Within the case studies, similar aspirations are attached to the work of artist-led organisations. These are said to “create ambitious projects which involve a wide range of audiences”, “make an excellent contribution to delivering arts provision in the community”, “play an active role in stimulating and contributing to debates… on visual arts practice and intervening in the wider architectural fabric of the environment…”, “[help] people develop confidence, new skills and abilities they didn’t know they had… opening up new opportunities for individuals and groups” and “providing important resources for artists, schools and others in the community”. On this front alone, artist-led organisations would appear to have the ability to offer significant contributions to future visual arts provision, and thus be eligible for A4E funds.
Artist-led organisations, however, can claim to be playing an important role within the arts environment as a whole. The case studies demonstrate that these groups are concerned with developing new ways of producing and presenting the visual arts and to do this, are committed to building and sustaining relationships with communities of people and other interest groups. It can be argued that a greater investment in such work by the arts funding system is justified because it not only contributes to the overall vitality of the arts but supports the generation of ‘cultural capital’, the product which arises when a strong sense of artistic vision, ambitious approaches to the creation and presentation of work and the willingness to be experimental are combined with a passion for self-development and creative success.
Given the likely impact of the newest lottery scheme, it is relevant to comment on the potential for artist-led organisations to access it. The Arts for Everyone (A4E) scheme (1) will from 1997 offer a valuable source of funds to all those concerned with audience development. The scheme will fund one-off projects which:
• encourage new audiences to experience high-quality arts activity
• encourage and develop participation in arts activity
• enable more young people to be actively involved in arts and cultural activities
• enhance creative potential through training and professional development
• support new work in appropriate context and to enable it to develop its audience.
A4E Express will be open to applications for amounts up to £5,000 from groups who need not be formally constituted, provided they are not regularly funded by arts boards, councils or local authorities and have not had more than £5,000 from any public source in any one of the preceding three years. Those applying for larger sums must be formally constituted.
Significantly, A4E Express aims to work on the notion of ‘a lighter touch’ than is generally the case within the arts funding structure. This is because those who have developed it have recognised a need for arts activities to be engendered by a much broader cross section of arts and community organisations, and that the methods generally used by the arts funding system to solicit and assess ideas may be off-putting to those who are not currently on client lists. It is estimated that A4E could double the number of applications the arts funding system now handles and by doing so, have a major impact on the scope and nature of arts activity in the country within a relatively short time-scale. Overall, implementation of this new programme suggests there could be a gradual dissolving of the existing hierarchical arts funding systems and structures in favour of methods which ensure that arts provision permeates in a more grassroots manner, within and outside the urban centres of population.
In this way, the philosophy underlying A4E has distinct similarities with the underlying principles of artist-led practice. Both are premised on the requirement for the arts to have an impact on, and relevance to, audiences which are more broadly defined, with professional arts practice providing the key resource. Both also seem to have acknowledged that the arts funding system has developed a tendency to proscribe arts provision, rather than to formulate strategies in response to the artistic activity and creativity around them. Notions of unpredictability and therefore the excitement of the new also pertain to both. A4E describes this as the intention to “add a new kind of energy and innovation to England’s arts scene…” and “refresh the arts other funding systems cannot reach, by opening up… new opportunities”.
(1) See Arts for Everyone information booklets
