Arts Industry

Coleridge warmed up

artsindustry — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:38:15 +0000

We might, a moment after they’d seen the Imagine version of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner at he QEH last weekend. I never thought of that weird old totem of a pome as life affirming, rather the opposite, but this was. Imagine is the Southbank’s children’s festival, and the project had involved six London primary schools, 500 kids, the folk band Bellowhead, the poet and performer Lemn Sissay, the storyteller Jan Blake, the Southbank’s’ Pulse singers… tous le monde, and all put together by Shan Maclennan. It was a professional show, and not a little embarrassing for a flinty old hack who found himself at the end weeping silly buckets amidst a sea of bewildered but joyous juniors. And it wasn’t till later I discovered that this had been the brainchild of the writer and jazz musician Keith Shadwick who succumbed to cancer in the summer of 2008 so couldn’t see the final fruition of his brainwave. So if anyone wants an argument for not only preserving arts subsidy but ratcheting it up, this is all you need.

Love can’t buy you money

artsindustry — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:37:34 +0000

Why all these anodyne ‘debates’ about arts finding? Two this week, another one next week, and we’ll get the same John Knox answer: “Art? We’re for it’. There was a brief moment during the Cultural Leadership panel of Ben Bradshaw, Jeremy Hunt and the LIB Dem Don Foster when Michael Lynch – yes, back on a flying visit from Oz – asked if they would keep the Arts Council, and after they’d all said they would there was an instant in which Bradshaw tossed ‘shoe-horning cronies into jobs’ (Boris Johnson trying to get Veronica Wadley made chair of the London Arts Council) and Hunt tossed back that Labour are past masters at cronyism, but the squall was over as son as it had begun, to everybody’s disappointment. The arts, culture, creativity, whatever, has become so much a political favourite that no one is going to speak against it or for cutting it. But nor will they promise no cuts (except the Lib Dems who won’t have to prove it) because, they say, they don’t have control of the money. The debate should be between Alistair Darling, George Osborne and Vince Cable, but would we get a positive response? ‘Course we would.

Southampton – no sale (for now)

artsindustry — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:37:03 +0000

Southampton City Council have abandoned their plan to sell three paintings to help pay for a new museum about the Titanic. They had been bombarded by the Tate, the Museums Association, the MLA and probably HLF as well, though they are being more discreet, but it was the word of the Charity Commission that did for the plan. The £15 costs of the new development will be met ‘through other means’, it has been decided, and so the Southampton Save Our Collection Group to celebrate at their party on March 17, but this story will come again. It may not be in Southampton, but the local workers’ union Unison has already called for Newcastle to sell some of the £75m worth of art it owns to avoid cutting jobs in the on-coming Armageddon.

City of Culture: last four

artsindustry — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:35:26 +0000

The final four for the shortlist to be the UK’[s first City of Culture in 2013 have been chosen. They are Birmingham, Derry/Londonderry, Norwich and Sheffield.

They were chosen from a long list of 14 by a panel chaired by Phil Redmond, the television producer and creative director of Liverpool in its year as European Cultural Capital in 2008.

“The panel was influenced by the expected step change each city was asked to envisage, if they gained the title and subsequent media spotlight” he said.

“It was a hard choice but also heartening that all bidders had recognised the power of culture to bring people together; to work collectively within existing resources for a common goal and bring into being networks that may not have existed before.”

The four will now have to make final bids to be in by the end of May, and in the summer Redmond’s panel will see presentations from them before announcing the eventual winner.

Southampton told ‘You can’t sell’

artsindustry — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:34:39 +0000

Charities Commission block plan dispose of art to raise funds

Southampton City Council have abandoned their plan to sell works of art to help pay for a new museum.

The proceeds from the sales would have gone towards the creation of a £15m cultural quarter in Southampton City Centre, including a new museum telling the story of Titanic.

A painting and two sculptures in the city’s possession were identified: After the Race by Alfred J. Munnings, estimated to be worth between £2m and £4m; Eve by Auguste Rodin (£1m-£1.5m); and Crouching Woman also by Rodin (£300,000-£400,000).

But the three works were acquired through the Chipperfield Bequest Fund, and it is understood that the Charities Commission have deemed the proposed sale to be contrary to the terms of the fund.

