Arts Programme

Report

This has been a year of change and uncertainty. The public funding landscape has shifted. New government priorities have emerged and public services are re-structuring, including the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Bodies such as the UK Film Council or the Museums Libraries and Archives Council have gone and new ones, such as Creative Scotland, have appeared. The cultural Olympiad story is also slowly unfolding.

Like all organisations involved with the arts in the UK, we have followed closely the impact of reduced funding from central government – whether through local authorities or through portfolio reviews in the various Arts Councils. It is obvious that the effects of this funding shake-out and the start of a period of austerity will be felt for some time to come. It also looks like some of these changes are here to stay.

Most of the organisations that we support have been affected by the reviews of regularly funded organisations by Arts Councils across the UK and the announcement of new National Portfolio Organisations in England was one of the important milestones of 2010/11. We were delighted to see that some of our existing grantees became core funded for the first time (including 20 Stories High, Inbetween Time Productions, People United and Streetwise Opera) or had a significant uplift in their grants (such as the Arvon Foundation, Firstsite, the Poetry Society, Punchdrunk and Wysing Arts Centre). This reflected the fact that the focusof our Arts Open Grants scheme on both incremental innovation and impact on practice, like the Breakthrough Fund Special Initiative, had resonance in the goals set out in ACE’s ten-year strategy, ‘Achieving Great Art for Everyone’. ¹

However, we regret that many grantees with whom we have ongoing relationships fared less well and will have to cope with reduced core funding from 2012/13. We also believe that Dance United and Youth Dance England, two organisations we have been close to for years and believe in, should have been awarded National Portfolio status as both achieve a lot in terms of sectoral impact.

The response to these complicated and still evolving issues is that organisations must be prepared to adapt and think outside the box. It is encouraging that, through our Open Grants scheme, some applicants are already doing this. Others are re-focusing on core values and activities to consolidate their position. We expect to see organisations restructuring in the coming months.

Reduced applications

In 2010/11, we observed a significant decline in the number of initial applications to the Arts Open Grants scheme. This is in many ways unsurprising: a renewed application process has tightened the focus for applicants around our core criteria of innovation, participation and impact. It is also the case that, at times of crisis – like in 2007/08 at the start of the recession, for example – all independent funders usually notice a drop in the numbers of applications whilst arts organisations fire-fight to survive. Many organisations spent months in 2010 on their core funding submissions to Arts Councils and did not get round to applying to us until after the end of the financial year. However, alongside fewer first-stage applications, we have also noticed an increase in the numbers of applications that we are taking forward to second stage: we are consequently rejecting more applications at second stage than ever before.

Reflecting on the balance of types of grants that we have made during 2010/11, we would welcome more applications from outside London – particularly from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, for example – and those which include an intergenerational element, particularly involving older people. We are also keen to award more ‘continuation’ funding grants to organisations with whom we are engaged in a successful relationship. The need for this type of ongoing support is particularly apparent in the current circumstances and, as a number of grants made since our new Arts Open Grants guidelines were launched in 2008 draw to a close, there should be opportunities for us to extend our impact.

Special Initiative developments

This year has seen a number of important developments in our Special Initiatives. We started work in earnest on ‘ArtWorks: Developing Practice in Participatory Settings’, after the initiative was approved in March 2010. Guided by Dr Susanne Burns (the project director) and a steering group, five grants were approved by the Arts Programme Committee to four regional projects – in Scotland, Wales, the North East and London – as well as to a partnership of national umbrella bodies working across the country (led by the Foundation for Community Dance). We are delighted to be developing this initiative in close collaboration with Creativity Culture and Education and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, whose valuable financial contribution – with that of Arts Council England – we acknowledge gratefully.

On museums and galleries, an area where we have steadily developed an initiative over the last three years or so, we commissioned a report based on the work of Dr Bernadette Lynch with 12 institutions across the UK. We published a summary report taken from this work, titled ‘Whose cake is in anyway?’ to reflect a line from an improvised scene enacted by museum staff and community partners. The metaphor is useful for describing the difficult balance of power between museums and their publics. We have also appointed Dr Piotr Bienkowski to lead the development of a larger intervention in this area.

