ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a historical analysis of a set of alternative strategies to artistic production and diffusion which appeared in the North of England. It aims to underline the means and the goals of these alternatives, while taking into account the aesthetic issues directly involved in the process. The chapter addresses the negotiation of funding issues and confronted traditional photographic practices dominated by male values with panels proposing alternative feminist types of practices. These alternative practices focused on women's experiences and empowerment. The socio-political historical context has clearly conditioned the responses of artistic organizations advocating grassroots collective development in northern cities. The 1990's Annual Programme, for instance, appear as one of the rare organizations to have flourished without financial assistance within a northern art scene devoid of commercial outcomes and largely dependent on external subsidies. This incorporation, however, has been led in parallel to an overall drive towards a conversion of past industrial economies into a service-based economy.
