Lost Arts is a three-year campaign to catalogue and record everything the arts sector loses as a result of public funding cuts by central and local government. The list of Lost Arts will then be taken to Government as evidence for the next spending review.
Losses could be performances, projects, commissions, jobs, galleries, museums, paintings, artworks, training schemes, festivals – anything that comes from the arts and culture sector.
It is not only the big organisations that are losing out. We want to hear from individual artists receiving fewer commissions or finding it more difficult to exhibit or sell their work. We want to hear from families who love their local libraries, gallery assistants whose hours are being cut, those who’ve benefitted from training schemes and outreach programmes that are often the first things to go in a time of austerity. Anyone, in fact, who feels their arts and culture has been affected by Government cuts.
Our stories come from the people who feel the cuts the most within the sector and without – artists, arts lovers and communities. Lost Arts recently launched a blog dedicated to telling those stories, to accompany the Lost Arts list.
You can add your voice to the protest and tell us about losses in your community. Follow Lost Arts on Twitter @LostArts_ and visit www.lost-arts.org for more information about cuts where you live.
More on a-n.co.uk
Ladders for development and Realising the value – Dany Louise tracks visual arts organisations cut by ACE in 2011.
Artists work in 2011 – tracks decline in artists’ paid for opportunities since 2007