During 2010/11, we have started a review of our Awards for Artists to help us understand the impact of this scheme. We have also begun evaluating the impacts and outcomes of grants made through the Breakthrough Fund. Throughout 2011/12, we will be looking at the strategic role of the Fund in the current climate and in the context of other comparable funding schemes in the UK and internationally. We will undertake the first of the formal evaluations with grantees who have completed their grants, updating the assessment of the Fund at regular milestones as further grants complete. Even though we have committed to a follow-up evaluation for all grants two years after completion, we intend to prepare initial interim findings early in 2012 to inform board decisions about the possible future of the initiative. ²

The Arts programme has as its aim to expand access to and enjoyment of the arts. This last year, there have been interesting responses – from individuals, artists and organisations – to the uncertainties and difficulties that our sector is facing. Amongst those, we supported the ‘Save the Arts’ campaign prior to the spending review, and also continued to fund and help steer the Cultural Learning Alliance, a collective voice and campaigning body working to ensure that all children and young people have meaningful access to culture. We believe that the Cultural Learning Alliance’s broad agenda in devising a national strategy will contextualise Darren Henley’s Review of Cultural Learning for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for Education, due by the end of the year.

“The Paul Hamlyn awards are an example of what philanthropy can do at its best. These awards give artists something irreplaceable: time and freedom.” – Charlotte Higgins, 2010 Awards for Artists announcement reception keynote speech

Special Initiatives

Breakthrough Fund

Support for exceptional cultural entrepreneurs

£93,760 in 2010/11

The Breakthrough Fund was set up in 2008 to support exceptional cultural entrepreneurs with a compelling vision and a strong track record of making things happen. After three consecutive years of grant-making, 2010/11 was the first time that the 15 grants were all under way – with funding ranging from £83,000 to £360,000 (with an average of £250,000) over periods from two to five years.

Some grants are supporting significant growth and innovation within an existing organisation’s vision – such as Maria Balshaw at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester and, in London, David Jubb and David Micklem at Battersea Arts Centre and Natalie Abrahami and Carrie Cracknell at the Gate Theatre. Others have allowed the start-up of new companies, such as Helen Cole’s Inbetween Time Productions in Bristol and Stewart Laing’s Untitled Productions in Glasgow. In Belfast, a grant has enabled Stuart Baillie to become the first ever employee and chief executive of Oh Yeah Music Centre.

In some cases, we supported a step-change within organisations. Simon Pearce established a small team for The Invisible Dot Ltd in London. Claire Doherty built capacity for Situations in Bristol. We secured the salaries of Felix Barrett and Colin Marsh at Punchdrunk over the last three years, whilst enabling the establishment of their Enrichment Programme for children. Tom Chivers, Sam Hawkins and Marie McPartlin have grown the London Word Festival to new levels in its recent fourth edition. Gavin Wade and his collaborators at Eastside Projects in Birmingham are building their exhibitions programme and establishing a new post.

In some cases, the Breakthrough Fund is supporting research. Matthew Peacock is re-thinking Streetwise Opera’s artistic vision, and Nii Sackey, at Bigga Fish, is developing a radical new web-based platform for young people in urban music culture. Elsewhere, we have allowed the realisation of distinct projects. These include Gareth Evans and Di Robson’s work on The Re-Enchantment, producing a series of artists’ commissions over the past three years. Tony Butler has launched the Happy Museum initiative and has built the capacity of the Museum of East Anglian Life to engage with its local community.

As the first few grants conclude, we hope that the initiative will have a powerful legacy. We are also aware of the challenges some grantees will face to secure the longer-term momentum of what the Breakthrough Fund has begun.

Awards for Artists

Support for individual artists

£408,341 in 2010/11

The Awards for Artists scheme helps individuals to develop their creative ideas by providing ‘no strings’ funding over three years. Each of the eight recipients receives £45,000, paid in three instalments. There are three Awards for Composers and five Awards for Visual Arts. The Awards are made on the basis of need, achievement and talent. Nominators, changing each year, put forward names and a panel of judges selects recipients.

The 2010 recipients were announced in November 2010 by Charlotte Higgins, chief arts writer at the Guardian, at a reception at the Royal Institute of British Architects. Her speech, in which she spoke about the impact of public funding of the arts, can be watched on the PHF website.

2010 Composers

David Fennessy, Anna Meredith, Jason Yarde

2010 Visual Arts

Angela de la Cruz, Luke Fowler, Christina Mackie, Ben Rivers, Lindsay Seers

The Foundation is currently undertaking a review of the Awards for Artists scheme, with the aim of gaining a clearer understanding about what impact receiving an Award has had upon previous recipients, what other funding exists to support UK-based visual artists and composers, and whether the current structure, processes, scale and focus of the Awards remain appropriate.

ArtWorks: Developing Practice in Participatory Settings

Building infrastructure in artists’ training and development

£1,289,029 in 2010/11

In March 2010, Trustees allocated £1.47m to fund a new Special Initiative seeking to explore and develop participatory practices in the arts. We are delighted that this attracted significant further funding from Creativity Culture and Education, the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Cultural Leadership Programme – bringing the total budget for ArtWorks to over £2m.

