A weekly briefing featuring national and international news, including: Explicit sculpture finds new home at Pompidou Centre, and Hayward Gallery appoints Vincent Honoré and Cliff Lauson as senior curators.
Creative Freelancers report published as part of a new initiative to transform the working lives of the freelance workers.
Arts Council England’s National Portfolio for 2018-22 includes an overall increase in the number of visual arts organisations receiving funding from 121 to 149. We highlight six organisations who will be joining the portfolio and find out what their new status will mean to them.
One half of the London-based performance company There There with Dana Olărescu, Bojana Janković argues that the economic pressures more and more artists face are ultimately shaping the kind of work that gets made, especially by emerging artists, with profound and long-term consequences.
The new one-year pilot scheme has been developed in partnership between the department of social protection and the department of arts, heritage, regional, rural and Gaeltacht affairs, in consultation with Visual Artists Ireland and The Irish Writers Centre.
On the back on its recently published general election manifesto for the creative industries, the federation has announced a series of events where senior figures from the four main UK political parties will answer questions about their plans for the arts and creative industries.
As conflict and war continues across the world, artists are exploring ways to cut through the mainstream news narrative in order to highlight the ongoing refugee crisis. Lydia Ashman looks at current projects, artworks, and exhibitions that are tackling this urgent humanitarian and political issue.
The key themes on the agenda at this year’s No Boundaries conference, supported by Arts Council England and the British Council, emerged as community, inclusivity and socially responsible citizenship. Sophia Crilly reports.
At IAA Europe’s recent annual two-day general meeting in Berlin, a key workshop discussed the issue of social security and the mobility of visual artists within Europe. Pippa Koszerek reports that, despite Brexit, such discussions remain important to UK artists.
London-based artist Zoe Childerley has been walking the English-Scottish border as part of a residency with Visual Arts in Rural Communities in Northumberland. Pippa Koszerek talks to her in the lead up to an end of residency exhibition
In its Arts Strategy 2016-17, published to coincide with Edinburgh’s festival season, Creative Scotland has made fair pay for artists a core aim as part of its commitment to supporting and promoting artists’ work.
A recent symposium held in Glasgow and organised jointly by Glasgow School of Art and Q-Art saw fine art staff, students and industry professionals examine the role of art schools and how they prepare students for life after university. Laura Campbell reports on the issues raised and the possible solutions.
Scottish Artists’ Union and Artists’ Union England call on the Department for Work & Pensions to revoke Universal Credit and implement a more workable welfare system.
Artist and AIR Council member Joseph Young attended the recent Europe-wide IAA conference in Pilsen, Czech Republic, where he was speaking about the Paying Artists campaign. He reports from the home of Pilsner lager on three days of discussion, debate and far too many procedural matters.
With a media storm of interest, Banksy’s Dismaland opened in Weston-super-Mare on Friday. After paying a visit to the self-styled ‘bemusement park’, Laura Harris suggests we look past the witty one-liners to explore this aesthetically overwhelming, politically astute art experience.
40 arts organisations across the UK will host paid placements for graduates from lower income backgrounds through the new Weston Jerwood Creative Bursaries programme.
The visual arts education charity AccessArt is asking parents, teachers and ‘creative adults’ to think more about the importance of art education.
In a piece originally published on The Conversation, Victoria Durrer of Queen’s University Belfast argues that damaging cuts to the arts in Northern Ireland are reshaping the sector.
Following the announcement that Falmouth University is to close three of its BA (Hons) courses, a petition to oppose the closure of the highly respected Contemporary Crafts degree has reached nearly 6,000 signatories.
If artists regularly self-qualify themselves as ‘starving’ in such a casual and off-handed way, what kind of respect can they expect to gain? Margaret Lam thinks it’s time tell a different story about what it means to be an artist.
As cuts continue to bite, arts organisations are plugging the funding gap by replacing paid staff – such as gallery invigilators – with unpaid volunteers. We look at three galleries in Liverpool and Bristol that have done just that, and assess what this growing trend could mean for both individual artists and the UK’s arts ecology.
Hotel Elephant’s recent move from the Heygate Estate to Newington Causeway in South London sees the launch of its first shop and café, along with studios, a gallery and projection room within 15,000 square feet of warehouse space.
As Hull celebrates becoming the 2017 UK City of Culture, Dave O’Brien, originally writing for The Conversation website, cautions against focusing on short-term economic benefits when what’s needed is a long-term cultural strategy.
Claims that arts education brings wide benefits in terms of creativity, social skills and academic performance are at best optimistic and are not well grounded in reliable evidence, according to a new report.
As the first results from AIR’s Paying Artists Survey make clear, artists are finding themselves at the end of the arts food chain as funding cuts bite. Here, a-n’s Director looks at how things stand and suggests a future where practitioners determine the status of their art and of artists.
Alternative insights into the visual arts, with fast-paced news, comment, debate.
Get in touch
[email protected]
a-n offers a range of memberships for individuals and groups – from £38 annually – find out more.
Supported by:
