Earlier this year, former Barbican director John Tusa claimed that art is a ‘wonderful continuum, that starts at the top and goes all the way down to the pleasant and the humdrum and the community at the bottom’. In response, Arts Council Chief Executive Darren Henley offered the following criticism: ‘We must not allow our world to be characterised as a pointy triangle with excellence on high, and access and community at the base. This framing is skewed, it’s exclusive.’

Henley went further, challenging the suggestion that excellence only lives in certain art forms or particular places. ‘Let’s be clear,’ he said, ‘excellence and access are not mutually exclusive’. As the saying goes, talent is everywhere, opportunity is not. Hierarchy and the assumption that community-based work in the arts is inherently inferior is not only patronising, it is cultural gatekeeping. The way that art and culture are defined, funded, and valued has consequences — especially for places on the economic periphery. 

In somewhere like my hometown of Peterlee, in County Durham, without funded projects in the arts focused on community engagement, the community barely has the scaffolding it needs to exist. While it shouldn’t fall to something like an Arts Council funded project to bring civic life back to a town, this is the current reality and necessity. Such initiatives don’t merely support creativity — they help to build whole areas back up.

Peterlee came into being in 1948 (the same year as the foundation of the NHS) and formed part of wider post-war development plans and the creation of the welfare state, which ensured that anyone, no matter their socio-economic status, could access what they needed in order to live a full life. In the case of Peterlee, this was housing and community for a still thriving mining industry (it was to be ‘the miners’ capital of the world’). In fact, it was the only new town created in the wake of the 1946 New Towns Act that was requested specifically by local people via their MP, rather than something handed down by government planners. It was a place designed with people as well as productivity in mind.

Fast forward to today, and Peterlee is one of 225 places identified by the Local Trust as a ‘left behind place’. ‘Left behind’ status is defined in terms of economic decline, but also a lack of social infrastructure (places to meet, an active and engaged community, connection to essential services). The most prominent feature of Peterlee is Lee House, an empty building whose clock face has been stuck at ten-past-two for years — something often referenced by locals with equal parts humour and frustration. The near-deserted Castle Dene shopping centre helps to give Peterlee one of the highest vacancy rates in County Durham.

But recently these units have been reimagined as sites of possibility, as the empty shops in Castle Dene have been repurposed as arts and events spaces. One of the first such events I came across — a gig held in the old, closed-down Shoe Zone — occurred in November 2023. It was put on by experimental cassette label Industrial Coast, as part of a pilot initiative called Place Lab under the consultancy strand Building Cultures. The band I play in (Marginal Gains) had just started gigging at the time, and we were keen to put on some shows that we could put our own stamp on. Seeing the Shoe Zone event got me thinking: could we do something like that?

I reached out to Carlo Viglianisi, who directs Building Cultures, and who had run a non-profit arts project called Empty Shop for many years. Some time passed, then there was news of a second wind of funding for activities. Around that time, I had crossed paths with Thomas — now my partner — who plays in the band Vice Killer. It quickly became clear that we both cared deeply about the place we grew up and its potential. We teamed up to put on an event that would reflect that spirit. On 10 August 2024, we did just that and launched Life Just Bounces.

Meeting Carlo gave us the confidence we needed to get the idea off the ground. He was able to fund part of it, and could help with access to the empty units in the town centre. Access proved more challenging than we’d expected. Thomas went door-to-door, meeting various social club and venue owners, and eventually secured Peterlee Central Club. It wasn’t technically a vacant retail space, but it had a similar sense of lost potential; the upstairs part of The Central used to be another bar and dance hall — a popular spot on Friday and Saturday nights (our mams can vouch for this). It had been closed since the early 1980s. Faded but defiant, a sign on the wall still proudly urged: ‘COME DANCING AT PSC. DISCO NIGHTS FRI SAT.’

During the event, photographer Andy Martin set up a word-of-mouth photo studio in this closed off space, shooting portraits on a Rollie T camera, while downstairs we had put together a full day of art, poetry, more photography, music, and film. Things were kicked off by compere Alex Redman, who introduced live literary readings from Jake Trelease, Tom Pickard, and Pet Shop Mods. We screened archival BBC footage of a Peterlee drama group in 1978, and a recent video BMX compilation from Sunny Blunts. There was a raffle, and then came the music: FAWNS, Marginal Gains, Vice Killer, and a DJ set from Antony Daly of 586 Records to close off the day.

In the run up to the event, we invited photographer David Hall to help us capture the County Durham area for an exhibition. David has an infectious dedication for connecting and capturing community and place. We booked in a couple of days with David, taking him on a tour of County Durham — Seaham, Easington, Shotton, Horden, Peterlee, and Castle Eden Dene — meeting many local faces along the way. The stunning results were displayed alongside an open art submission.

We particularly wanted to hear from new and emerging local artists, especially students, those with no formal art training, and hobbyists. Featured artists included Viv Harrison (‘2pm’), Heather Moore (‘Rush’), Patina Clothing (‘Flag’), Meg McWilliam (‘Fish Finger Queen’), Ella Du Gay (‘Gropius House’), and David Scott (‘It’s Brutal Round Here’). Both exhibitions were pulled together with the amazing support — in both time and funding — from No More Nowt (one of the Arts Council’s Creative People & Places projects based in Peterlee). 

Something genuinely exciting and special took place in Peterlee Central Club on that day. Tickets sold out and the age range in the room spanned decades. There were tears and laughter, shirts came off, and the incredible lineup, cheap drinks, and the sun shining all added to the magic of people simply being together.

Life Just Bounces was inspired by other creative initiatives that had taken place in closed-off spaces in the town centre. Events like Andrew Wood’s digital residency seventyfivethreads (which showcased a gameplay of Peterlee in its past, present, and all its imagined futures), Ron Lapworth’s painting exhibition ‘Full Circle’, and Deb Covell’s and Theresa Poulton’s curated exhibition revisiting Victor Pasmore’s utopian vision for Peterlee. They all took place in empty town centre units and were supported by Building Cultures and No More Nowt.

These events are a total joy, but also a testament to what has been lost and what is still missing in places like Peterlee. The buildings they take place in should still be part of the civic life of the town more permanently, rather than existing for most of the time as relics of what could have been. It is grassroots creativity that is making do in the margins, while the structures that should be supporting it sit hollowed out. Commitment to community engagement matters. Without it, connections are less likely to happen, and events like Life Just Bounces wouldn’t exist at all.

When Tusa speaks of communities at the ‘bottom’ as ‘humdrum,’ it says far more about his distance from what life is actually like on the ground than about communities and engagement work themselves. Excellence is not just confined to capital cities, and neither is it classically trained. It is also DIY, and it is collaborative. It can be a window into what arts and culture look like when people build it from the ground up. At the same time, these initiatives shouldn’t be a creative lifeline used to compensate for the failure of larger civic structures. They have to be supported by essential infrastructure, to allow the foundations of community to be rebuilt in places like County Durham — so that time can start moving again beyond ten-past-two.