The development is now to be p[aid for “through other means”, the council has decided, and the decision will be seen as a particular triumph for the Save Our Collections group who had alerted the museums community to the intentijon. It was strongly criticised by the Tate, the Museums Assoiation and the ~MLA.

Roy Clare, chief executive of the MLA said: “Southampton tried to rush fences; their decision not to sell is right because they had not developed a proper curatorial case.

“Our advice to them was consistent throughout: ethically, it is perfectly feasible to disperse, dispose and sell elements of collections, but the case needs to be rational and objective.”

Say after me, ‘we don’t have to cut culture’

artsindustry — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:33:10 +0000

ResponseIn response to reports that funding for the arts will inevitably suffer after the election, culture minister Margaret Hodge calls on us to…

If there’s one thing that pretty well everyone agrees upon, it is that the last decade has been a Golden Age. As far as culture goes, you – we – all of us, have all never had it so good.

And the evidence is there across the piece, whether we look at participation numbers, commercial income, creative output or international awards. Despite the credit crunch:
• Cinema admissions in the first half of 2009 were the highest they’d been for seven years.
• West End theatres chalked up a record year for audiences, breaking through the 14 million barrier for the first time.
• English Heritage visitor numbers peaked at 1.2 million last August – and
• Museum attendance grew over three times the national average for all visitor attractions in 2008.
•
But this success did not come about by accident. It was made possible by a deliberate act of public policy- more taxpayers’ money, leading to increased and sustained public investment, allowing individual talent to flourish and enabling infrastructure to be renewed.

Since 1997, we have increased our investment in the Arts by 83% in real terms and our investment in museums by 69%. It’s because of that investment that the Arts Council was able to report that new work now makes up 47% of the repertoire in subsidized theatre as compared to a mere 14% a decade ago.

And it’s because we chose to fund free admissions to all our national museums, that attendance at those museums which previously charged has grown by a massive 124% since 2002.

And more recently, people felt we had finally put to bed the false dichotomy between access and excellence. Indeed, there is now a wide consensus that it is only through excellence in artistic and cultural endeavour that we can encourage greater participation in - and enjoyment of - culture, heritage and the arts.
The last decade has also seen a coming together of the arguments deemed important to justify public investment in the sector. More and more people understand the intrinsic value of culture and yearn for the experiences which will enrich their souls and even transform their lives.

At the same time, there is wider recognition of the role arts and culture can play across our lives:
• Stimulating creativity as children develop their skills and capabilities in schools,
• Creating more attractive places where people want to live and work;
• Using cultural investment as a catalyst for regeneration;
• Or, supporting the creative sector as a key growth sector of our modern economy.

Fixing for fun on the Tyne

artsindustry — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:31:52 +0000

Nalgao’s Outside In symposium highlighted partnerships, commissions and contracting out as ways of combating the expected severe cuts on local authority arts funding. Ailsa Anderson of One North East and James Waters of Brighton-based Festivals and Events International outline how, together, following the success of the culture10 programme of festivals and events, they are creating a service that will work with local authorities across the region, why, and what they hope it will achieve.

Festivals have been identified as the ideal medium for bringing communities together, attracting visitors and changing perceptions, and since its creation in 2004 the NewcastleGateshead led culture10 programme has been supporting ambitious, challenging and transformational events, increasing participation and developing new audiences. Programmed events have animated North East England’s many and different public spaces and cultural institutions, and helped to build the region’s national and international profile.

But in April 2010, as the scheduled commitment to the Culture10 programme by One North East comes to an end, the Regional Development Agency, (one of the five core funders of the programme which also include Northern Rock Foundation, Arts Council England, Newcastle City Council, Gateshead Metropolitan Borough Council), will embark on a new, innovative approach to maximise the economic impact that events can bring to the North East.

Increasing pressures on public sector budgets, as foreseen at the Outside In symposium, are one of a number of factors that have led One North East to take a new approach, but rather than simply absorbing difficult financial impacts, the RDA wanted to establish the region as an international player in festivals and events and to ensure that existing events were encouraged and enabled to develop their potential, but also to make sure that assets in the North East were being used to the full.