After a call for proposals from across the sector, grants totalling £1,173,836 were made to five action-research programmes in Wales, Scotland and England. The five ‘pathfinder partnerships’ – led by Welsh National Opera, Creative Scotland, Barbican Guildhall, University of Sunderland and the Foundation for Community Dance – bring together arts organisations and education institutions to develop new approaches to training and continuous professional development in participatory arts. ArtWorks will support the selected partnerships to create better infrastructure for artists who facilitate this participatory work.

Participation in the arts is a central priority for the Arts programme, which has as its goal to increase access to and enjoyment of the arts. This work is usually led by artists from all art forms who work across a wide variety of participatory settings. Our research leading to the creation of this new initiative highlighted the lack of initial training for this work, a disparity in training and development across the art forms, issues around perception of value and quality, and disjointed provision across the UK. The aim of the ArtWorks initiative is to start a shift in the value and perception of the role of artists working in participatory settings.

Dr Susanne Burns was appointed project director in July 2010 and will lead the programme’s development and implementation, working closely with the appointed evaluation team who are based at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Museums and Galleries

Ongoing research and development of a new Special Initiative

£44,127 in 2010/11

Work continued throughout 2010/11 to develop an intervention around community engagement in the museums and galleries sector.

Dr Bernadette Lynch led research with 12 museums and galleries across the UK, together with their community partners, to gauge the real nature and effectiveness of their engagement practices. A confidential process built trust, allowing professionals and community partners to open up to dialogue and debate, and for very frank views to be exchanged and examined collaboratively. Dr Lynch’s summary report has been published and can be read on the PHF website.

Building on the findings of the report, Dr Piotr Bienkowski was appointed in January 2010 to work with the Arts programme to develop a proposal for a new Special Initiative in this area, aimed at facilitating a process of development and organisational change within museums and galleries that are committed to active partnership with their communities.

 

Open Grants Scheme

The Arts Open Grants scheme supports work that increases people’s enjoyment, experience and involvement in the arts. Our grants aim to enable organisations to experiment with and develop new ways of engaging with audiences and participants. This might mean introducing more people to traditional cultural activities or ensuring that the widest range of people have a greater opportunity to shape their own experience of the arts and culture.

Within this theme, we support work for people of all ages, with an emphasis on inter-generational initiatives where young people are one of the groups involved

Grants awarded in 2010/11

Capsule

£60,000 over two years

Following an exhibition of Pre-Raphaelite drawings and watercolours, visitors to the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery this summer will be confronted with Ozzy Osboune posters, Led Zeppelin album covers and T-shirts emblazoned with Napalm Death.

The show is part of Home of Metal, a region-wide celebration of heavy metal’s Black Country roots. It has been devised by Capsule, a small but energetic arts team curating and presenting alternative music events.

To test the project, back in 2007 Capsule organised a symposium of journalists, musicians, visual artists and fans to debate the influence of heavy rock music. The New Statesman subsequently declared: “It’s time to stop sneering and celebrate this proud cultural heritage.”

“We set up a series of ‘antique roadshows’ at galleries and museums across the region for metal fans to bring their memorabilia and have it recorded for our digital archive,” explains Capsule co-director Lisa Meyer. This not only introduced a new audience to the region’s cultural venues, but also confirmed to the curators there was a desire from the public to acknowledge the Black Country as the home of heavy metal and to celebrate something unique.

“The roadshows were crucial for our confidence,” admits Toby Watley, head of interpretation and exhibitions at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. “We’d had in mind ageing rockers and yet these events were massive family days out: all ages came along and that was a real eye-opener.

“Capsule has turned audience development on its head. We wouldn’t normally partner music promoters in this way, but Home of Metal has shown us what is possible by collaborating with different art forms.”

Impressed by Capsule’s David and Goliath approach – small team, big ambitions – the Foundation has provided funding over two years to span not only the Home of Metal programme, but also this year’s highly acclaimed annual Supersonic Festival. But, as Lisa acknowledges, the grant is less focused on projects than on Capsule’s development as an arts innovator. “It’s a holistic approach,” she says. “The Foundation is interested in the whole organisation and is keen to work with us to realise our ambitions. We have time to reflect on our direction and it’s given us a confidence we didn’t have before.”

