Creative Scotland has announced details of the arts organisations that will benefit from three-year funding as part of its new Regular Funding portfolio.
The £100million pot, increased from a planned £90million due to the higher number of applications – 264 with a total value of just over £212million – will fund 119 organisations across Scotland for the April 2015 to March 2018 period.
The new portfolio significantly increases the number of organisations receiving three-year funding from the Scottish arts and creative industries body. Previously, only 45 organisations benefited from the stability of longer-term funding, and the new portfolio includes 20 organisations new to regular funding of any kind.
Visual arts and craft
Organisations working in the visual arts and craft make up around a quarter of the portfolio, and some of Scotland’s key contemporary art galleries have received substantial funding.
In Glasgow, the Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA) moves to three-year funding for the first time and will get £1,920,000 over the period, an increase of 16.4% on its current annual grant.
Edinburgh’s Fruitmarket Gallery continues with the same level of funding at £2,000,000 over three years, while Collective Gallery, which recently moved to new premises on the city’s Calton Hill, sees a 28.8% increase on its current annual funding to £850,000 over the funding period. Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA) get £2,000,000, an increase of 14.9%.
Elsewhere, Glasgow’s The Common Guild gets a 1.7% uplift (£540,000), the artist-run Glasgow gallery Transmission gets £210,000 (no increase), and the Glasgow gallery/performance venue Tramway, which will next year host the Turner Prize, receives £1,050,000, up 15.5%. The annual Edinburgh Art Festival (£300,000, 25%) and biennial Glasgow International festival (£270,000, 20%) also join the portfolio.
Big increase
One of the biggest percentage increases goes to Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, which relocated to a brand new building in the city in 2012. Moving from annual funding, it will get £700,000 over three years, an increase of 45.8%.
Glasgow Sculpture Studios, which also moved to new premises in 2012, receives £500,000 (up 0.3%). In Aberdeen, funding for the Scottish Sculpture Workshop, which is celebrating its 35th birthday, remains level at £585,000.
Further afield, North Lands Creative Glass in the Highlands enjoys an annual increase of 59.2% (£550,000) and funding for Atlas Arts in Skye goes up by 25% to £450,000. In Inverness, The Highland Print Studio receives £300,000, up 42.9%. Glasgow Print Studio, Edinburgh Printmakers and Peacock Visual Arts in Aberdeen (which includes printmaking facilities) are also in the portfolio.
Of the 20 organisations receiving regular funding for the first time, there are three from the visual arts. In Angus, Hospitalfield Arts – which will be curating next year’s Scotland in Venice presentation at the Venice Biennale – gets £300,000. Edinburgh’s Dovecot Foundation, which runs the Dovecot tapestry studios, receives the same amount.
Also new to regular Creative Scotland funding is the artist-led public arts organisation The Stove Network in Dumfries and Galloway, which receives £150,000 over three years.
Geographical diversity
Speaking about the new Regular Funding portfolio, Creative Scotland chief executive Janet Archer said: “I’m particularly pleased that this portfolio has a greater geographical spread than in previous years with organisations based in 21 local authority areas and more than three quarters of them operating beyond their base location, reaching audiences across the country.
“In direct response to the high number of fundable applications that we received, and by re-profiling our budgets over the next three years, we have been able to increase the overall budget for this round of regular funding from £90m to £100m.
“This enables us to provide better levels of support for more organisations in the portfolio to produce high quality work, strengthen audience bases and be operationally resilient.”
While Creative Scotland has increased the amount of funding available for the portfolio, the scale of applications means that there are 145 organisations that have failed to get any regular funding.
Acknowledging this, Archer said: “While this is a clear illustration of the scale of creative potential and ambition that exists across Scotland, it also means that many of these organisations will be disappointed by the outcome this time round.
“While we will be able to fund some organisations through Open Project and Targeted Funding, this underlines the importance of Creative Scotland’s role in making the case for culture at every given opportunity in order to increase levels of support available in the future.”
Regular Funding: visual arts and craft
Listed alphabetically, the figures show the amount of funding over three years (2015-18) and the annual percentage increase compared to any previous Creative Scotland funding:
Atlas Arts, Skye, £450,000, 25%
CCA, Glasgow, £1,920,000, 16.4%
Collective, Edinburgh, £850,000, 28.8%
Comar, Tobermory, Mull, £1,250,000, 12.6%
The Common Guild, Glasgow, £540,000, 1.7%
Cove Park, Argyll and Bute, 400,000, 6.7%
Craft Scotland, Edinburgh, £975,900, 7.7%
Deveron Arts, Aberdeenshire, 330,000, 0%
NEW: Dovecot Foundation, Edinburgh, £300,000
Edinburgh Art Festival, £300,000, 25%
Edinburgh Printmakers, £480,000, 0%
Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, £700,000, 45.8%
Fife Contemporary Art and Craft, £300,000, 10%
Fruitmarket Gallery, £2,000,000, 0%
Glasgow International, £270,000, 20%
Glasgow Print Studios, £480,000, 13.2%
Glasgow Sculpture Studios, £500,000, 0.3%
Highland Print Studio, £300,000, 42.9%
NEW: Hospitalfield Arts, Angus, £300,000
North Lands Creative Glass, Highlands, £550,000, 59.2%
NVA, £450,000, 0%
Peacock Vis Arts, Aberdeen, £800,000, 1.8%
Pier Arts Centre, Orkney Islands, £800,000, 20%
Scottish Sculpture Workshop, Aberdeen, £585,000, 0%
NEW: The Stove Network, Dumfries & Galloway, £150,000
Streetlevel Photoworks, Glasgow, £441,000, 4%
Tramway, Glasgow, £1,050,000, 15.5%
Transmission, Glasgow, £210,000, 0%
Travelling Gallery, £460,000, 8.4%
The full list of 119 organisations is available on the Creative Scotland website
CORRECTION: The original version of this article described Edinburgh’s Collective Gallery as ‘artist-run’. It is not – it describes itself as ‘a not-for-profit independent space’.