So the North East Festivals and Events Service has been established, delivered by a consortium led by Festivals and Events International and starting next month after a six month set up, working with a dozen local authorities – Darlington, Durham, Middlesbrough, Newcastle, Gateshead, North Tyneside, Northumberland, Hartlepool, South Tyneside, Stockton-on-Tees, Redcar & Cleveland, and Sunderland - across the sub-regions of Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, Durham and the Tees Valley and with private sector event management companies.:

The NEFES moves forward into its first festival season with a series of purposes:

 To run a support service for both existing and new events;

 To make available mentoring for events that are still in development;

 To be a bridge between events and funders, based on the service’s understanding of funders’ priorities;

 To support (including One North East) in its decision making around its single programme investment;

 And to act as an advocate for the north east as a major destination for festivals and events.

Headed beyond the ceiling

artsindustry — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:29:10 +0000

The Cultural Leadership Programme have announced the first Women to Watch list

Here it is, the 50 top women in the arts and cultural industries chosen by their peers, devised to be a discreet battering ram that will help shatter that apparently impermeable glass ceiling.

The Women to Watch list is compiled by an independent panel chaired by Woman’s Hour’s Jenni Murray – the other judges were Kwame Kwei Armah, Wayne McGregor, Liz Forgan, Sarah Weir and Jenny Sealey and is the first of what will probably be a biennial list. It’s all under the auspices of the Arts Council’s Cultural Leadership Programme.

There are plenty of known names there – you might pick out Claire Whitaker of Serious, Maria Balshaw of the Whitworth Gallery, Roanne Dods of Rose Orange (previously of the Jerwood Foundation) or Vanessa Reed of the PRS For Music Foundation – and you’re bound to fail to find a few you think should be there. Where is Jude Kelly of the South Bank, for instance, or Gwyn Miles of Somerset House, or Julia Peyton-Jones of the Serpentine, or Munira Mira the London mayor’s office, or Sue Hoyle of the Clore Leadership Programme?

The truth is that the list could only be compiled from nominations, called for in November with a deadline of January 29 for an announcement on March 10 to coincide with International Women’s Day. “I think next time we might allow ourselves a bit more time – there was a great rush of applicants on the last morning” says Hilary Carty.

But these are not those at the pinnacle of what their careers ought to amount to; they are the women whose peers and the panel believe have more to offer, if only they get the opportunity.

As it was, there were almost 200 nominations and the criteria were that they should be emerging to mid career leaders – “women who have the potential to make a national impact in senior leadership roles such as artistic director, chief executive, managing director, chair or organisational lead” – and they should be women working within the creative or cultural sector within the U.K.

Jenni Murray says the judging was no push over, working from a long list of about 100. “We had an afternoon of tough debate, it was a very hard fought for list.

“It’s a very good range of age, career and ethnic background. We were given no criteria. We were hoping we would make up a good range of women at the beginning of their careers and some in the middle who were suffering from the difficulty we all know of getting further in our careers.

“There are plenty of very talented women in the arts, but too many who just aren’t making it to the top. I’m not much of a fan of positive discrimination because that can be counter-productive, but I do approve of positive action and I think that includes helping women with the right support and training to get to the top. I hope it can have an impact” she says.

So, not a list of role models in a rather passive process of giving young wannabes icons to aim to emulate. These women do not want to be like anyone else, they simply want to be allowed to do the best they can.

The list is the brainchild of the CLP’s director Hilary Carty who was increasingly frustrated at seeing, in a sector widely thought to be fairer to women than most others, how many women were driving arts and cultural organisations and how few were at the top of them. “If we want the UK to have dynamic creative and cultural industries and compete globally” says her chair, David Kershaw, “we must take this issue seriously and create an environment within the sector which encourages and recognises the work of emerging women leaders”. Despite culture being worth £56.5 billion and 8% of the overall UK economy, there is a lack of investment in leadership in the creative and cultural sector generally and in particular in the talents of women.

Carty is pleased with the list, however. “I’m delighted with it, especially the range” she says. “When you start you can’t be sure how a thing like this is going to take off, whether people will get the idea or not, but I think this shows that they are.”

At the RIBA launch of the list Carty had gathered a team to give some on the spot guidance and mentoring to all the nominees, but what she wants is for the group itself to create a mentoring network that will be self-supporting.

One of those on the list is Pim Baxter, deputy director the National Portrait Gallery, was brought across the river eight years ago from the National Theatre where she had been head of marketing. “I am delighted to be on this list and to be in such amazing company as the other 49 individuals” she says. “What I think it shows is this is just one set of 50, but that there are so many women doing great jobs in the cultural sector, who are also ‘women to watch’ (and of course some are going to be better at promoting themselves than others), that one could think of many, many more groups of 50, even amongst ones own colleagues or teams”, and she says she’s keen to make use of some of the mentoring on offer.

