{"id":1230,"date":"2019-03-08T11:00:56","date_gmt":"2019-03-08T11:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/arts-at-unisouth\/?p=1230"},"modified":"2019-03-20T14:50:45","modified_gmt":"2019-03-20T14:50:45","slug":"interview-with-susan-beckett-director-of-city-eye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/arts-at-unisouth\/2019\/03\/08\/interview-with-susan-beckett-director-of-city-eye\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Susan Beckett, Director of City Eye"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Arts Ambassador Katherine Wells interviews Susan Beckett about her role as director of City Eye, the newest addition to Southampton&#8217;s Cultural Quarter.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"660\" height=\"372\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dVAUYBMMKzk?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-GB&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/div>\n<p>Susan Beckett: My name is Susan Beckett and I am director of<a href=\"http:\/\/www.city-eye.co.uk\/\"> City Eye<\/a>, a film and digital organisation based here in Southampton.<\/p>\n<p>Katherine Wells:<em> How did you come to work within the arts?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>SB:<em>\u00a0<\/em>I was always involved in arts and creative activity as a very small child \u2013 I danced, I had music lessons, was in theatrical productions, and was always involved. Then I worked in a number of different jobs and careers until I had the opportunity to work in the arts relatively late in my career. Prior to joining City Eye, I went to work for a company called Solent People\u2019s Theatre, which is a community theatre organisation, again based in Southampton, which sadly doesn\u2019t exist anymore. When I left there, I joined City Eye and I\u2019ve been here for 15 years.<\/p>\n<p>KW:<em> Can you talk about your role now at City Eye?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>SB:<em>\u00a0<\/em>Yes, so as Director, I have day-to-day responsibility for everything in the company, from the staff to the projects, our accommodation, resources, our profile. Everything falls under me. I work with a small team \u2013 City Eye is an organisation which will always have a small core team, and then because our work is generally quite project-based, we will scale up, so we\u2019ve got a team of peripheral workers, freelancers, experts, and specialists in different fields that we can bring together to create teams for specific projects. That\u2019s how we manage our work and again, that\u2019s my responsibility. City Eye is a charity, it has a board of trustees who I report to, who oversee the charity\u2019s work and activities.<\/p>\n<p>KW:<em> So a bit of a coordinator then director?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u00a0<\/em>It is a role so much about coordination of all those different aspects and activities. We\u2019ve got a very broad range of work, from work with young people in schools, to outside of schools, we run workshops and activities, right through to our work supporting developing filmmakers and artists, so that\u2019s a very different kind of support. It\u2019s absolutely about coordinating all of those different activities and how they come together.<\/p>\n<p>KW:<em> How has City Eye brought wider awareness and engagement to the arts?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>SB:<em>\u00a0<\/em>Well City Eye is absolutely community-focused. We do work with artists and career filmmakers and industry specialists and experts for sure, but in its origins, City Eye was about reaching into the community, helping people to access film equipment, training, advice, and we do that to this day through community-based projects and work with the public and people who are not necessarily focused on film or digital careers. Filmmaking is a fantastic way of helping people develop soft skills, so it\u2019s brilliant for confidence-building, communication, teamwork. We use filmmaking in that sense to help people and give voice to different communities in different ways. So that work is very much in our production field but then we also run regular screening programmes throughout the year and an annual film festival which again is very much about engaging the wider public with what we do. What we hope is that filmmakers and digital artists get better opportunities to showcase their work, because that\u2019s always a challenge if you\u2019re working in film. Getting your work seen, having those opportunities can be really tough, but equally I think it\u2019s quite tough as a member of the general public to be discerning about the film and digital art that you engage with. We\u2019re all very managed and sort of bombarded by the big studios and distributors and the mainstream films that are just shoved in our face. There\u2019s an awful lot of fabulous independent, experimental film. Documentary, even now, doesn\u2019t quite get the profile that it should do, although it\u2019s improved. There\u2019s just such rich opportunity out there to engage with film that people wouldn\u2019t know about. So that\u2019s part of our mission as well, to create those opportunities for people to see film works that they otherwise wouldn\u2019t know about.<\/p>\n<p>KW: <em>What are your plans for 2019?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>SB: Massive plans. We\u2019re in the process here, at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.southampton.ac.uk\/uni-life\/arts\/theatre\/studio-144.page\">Studio 144<\/a>, Southampton\u2019s new development in the city, co-locating with the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jhg.art\">John Hansard Gallery<\/a> and neighbours now to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nstheatres.co.uk\">NST<\/a>. So we\u2019re the last of the three arts providers to locate and launch our programme, and our hope is we do that later in 2018 and then 2019 will be about launching and developing that programme, and bring people into the building and using these fabulous facilities that we have.<\/p>\n<p>KW:<em> What advice would you give someone wanting to establish themselves within the arts?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>SB:<em>\u00a0<\/em>I think you have to be true to yourself, follow your heart, but I think that often the mistake people make is that they overlook the value of a broader experience. Speaking from own perspective, as I said, I made my career in the arts relatively late. I worked in law, property, HR management and business, hospitality, marketing. I\u2019ve had a number of different roles that enabled me to really broad, strong business experience and I think that has been absolutely invaluable. The ability to understand how different sectors and industries work is also really great. Very few people get to be a pure artist in their little bubble, creating their own work \u2013 you have to be able to engage and communicate with different people, so I think those are the main things that I would say. If you haven\u2019t got your job doing what it is you want to do, whether it\u2019s playing the violin or painting or sculpting, pursue that any way you can, but don\u2019t underestimate the value of whatever you do need to do to get your bread and butter. If you\u2019re working in Lidl checkout, that\u2019s incredibly valuable experience: you\u2019re meeting all kinds of people, you\u2019re providing a service. Those are such positive skills to have. I don\u2019t think anyone should feel they\u2019re wasting their time.<\/p>\n<p><em>Arts Ambassadors is a paid opportunity, supported by the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.southampton.ac.uk\/careers\/index.page\">Careers and Employability\u00a0<\/a>Service\u2019s Excel Southampton Internship programme, University of Southampton<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Arts Ambassador Katherine Wells interviews Susan Beckett about her role as director of City Eye, the newest addition to Southampton&#8217;s Cultural Quarter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2268,"featured_media":1393,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[120,124,194,25,1,10],"tags":[122,65,32,42,99,75,59,4,128],"class_list":["post-1230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-ambassadors","category-city","category-performance","category-southampton","category-uncategorised","category-visual-arts","tag-arts-ambassadors","tag-arts-at-university-of-southampton","tag-careers","tag-co-ordinator","tag-film","tag-interview","tag-john-hansard-gallery","tag-southampton","tag-studio-144"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/arts-at-unisouth\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/149\/2019\/03\/City-Eye_Button-Image-for-Get-Involved.jpg?fit=4000%2C3000&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pc9CSZ-jQ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/arts-at-unisouth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/arts-at-unisouth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/arts-at-unisouth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/arts-at-unisouth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2268"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/arts-at-unisouth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1230"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/arts-at-unisouth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1445,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/arts-at-unisouth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1230\/revisions\/1445"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/arts-at-unisouth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/arts-at-unisouth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/arts-at-unisouth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/arts-at-unisouth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}