Launched in March, Creative Scotland’s first corporate plan presented an ambitious vision for the nation’s arts, culture and creative industries. This is backed by core Treasury financing of £35.5m with £14.5m of Scottish Government funds for specific initiatives, unspent reserves from the interim between Scottish Arts Council/Scottish Screen and Creative Scotland, some lottery funding back after diversion to the Olympics and reduced overheads due the merger that included a 30% staff cut.
Select committee reports are an acquired taste, but anyone with access to the internet and half a day to spare will find the Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s recent report, Funding of the Arts and Heritage, and the evidence that informed it, an illuminating read. Published just two days before English arts organisations received results of their applications for Arts Council funding from 2012, it attracted a quick flash of publicity for some of its bolder conclusions and recommendations.
On 30 March, Arts Council England announced the winners and losers in the new National Portfolio Organisations (NPO) for funding 2012-15. Here’s a-n’s take on what’s happened, the likely impact on artists, independent arts professionals and the arts ecology as well as highlights from some of the many comments and discussions that are in train.
In March, AIR – Artists Interaction and Representation – put its weight behind calls for art education to be accessible to all, following a survey in which 95% of its members gave hearty support to the view that art education should be accessible “irrespective of background and financial status”. Here we outline AIR’s campaign and the survey’s key findings to provide evidence for artists to use.
Jack Strange, Zip and Zing
AHM (Sam Ainsley, David Harding and Sandy Moffat) presented the second of three one-day symposiums across Scotland in April.
National Association of Local Government Arts Officers (NALGAO) re-launches this spring as Arts Development UK (ADUK), to reflect the changing nature of arts development and those involved. Lorna Brown, Head of Arts & Cultural Strategy West Sussex County Council and NALGAO Chair, reports.
A collaboration between Harris Museum and Gallery and Folly, ‘Current’ is an experiment into collecting digital and new media artworks, on show at Harris Museum until 4 June.
In March, artists got together to discuss and share their strategies for surviving the cuts without compromising practice, ethics or professionalism.
The end of the art and design academic year is often the time for travel and other ways of broadening horizons. Here’s a few of the many options around and about.
Ellie Harrison’s latest project ‘Work-a-thon for the Self-Employed’ will take place at Toynbee Studios, London on 13 June as part of the Two Degrees festival.
The weeks and months after graduation can be a daunting time. After three years or more of support and guidance suddenly it’s time to go it alone. There are many different ways to pursue your career as a professional artist and no two people will follow the same path. Here, four recent art graduates describe their journeys: from joining a peer-led network to working as an artist’s assistant, they each have a different story to tell.
Iain Andrews, The Eat Me, 50x60cm, acrylic on canvas, 2010.
As the UK’s cultural sector braces itself for the most radical changes in recent history, a-n has been following the situation as it develops and presenting the most up-to-date news and information.
Having seen the sagging pile that currently represents David Cotterell’s Hill33 in the Forest of Dean I was surprised to see the carefully selected photograph that accompanied the article ‘Collaborative relationships’ (a-n Magazine March 2011 issue).
The Live Art UK network writes in response to the announcement by Arts Council England (ACE) of its National Portfolio Organisation awards for 2012-15.
John Plowman unpicks a new book on collaborative practice by Nuno Sacramento and Claudia Zeiske.
Wysing Arts Centre, Bourn
2-17 April
Mother’s Tankstation, Dublin
23 February – 26 March
Grey Area, Brighton
5-27 March
Coexist, Southend-on-Sea
25 February – 18 March
PEER, London
9 February – 2 April
Sonya Dyer reports from ‘Structure and Space’ the final event in the Artists and curators talking series, held at Wysing Arts Centre in Cambridgeshire.
Is surface texture, pattern and ‘the natural’ an escape or a trap? Rosalind Davis talks to Andrew Bryant about this and other questions in her work written about in her Artists talking blog.
