental and tourism sectors. The whole idea of marketing is often a tricky subject in our sector...most of us would rather not 'get our hands dirty' with the business of 'selling'. But on the other hand we do really want people to know about what we do. One of the themes of the discussion was the powerful effect of people from different sectors actually meeting up face to face. This was certainly the case for me as I quickly discovered that two of the tourism people in the room were already following The Commonty on Twitter and were very keen to be involved in promoting the ARTS in D+G as another big reason for visitors to come here. 

Book Proposal - journeys in D+G around environmental art projects

In this extraordinary time when the infrastructure that we have known is vanishing before our eyes, maybe it is time for us to make new alliances directly with folk in other sectors in the service of advancing the things that we believe in? Or is this just the crap they want us to believe because they have shut up shop on funding art for arts sake? Personally, I am finding myself enjoying meeting other people who are working to the best of their own ability to make a go of things...we are all in this together after all (apart from the few that own all the land - of course)