Event in London brings together raft of speakers from across the arts sector to discuss funding priorities, partnerships and access – with a welcome focus on the artist.
Glasgow-based artist Ellie Harrison has launched a new campaign to develop an alternative funding stream for artists by harnessing wind power.
This year’s Arts Council England and British Council-supported No Boundaries – billed as a symposium on the role of arts and culture – took place over two days at the end of September at Watershed in Bristol and HOME, Manchester. Featuring talks and discussion from an international cast of contributors, it once again had a live link between each venue and was also live streamed. Artist Julie McCalden reports from Bristol, while arts consultant Mark Robinson presents a view from the rainy city.
Initiated by a-n and CVAN, with contributions from Scottish Artists Union, Engage and other key organisations, the UK’s visual arts sector made a joint submission to the Treasury Spending Review in Autumn 2015 outlining a number of key recommendations to help better support the sector.
Artist Raoul Martinez, twice nominated for the BP Portrait Award, joins nearly 300 cultural figures in rejecting oil sponsorship of the arts.
The Art Fund, in partnership with Thomas Dane Gallery, has launched the Moving Image Fund for Museums, with Towner Art Gallery and the Whitworth its first recipients.
The studio, residency and gallery space in south London reopens with increased exhibition space, more studios, and with the freehold of the building now secured.
Set against the backdrop of its Newcastle city centre building being lost to redevelopment, a recent two-day event at the artist-led NewBridge Project in Newcastle asked whether it was time for artists to ‘grow up’ and accept the new agenda of cuts, philanthropy and big business sponsorship. Artist Lesley Guy joined in the conversation and came to a different conclusion.
As crowdfunding is increasingly adopted by large arts organisations as a fast-track alternative to dwindling public funding, Henrietta Norton – co-founder of the early crowdfunding site WeDidThis – argues that the spirit of risk taking and innovation that inspired early adopters needs to be embraced by these high-profile newcomers.
A series of open, online discussions will soon allow the public to feed into a new government white paper which will be published in late 2015 or early 2016. Arts Professional’s Frances Richens reports.
Jeremy Corbyn, the frontrunner in the Labour leadership campaign, has expressed his support for a-n/AIR’s Paying Artists in his recently published plan for the arts.
Following its successful crowdfunding campaign earlier this year, Spacex have selected Trevor Pitt of Pod Projects as the gallery’s first socially-engaged artist in residence.
A recent event in Leeds organised by Arts Fundraising and Philanthropy asked whether artists were the key to making a step change in arts and culture giving. Amelia Crouch went along and found that the issue of low pay for artists was all-but ignored – but that the idea of artists as fundraisers may not be all bad.
Jeremy Corbyn, the surprise front-runner in the Labour leadership contest, has been setting out his vision for arts and culture.
After an £8million redevelopment project designed to open up new dialogues between its collections of decorative and fine art, York Art Gallery is preparing to reopen. Amelia Crouch speaks to the curator of the gallery’s core collection of ceramic art Helen Walsh, and to fine art curator Laura Turner, about how this dialogue is continuing with a series of new commissions by contemporary artists.
Spending Review promises “radical steps” towards the devolution of power across the UK and cuts of up to 40%, but Arts Council England’s Lottery stockpile could soften the blow. Arts Professional’s Liz Hill reports.
The remainder of the Measuring the experience report reflects on the seventeen case studies to analyse areas such as aims, legal status, organisational structure, decision-making processes, financial support, dealing with change, impact on audiences, impact on the group, impact on […]
An early day motion has been tabled in Parliament to recognise the findings of two recent reports highlighting the contribution of arts and culture to the UK economy.
Getting across the value of the arts to society in this unforgiving political climate needs more passion and fewer generic advocacy tools This month, I’ve been reminded how in the pre-internet days of the CND and the Greenham Common peace […]
Since 2000 there has been an unprecedented surge in self-employment. According to the RSA, there has been a 40% increase in micro-businesses and one in seven of the workforce are now self-employed. I recently joined the UK’s freelancer community and […]
Here in the UK, as the Paying Artists campaign revealed in 2014, the majority of contemporary artists are barely surviving financially, with no or low pay the norm. In real terms, nearly three-quarters of artists are getting just 37% of […]
As artists find themselves at the end of the cultural food chain, Susan Jones suggests a new activism to reaffirm their status The so-called golden age of arts funding has given way to debilitating austerity, particularly for artists who find […]
Are traditional arts organisations the best vehicles for meaningful participation or should we be looking elsewhere? These are dangerous times for people and for our world of arts values. Uncertainty can cause us to be safe, edit complexity, be secretive, […]
Republishing a selection from my writing on the Guardian. Collectively, these texts raise issues and concerns about the visual arts infrastructure, arts policy and conditions for artists’ creativity.
Following receipt of a £75,000 award from Arts Council England, Brighton’s ONCA Centre for Arts and Ecology will be launching eleven new projects over the next two years that explore how society and culture can respond to environmental change.
