{"id":905,"date":"2012-09-22T16:30:08","date_gmt":"2012-09-22T15:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sallypommeclayton.com\/blog\/?p=905"},"modified":"2023-06-22T13:45:25","modified_gmt":"2023-06-22T12:45:25","slug":"awards-what-are-they-good-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/makeandbelieve.uk\/?p=905","title":{"rendered":"Awards – what are they good for?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n
\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Awards have always been controversial, whether they do, or do not have: judges; prize money; publicity, prestige, or sales, attached to them. Awards inevitably divide, there will always be some who do not agree with the criteria for judging, or on who makes the judgements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have recently been nominated for one of the ‘BASE’ awards for storytelling.<\/a> This is a new venture started by Phrase Arts<\/a>. The nominations have been chosen by public suggestion. The short list, taken from the nominations, has now gone to a public vote. I was honored to be nominated – thank you to those who suggested me. But I could not accept. It is a shame not to be able to support Phrase Arts’ efforts to encourage storytelling, but there are too many aspects of the awards I disagree with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don’t want my work to be judged against the work of others. When I first started storytelling in 1984 there were about 20 professional storytellers in the UK, there are several hundreds now, and growing. This expansion has diversified storytelling, there are more venues, styles, forms, aims, stories. Each teller is different, and this is what keeps the art form alive and interesting. Choosing excellence from this diversity is always going to be subjective and arbitrary. Pitching one against the other will always mean someone is left out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The B in ‘BASE’ stands for British, and I find this very problematic. There are some serious omissions from the list of nominations, and this reflects the limited exposure of those nominating to the vast amount of storytelling that is going on in Britain. The awards do not represent the whole of British storytelling. They represent a selection of some people’s experience of some of  what is going on. The current name of the awards is misleading, and doesn’t reflect that they involve a public voting process, and that those voting will not have seen all the work going on in Britain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘People’s Awards’ are a valuable way of honoring work. Awards do bring publicity, and this is something storytelling and storytellers always need. However they don’t necessarily represent talent or excellence, and often the best candidates don’t win. Voting depends on mates, social networking, and drumming-up a team that supports you. The results of this concern me, and can reflect a talent to get votes, rather than artistic talent. Stating that the results of the awards are the people’s choice would clearly signify on what basis the awards have been given. If the awards are to represent Britain, then a different judging process would need to be undertaken. Which would in turn bring its own horrors!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The limited choice of nominees seems partly  due to the lack of advance publicity for the award and for the process of making nominations. I only knew about the awards after I’d been nominated. I am sure this is a problem that will be addressed in time. But I am concerned that voting regarding storytelling talent will only create divisions and upsets. I don’t believe it will lead to developing excellence. And I think it would be better to spend resources in a different way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would rather be given a beautiful bunch of flowers!<\/p>\n