15.11.2001

Unleashing energy

Two leading figures within Artists Against the War, Tam Dean Burn and Emma Schad, talked to the Weekly Worker about the role of their organisation

TDB: It?s been slow starting off in a sense. Some of the people who had been involved in the Workers Theatre Movement in the late 1980s/early 90s had gone on to form an Artists Against the War at the time of the Gulf conflict. These people have been instrumental in setting the campaign up this time around.

It is clear that there was a desperate need for it. People had been talking about coming together and once we got the ball rolling there has been widespread interest. Encouraging numbers of people have been coming to the weekly meetings we have been having, including a high percentage of international artists. We?ve had a regular stall outside the Tate Modern that has attracted a lot of interest - mostly from the general public, of course. Also, we have had a very large number of supportive emails. The sheer volume of these has underlined that artists, working in different spheres, often feel very isolated.

ES: The process of creating work is quite solitary. That feeling is exacerbated if you are not working commercially or in another collective way. When you?re meeting with others and creating art for a purpose, for a cause, then that changes dramatically. If it?s a positive experience in that way, it?s valuable for the artist and the movement.

TDB: Artists have also been affected by the more general unease in society, the lack of a clearly defined aim in the war and a feeling that it could all be disastrously counterproductive. As we have started to come together and organise, it has become increasingly clear that people do not just have misgivings: they see this war as wrong. The warmongers have been very quick off the mark so far. We are lagging behind. But unlike the Gulf War, which was short and sharp, this conflict is going to be a long-term process.

We are offering the people the opportunity to produce their work and get it seen. At the same time, they are supporting and offering another resource to the anti-war movement itself, practically and politically. Our website will be a valuable resource both to make contacts domestically and internationally, but also to make clear that a whole section of artists in this country stand against the war and the horror it is bringing.

ES: Practically, we are hampered by the lack of money. But there has been a burst of creativity in terms of banner-making, postcards, placards, mega-puppet makers, etc.

A group called Anti-War Heads - a new theatre-writing initiative - are involved. There are a number of strands to that work that we hope to produce in a cabaret setting at some stage. Anther aspect is short performances in public spaces - like on a bus, or in the tube. Caryl Churchill has also been involved and is looking to produce work in collaboration with a visual artist.

So we have been hooking up with a lot of artists who have not been involved in a broad-based political movement before. That is unleashing a lot of collective energy that will take the project forward, hopefully even after we have defeated this war.

TDB: We want to keep the organisation as broad as possible. The aims of Bush and Blair go beyond the borders of Afghanistan. The attack on civil liberties in the name of the ?war on terrorism? underlines that we need to be fight to battle on the home front as well. They seem to be defining terrorism in a way that can include practically any radical critic of the established order.

We have to organise to defend ourselves.