In this episode Sophie Hope talks with Owen Kelly about the manifesto that the Shelton Trust produced for the 1986 Another Standard Sheffield conference which attempted to add ideas about cultural democracy to the practice of community arts.

Mayhem ensued...

Meanwhile in an Abandoned Warehouse

EPISODE 92 | NOVEMBER 6 | 2026 
 

PARTICIPANTS

SOPHIE HOPE | OWEN KELLY

COMMENTARY

In July 1986 Another Standard, the association of community artists, held a conference in Sheffield. A manifesto working group presented the manifesto they had been asked to work on for discussion. Perhaps unfortunately they had not just written but also designed and laid out a manifesto, and arranged with Comedia to have it printed and made available. This was interpreted by some, but not all, of those attending as pre-empting discussion, and this in turn caused a number of disagreements within the movement to surface in ways that made discussion of the manifesto difficult if not impossible.

At the end of September this year Owen Kelly, who was one of the three co-writers of the manifesto, attended a seminar at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in central London where he and Sophie led a discussion with participation from others attending. The evening lasted longer than planned and the discussion was lively.

We recorded the event intending to produce a live episode, but the sound quality ended up not being as good as we hoped.

Sophie and Owen have therefore compared notes from the meeting and undertaken a conversation that reiterates and extends some of the arguments on the night.

This time they achieved an audio quality that is actually audible.

REFERENCES

Another Standard 1986: Culture & Democracy the manifesto https://dibdibdob.com/stuffandbobs/culture-and-democracy.pdf