Jane Finnis runs the very successful Culture 24 website, set up by Chris Smith when he was culture secretary ten years ago. At 44 and with two small children, she feels she is nowhere near fulfilling potential, but where can she go to do that?

“When you’re running an organisation like this it’s very rare to get professional feedback, particularly when you’re at the top of a little tree” she says. “It’s tough, and it’s good to have some recognition from people I have respect for. You don’t realise how few opportunities there are for women to get training and mentoring, and that that’s included in this scheme that is very exciting. Women are used to being advocates for the things they feel passionate about, and I they need to apply some of that advocacy skill to themselves.”

That’s a theme of which Jenni Murray has recently become aware. Her son, currently in Australia, wanted her help in creating a CV. “I realised I didn’t know where to start. And when he turned to his Australian mates they came up with something completely different from what I would have.

“The truth is that the British don’t know how to show off, they don’t shout about themselves, and British women are ten times worse - they don’t want to push themselves forward. It’s something we have to get over.”

Fifty Women to Watch…

Bridget Nicholls
Director, PESTIVAL, Southbank.

Claire Whitaker
Director, Serious.

Daisy Heath
Head of planning, National Theatre.

Delia Barker
Senior officer, dance, Arts Council England, London Region.

Emma Stenning
Executive director, Bristol Old Vic.

Emma Underhill
Director and curator, UP Projects.

Freda Matassa
Freelance museum consultant and art collections manager.

Gail Parmel
Artistic director, ACE dance & music.

Geraldine Collinge
Director of events and exhibitions, Royal Shakespeare Company

Helen Macnamara
Deputy director, future planning, Department for Culture Media and Sport

Hermione Way
Founder of newspepper.com and techfluff.tv.

Indy Hunjan
Director, Kala Phoo.

Jane Finnis
Director, Culture24.

Jacqui O’Hanlon
Director of education, Royal Shakespeare Company.

Jenni Lewin-Turner
Director and creative producer, Urbanflo Creative Consultancy.

Carol Bell
Head of culture and major events NewcastleGateshead Initiative.

Juliana Farha
Founder and Managing Director, Dilettante Music Limited.

Julie Tait
Director, Kendal Arts International.

Kate Bellamy
Head of strategy & communications, National Museum Directors’ Conference.

Kate McGrath
Director, Fuel.

Laura Sillars
Programmes Director, FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology).

Liz Pugh
Producer, Walk the Plank.

Lucy Worsley
Chief curator, Historic Royal Palaces.

Maria Balshaw
Director. Whitworth Gallery, Manchester.

Maria Oshodi
Artistic Director, Extant.

Maxine Miller
Library and information manager, Iniva (Institute of International Visual Arts).

Cathy Woolley
Participation producer, Southbank Centre.

Melanie Abrahams
Director, Renaissance One and Tilt; guest curator, Bluecoat.

Moira Buffini
Writer-in-residence, National Theatre.

Nike Jonah
Senior diversity officer, Decibel project manager.

Pim Baxter
Deputy director and director of communications and development, National Portrait Gallery.

Purni Morell
Head of studio, National Theatre.

Rachel Holmes
Head of literature and spoken word, Southbank Centre.

Rachel Millward
CEO and creative director, Birds Eye View Film Festival.

Rebecca Dawson
Vision 2010 project manager, Arts Council England.

Roanne Dods
Director, Rose Orange.

Ruth Daniel
Co-founder and director, Un-Convention and Fat Northern Records.

Claire Cunningham
Independent choreographer and performer.

Ruth Gill
Head of interpretation, Historic Royal Palaces.

Ruth Gould
CEO, DaDa – Disability & Deaf Arts.

Sally Goldsworthy
Director, Discover.

Sarah Munro
Artistic manager, Tramway.

Seonaid Daly
Producer, Glasgow Film Festival.

Sharnita K Athwal
Director, Shaanti Live: Music: Play!
Owner, The Hockley Bar & Kitchen.

Sharon Watson
Artistic director, Phoenix Dance Theatre.

Siobhán Bales
Managing director, bgroup.

Sophie Thomas
Founding director, thomas.matthews communication design.

