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Arts funding
Arts funding home
Following Arts Council England's recent funding announcements and the launch of Creative Scotland's ten-year plan, a-n has delved into the data and documents and, by cross-referencing with what has already occured due to last year's Arts Council of Wales strategy, offers up some routes through the data and food for thought - and action - for use by artists as well as their champions, advisers and collaborators.
Exhibitions are not enough: Publicly-funded galleries and artists’ professional development
Reyahn King explores the role of galleries within professional development for visual artists. In the current climate, how can professional development for visual artists be continued and improved? This paper suggests that one answer lies in the relationship between publicly-funded regional galleries and visual artists becoming wider, deeper, and more strongly valued. Read on…
Research paper, a-n.co.uk April 2012; Written in September 2011 when King was a 2010/11 MLA Clore Fellow.
Realising the value: how practice-based organisations will fare after ACE cuts
‘Ladders for development’ argues that the visual arts sector should pull together and support small visual arts organisations cut by Arts Council England because they "punch above their weight" and provide vital development of future artists. Six months on, Dany Louise interviews these arts organisations again, to find out how they’ve fared and what their futures hold. Read on…
Feature, a-n.co.uk January 2012
Realising the value: how practice-based organisations will fare after ACE cuts »
Open pdf file …PDF version of Dany Louise' 'Realising the value' report [240kbs]
a-n.co.uk January 2012
Little or large?
The arts sector is awash with news about arts funding and a-n has led the debate with two important pieces of research. Gillian Bates explores the complexities and hurdles individual visual artists face if they want to lever grants, and questions whether the funding dice is loaded against the artist in favour of arts organisations. Read on…
Feature, a-n.co.uk December 2011
Creative Scotland investment strategies unveiled
Scotland's cultural and artistic community responds to Creative Scotland's new series of funding categories to consider what the future holds for the country's artists and arts organisations. Report by Phil Miller, Arts Correspondent at The Herald. Read on…
Feature, a-n.co.uk July 2011
Ladders for development: Impact of Arts Council England funding cuts on practice-led organisations
New evidence exposing, quantifying and discussing the likely impact on the visual arts of Arts Council England's decisions on fifteen previously Regularly Funded Organisations (RFOs) visual arts organisations unsuccessful in their NPO application. It shows that a disproportionate number of artists' membership and development agencies and practice-based organisations lost core funding, despite ACE's aim of creating a balanced national portfolio and makes recommendations for sustaining their work as part of a strengthened arts ecology. Read on…
Feature, a-n.co.uk May 2011
Ladders for development: Impact of Arts Council England funding cuts on practice-led organisations »
New evidence exposing, quantifying and discussing the likely impact on the visual arts of Arts Council England’s decisions on fifteen previously Regularly Funded Organisations (RFOs) visual arts organisations unsuccessful in their NPO application. PDF file [200kbs]
a-n.co.uk June 2011
Culture Committee surprized, disappointed and... puzzled
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. Read on…
Feature, a-n.co.uk April 2011
ACE Wednesday
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. Read on…
Feature, a-n.co.uk April 2011
A new landscape for Wales
In December 2010 the Arts Council of Wales announced its new portfolio of revenue clients. From 116 existing clients more than thirty were lost. Five months on we asked the sector what the impact has been and how the visual arts in Wales has reacted, and what England might anticipate following last month's ACE announcements. Read on…
Feature, a-n.co.uk April 2011
New vision for Scotland
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. Read on…
Feature, a-n.co.uk April 2011
Future art and design under threat
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. Read on…
Feature, a-n.co.uk April 2011
Arts development UK launches
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. Read on…
News, a-n.co.uk April 2011
ACE National Portfolio Organisation grants
The visual arts organisations the Arts Council has selected for funding as National Portfolio Organisations.
ACE's decision to prioritise big lottery-funded galleries over smaller-scale and production-based venutures will impact severely on artists' livelihoods. a-n calls on all these funded galleries to allocate fees and payments to artists in support of the critical mass to guarantee that quality visual arts will emerge in the future. Read on…
Information, a-n.co.uk March 2011
ACE cuts to existing visual arts organisations
This list is of existing visual arts RFOs not being taken on by Arts Council England as National Portfolio Organisations and whose grants will be cut from 2012/13.
a-n says these ACE cuts will severely damage artists' initiatives in England, impacting on the livelihood of artists and future vitality and sustainability of the visual arts. The visual arts is artists.
Read on…
Information, a-n.co.uk March 2011
RELATED ARTICLES
Understanding Turning Point - A briefing paper
Over the past five years, the words Turning Point have been read, heard, written and spoken with increasing frequency by people in the visual arts in England, but for many individual arts practitioners, in particular, the origins and activities of Turning Point remain a bit opaque. This briefing paper is for them and for anyone interested in understanding more about what Turning Point is and does. Read on…
Feature, a-n.co.uk October 2011
A fair share - direct funding for individual artists from UK arts councils
The key finding of this study reveals that shockingly few individual artists apply for funding in their own right, and even fewer are successful. What this means is that there is little direct funding being given to artists to pursue and develop their own projects, under their own control - under 20% of available funding for the visual arts in England, 14% for Northern Ireland and around 18% for Scotland and Wales in 2009-2010. Read on…
Feature, a-n.co.uk September 2011
Debating arts funding
A new report reveals that a disproportionate number of artists' membership and development agencies and practice-based organisations lost core funding, despite ACE's aim of creating a "balanced portfolio". Read on…
News, a-n.co.uk June 2011
Arts funding - Canadian comparison
Funding for the arts has never been an easy sell – not with governments or the public. CARFAC Director April Britski reports from Canada. Read on…
Feature, a-n.co.uk May 2011
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