“The Foundation is interested in the whole organisation and is keen to work with us to realise our ambitions. We have time to reflect on our direction and it’s given us a confidence we didn’t have before.” – Lisa Meyer, Capsule co-director

Timespan

£48,000 over two years

Seventy miles north of Inverness, the Timespan Museum and Art Centre is in the largest but least-populated region of the Scottish Highlands. The only cultural venue in the coastal village of Helmsdale, it serves the county of Sutherland with a population of just 13,000.

“We started as a community run museum in 1986,” explains development director Nicola Henderson. “Since 2005 we have developed as a contemporary art gallery whose programming is focused on ‘bridging’ arts with local area/ community interests.”

Timespan’s part-time staff, dedicated volunteers and board members have had little access to contemporary art. The Foundation first supported an innovative and highly successful youth art curator/artist in residence post over two years. Through this second grant, PHF is funding a two-year development programme involving four artist residencies to put them at the sharp end of contemporary practice.

One of the artists, Warwickshire-based Jo Roberts, began her residency with one-to-one discussions. “Jo’s approach is centred on talking and communication,” says Nicola. “She met with each of the board, staff and key volunteers, discussed their roles, heard their honest views and, as a baseline for our project evaluation, gauged their understanding of contemporary art.”

Jo’s project was about the ‘creative geology’ of the area and she gave each of the stakeholders a cardboard box with a lid – their own personal gallery spaces – which they were to fill with whatever connected them with the local area. Most importantly, these ‘art pioneers’ had to pass more boxes to others unassociated with Timespan and explain the concept to them. The project then cascaded through the community and over 100 boxes of exhibits contributed to the final show.

As well as the box project, the stakeholders witnessed the artist delivering school workshops and spent a day in Orkney to see how the well-established Pier Arts Centre operates.

Lorna Jappy, Timespan’s part-time centre manager, was the local coordinator for each residency: “Watching the artists’ work develop from a germ of an idea to fill the gallery has been amazing. It’s given me much more confidence talking to visitors about the work in the gallery.”

But not all of the stakeholders have benefited as planned. “It’s a huge time commitment from board members in particular and we didn’t get 100 per cent buy-in,” reflects Nicola. “We had to admit that maybe we didn’t need all the board to completely engage and we had to satisfy ourselves that having more confident advocacy from the majority of the board was still a very good result.”

Ongoing grant

Theatre Royal Stratford East

£97,400 over 39 months

The Theatre Royal Stratford East (TRSE) has a long tradition of engaging with its public. In the 50s the east London venue was dubbed ‘A theatre of the people’ and launched the cutting-edge Theatre Workshop, which continues as a hotbed for emerging talent.

Its latest collaborative venture is the PHF-funded Open Stage, where the diverse local community is being invited to curate six months of the theatre’s production in the run-up to the Olympic Games.

“Whereas many people feel disengaged with the sporting spectacle on their doorstep, we want to offer positive consultation which has tangible, visible results,” says Charlotte Handel, head of Open Stage.

The process began with an extensive period of research with case studies, advice and feedback drawn from over 50 organisations inside and outside the arts. There have been similar projects in the past, but none with the same breadth attempted by Open Stage. “We’ve learnt many things from our research, but having a clear, realistic purpose and being able to convey this to our public is paramount,” says Charlotte. “We know too that we have to constantly revisit and review our plans. It’s a dynamic process.”

A core group of volunteers has been recruited and trained as ambassadors for the project. Together they have devised and tested a questionnaire to engage people on the street or in public spaces, and taken back to the volunteers’ own communities. One volunteer encouraged all the members of her gospel choir to participate. Another, Shawab Iqbal, distributed questionnaires to friends and family: “Statistically, arts participation within the Pakistani community is quite low, but I’ve had good response,” he says. “I’ve been surprised at some people’s perception of the theatre. It’s still seen by many as white middle class so we have some work to do to show it reflects all voices.”

The public can also contribute through a website and on social networking sites, and theatre staff and volunteers have accompanied Newham’s community engagement teams to events around the borough.

Consulting a potential audience that has little understanding of the performing arts can be challenging. “It’s not a box- ticking exercise,” says Charlotte. “Our volunteers spend time having genuine conversations with the respondents.” As well as ideas for specific productions, the public are invited to suggest genres – comedy, musicals, drama – which will all feed into the ‘people’s season’ in 2012.

“I’ve been surprised at some people’s perception of the theatre. It’s still seen by many as white middle class so we have some work to do to show it reflects all voices.”