Theresa Heskins
Artistic director, New Vic Theatre.

Clare Hudson
Founder and managing director, In4merz.com;
managing director, Hudson PR.

Vanessa Reed
Co-director, PRS For Music Foundation.

Rocking North

artsindustry — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:27:36 +0000

AI ProfileAndrew Dixon, chief executive, Creative Scotland

Scotland have rethought their national arts funding system, and after many political hiccups it finally comes into being on May 1.

And for the replacement of the Scottish Arts Council as it combines with Scottish Screen, the Scots have gone not just for an Englishman but for an old Arts Council England hand in Andrew Dixon as the first chief executive of Creative Scotland.

There will be a healthy element of diplomacy in the task – for a start, his office is split between Glasgow and Edinburgh to bridge that ancient rivalry – and as he prepares to take his job he has to be part of the alchemy, along with Scottish government ministers, of creating the board that combines sound governance with support and accountability. Many arts organisations across the UK will be watching carefully to see if he and his political masters get that right.

But it is, as he says, “a new start, an opportunity” to “maximise the creative sector in Scotland”. There’s a lot of cultural activity of which the nation is justly proud, he says, and which will have an important export role.

His job is going to be pulling together the various elements in a country – in including film, of course - whose artists have been historically proud of their independence. “It’s a great tradition, isn’t it?”

Andrew Dixon is 51 and started his career running Major Road, Graham Devlin’s issue-sensitive touring theatre company then based in Manchester. After four years he moved to Humberside as the county arts officer, and in 1989 shifted to the regional arts council as assistant director of Northern Arts, the start of 21 years on Tyneside. He was deputy chief executive between 1992 and 1997 taking over as CEO when Peter Hewitt went to London to run ACE, and oversaw the transformation from Northern Arts to Arts Council North East.

In 2005 he left to head up the NewcastleGateshead Initiative, the destination marketing and cultural agency that was about to launch Culture 10.

This was the programme devised after Newcastle/Gateshead failed to get the nomination to be the UK’s European Cultural Capital for 2008, “the best thing that didn’t happen for us”.

So Culture 10 picked up the pieces of the Capital of Culture bid to devise a unique curated programme of cultural events and festivals across the region, up to this year – how that programme is to progress post-Culture 10 is outlined by Ailsa Anderson and James Waters on page –. “It is a huge region, taking in Cumbria as well as Northumbria, but the potential is enormous” he said then. “Without compromising it has developed an audience for the culture here, and what we are doing now is beginning to attract cultural tourists – already they’re coming from Germany, Norway, Italy and Spain. But there’s more world to conquer still.”

Tories pledge sustained arts support

artsindustry — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:25:19 +0000

News focusManifesto promises to rejuvenate by removal of red tape

The Conservatives have set out what they believe is a set of policy proposal to rejuvenate the arts if they win the general election, providing “coherent and sustained support”.

Their manifesto, The Future of the Arts with a Conservative Government, was launched last week by Jeremy Hunt, the shadow culture secretary, and Ed Vaizey, shadow arts minister.

Hunt said the Tory approach was to:

 Secure long term funding for the arts based on the mixed economy and the arm’s length principle, which ensures they have he resources to carry them through the good time and the bad;

 The promotion of excellence in the arts through greater trust and independence or our arts organizations;

 Use technology and a more coherent approach to arts funding in schools to enable access – we believe as many people as possible should enjoy the arts in all their varied forms in this country.

“Under Labour the arts have not been given the priority they deserve” Vaizey said. “The arts need coherent and sustained support in order to consolidate and build on their achievements”.

Mixed economy
A Conservative government will restore the National Lottery four good causes – arts, heritage, sport and charities, the manifesto says. “The lottery will be independent of politicians, and we will increase the share of lottery funding received by the arts”. It will encourage venues and museums and build endowment funds, “the next big frontier for arts organisations to cross”, which they may encourage with matching funding from the Arts Council.

The Conservatives would use matching ACE grants to encourage philanthropy and private investment in the arts, and will change the rules to make it possible for donors to give under the acceptance-in-lieu scheme while they are still alive; there will also be changes to Gift Aid and to the guidelines surrounding arts organisations’ relationship with donors. The effect of the changes, the manifesto says, will be “fiscally neutral”.

Administration costs of subsidised funding organisations would be cut from 11% by the seven main distributors in 2009 to 5%.