– Shawab Iqbal, volunteer at Theatre Royal Stratford East

Completed grants

Candoco Dance Company

£176,961 over three years

Candoco is a contemporary dance company of disabled and non-disabled dancers. Its PHF-funded Moving Bodies project allowed the company to work more strategically in five parts of the UK, building an infrastructure for the development of inclusive dance. Candoco’s head of learning and development, Luke Pell, explains: “Arts organisations like ours might typically drop in, deliver a workshop or performance and then leave. Now we can build partnerships and respond more closely to the needs of each area.”

Over the grant period, Candoco has developed a four-strand programme, covering schools, youth, emerging artists and professional development. The aim is to take a joined-up approach to both collaboration and career progression.

Working with a group of ‘hub’ schools, Candoco has faced tight constraints – pressurised teachers and squeezed budgets – to offer inclusive dance opportunities to more children and challenge perceptions of what dance as art is and who can participate. A notable success has been in getting inclusive dance on the GCSE specification of the AQA examining board.

A mentoring and networking programme for youth dance practitioners has also seen some positive results. “One participant has set up her own Moving Bodies-inspired programme,” says Luke. “Another has been teaching inclusive dance in Africa.”

Emerging professional dancers are supported long-term by the group, developing skills that can be recycled. Kimberley Harvey, 22, has worked as an ‘artist associate’ on the project: “Since becoming involved with Moving Bodies I’ve had the opportunity to co-teach around the UK. My aim has been to be braver and more confident as a performer and as a person and without Candoco’s support I wouldn’t have had the drive or the ambition to be a professional dancer.” Kimberley is now an ambassador for Youth Dance England.

But Moving Bodies has been challenging too. “When I first devised the project it was massively ambitious”, says Luke. “Early on we questioned if maybe we had spread ourselves too thinly. Four streams of activity in five regions is a substantial workload so we’ve benefitted from an incredibly supportive dialogue with the Foundation and we’ve adapted along the way.”

The arts landscape has changed considerably since Moving Bodies began. “The regional partners we earmarked for continuing our work after the grant period are all in volatile situations and some have even folded,” says Luke. “But we’ve made important strides and the project has made us consolidate our strategic thinking about Candoco’s learning and development programme and our leadership role for the future.”

“Since becoming involved with Moving Bodies I’ve had the opportunity to co-teach around the UK. My aim has been to be braver and more confident as a performer and as a person and without Candoco’s support I wouldn’t have had the drive or the ambition to be a professional dancer.”

– Kimberley Harvey, 22, former artist associate on Moving Bodies, now an ambassador for Youth Dance England

English Touring Opera

£213,825 over three years

By definition, English Touring Opera doesn’t have a home. It is dependent on its partner venues across the country and, over the years, has built strong relationships with many of them. This grant, which came to an end in 2010, was to enable ETO to take a breath, unpack its suitcases and work more collaboratively in four specific places: Wolverhampton, Truro, Cambridge and Exeter. The aim was to not only deepen the relationship with receiving venues, but also to affirm a stronger ETO ‘stamp’ on these regions.

A development officer was recruited to create local networks and galvanise groups and communities through talks, meetings and support networks. “The grant allowed us to establish incredibly strong partnerships with local arts organisations, schools and local venues,” says Tim Yealland, ETO’s artistic associate – education.

In Cornwall, for example, this collaboration led to the staging in 2009 of a community opera – One Day Two Dawns – at Truro’s Hall for Cornwall. The opera, developed over two years, included over 250 local people – disabled actors, children with special needs, local community musicians, dancers, even a male voice choir – and involved well over 90 workshops. It won the education category of the Royal Philharmonic Society Music Awards and the judges declared that it “had real educational and artistic substance… a flagship example of open-access musical celebration.”

In Exeter, ETO worked on a completely different scale with an interpretation of King Lear with about 20 men at a prison. In Cambridge, PHF’s support enabled consistent projects with schools to take place twice a year for the duration of the grant. In Wolverhampton, ETO built on a large participatory project that had taken place in 2006/07 and continued working intensively with the groups that had been involved on the stage of the Grand Theatre and in schools.

The support from PHF over three years has enabled ETO to work more closely with some venues that are crucial to the success of the company’s annual tours. It has also been catalytic in leveraging lasting links with schools, community groups, and local partners. Participants of all ages have improved their confidence in their own creativity, as well as their practical artistic skills, through performance, making and working collaboratively. The project has brought together community members, teachers, young people and families.

Although large-scale projects along the lines of One Day Two Dawns are not possible without similar levels of funding, there are spin-offs that ETO had not anticipated – such as ongoing collaborations with Dartington Trust in Devon and with Miracle Theatre Company in Cornwall.

Over the three years of funding, PHF helped ETO grow local roots deep enough to produce wholly unexpected but healthy shoots.