Anyway, two folks who have recently shed some light on the situation are Pete Ashton and Clare Edwards.

Pete went along to the Arts Council yesterday to chat about the Digital Content Development (DCD) fund. In a lovely, comprehensive post he’s found out what the fund’s for, what organisations have been doing wrong in their applications to date and what Anna Douglas and Steve Manthorp (the fund’s administrators) are looking for in applications.

Pete would also like to make it clear he’s available to help organisations (RFO’s only I’m afraid) who are trying to figure out what to use the fund for.

Clare was recently asked for advice on finding funding for a creative project. She was happy to help and thought it’d be useful to put her tips in a blog post, so here are Clare’s tips for finding funding for a creative project.

© chrisunitt for Created in Birmingham, 2009. | 4 comments |

The Arts Council recently asked for regional submissions to win a significant pot of money under the title ‘Artists Taking the Lead’ - linking into themes of the Cultural Olympiad, and leading up to the 2012 Olympics.

The first selection process has happened, and details of the potential regional winners have been announced and can be found here.  Unsurprisingly, all of the West Midlands shortlisted are designed to happen in Birmingham (with perhaps the exception of Imagineer Productions – which doesn’t specify, but has obvious Coventry connections?) and so it seemed relevant to point it out to the CiB readers and point you to the site where comments are invited on which idea excites you the most.

I have rather strong feelings on the selected few and would be curious to find out what you all think.  If any particularly strike you (either positively or negatively!) then feel free to leave a quick comment below explaining why.

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The initiatives include:

• Sustain – a new £40 million open application fund for arts organisations suffering as a result of the recession.
• £500,000 support for the Town Centres Initiative to enable more artistic activities to take place in empty retail spaces.
• A £4 million increase in the Grants for the arts budget over the next two years

Hundreds of artists across the country are already helping to reinvigorate ailing town centres by taking over empty retail space for creative activities and it is hoped this new fund, which will award grants of £1,000 to £10,000 will enable many more to do so.

One example of this is currently happening in York. York Museums Trust, supported by Visit York, are piloting a digital design programme to which will look to dress empty shop windows with external, high quality vinyls which will feature contemporary digital designs that respond to their setting. More at BoxerCreative. A while back I also wrote about similar ideas from Council leaders in Wolverhampton.

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Before Wednesday’s announcement those in the know were predicting the fate of the Department for Culture Media and Sport, and guessing the arts were unlikely to be spared in the predicted £15bn of public spending cuts. The largest chunk of DCMS spending goes on Arts Council England, in which cuts up to £14m were being expected.

The outcome for the Arts Council  is a £4 million cut in funding, which they responded with this statement:

It is a shame that the government has found it necessary to cut funding to culture but we will do our best to protect the interests of audiences who deserve the best art there is.

That is why, in implementing these cuts, we will not reduce our planned investment in the arts organisations we fund on a regular basis – many of whom have already planned against expected income in 2010/11. Instead we will reconsider our existing and planned new projects and look to find savings there.

This is a short term solution but not without its implications as these projects are our investment in the development of the arts.

The arts are far more than a luxury add-on – they are quality of life and, with sufficient public investment, they can be central to economic recovery.

NB: The latest £4million cut is in addition to the £6.5million per annum savings in the Arts Council’s running costs announced as part of the original settlement.

The statement is fairly generic, so what this will mean to the West Midlands remains to be seen but it is reassuring to know that currently funded organisations won’t see a reduction in funds.

© Kate Spragg for Created in Birmingham, 2009. | 2 comments |

They have, however awarded Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council an award of up to £3m to allow them to develop a revised plans and to bring the building fully into public use. The Arts Council’s intention is that the significant investment made by all the funders will benefit the residents of Sandwell.

Sir Christopher Frayling, Chair of Arts Council England, said:

“We are the national development agency for the arts, and investing in ground breaking creative projects that have the potential to give more people access to great art is central to what we do. That is why we supported this project and why, at every stage, we have worked with our partners and carefully weighed the level of risk involved against the potential public benefit.

But the fact is that, although the building is open, the interactive art gallery at the centre of the vision for The Public is not. We have done everything we can but there comes a point where we have to make a difficult judgement – and regretfully, that moment is now.”

The Public will be releasing a statement later on today.

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• Creative Birmingham – pulling together key public agencies investing in the creative industries
• Design Space – accommodates and finances new design agencies in the Jewellery Quarter
• SRB6 Creative Industries – offers a range of business support to new businesses in the north-west of the city
• Enterprise City – provides coaching and mentoring services to new and expanding businesses
• Business Support for Creative Industries Programme – £9m flagship initiative.  Created 800 jobs, safeguarded 400 jobs, helped start 250 businesses and supported 1,200 businesses in total.  Generated over £15m in new sales

As far as I can tell, SRB6 has ended, enrolment in Enterprise City is closed (the scheme ends in March 09) and I can’t find any info about Creative Birmingham at all.

D’log tried looking into the schemes mentioned when Coun Summerfield responded to the issue of support for the creative sector last month. He had problems finding any useful information too.

The thing is, maybe there are lots of helpful support schemes out there but how many eligible people/companies know about them and where’s the information being made available? I guess the place to go would be Creative Launchpad (currently residing online here) or Business Link but it’s a shame the info doesn’t seem to be collected together somewhere useful.

Actually, I’ve just found West Midlands Finance, which describes itself as “comprehensive, continually updated finance information for West Midlands SMEs”. Feel free to register and have a root about but the need to register has put me right off – what’s the need exactly? Humph.

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Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery will spend its £300,000 grant on a new gallery telling the story of the city from medieval times to the present.

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The wonderful SITA trust have blessed us with the resources to install a new heating system, disabled loos, insulation and a new kitchen!  This will be stage one of our ongoing plans to develop the place as the (informal) venue for experimental arts in the city and operate year-round.

There’s good news and bad(-ish) news: the bad(-ish) news is that public activity will be suspended until late summer while things are sorted out.  The good news is that they’d like people to help out with, in their words:

mainly smashing stuff and chucking it away/recycling, quite therapeutic, actually

So if you’d like to get involved drop them a line.

There are still a few events happening at the Edge in the meantime – the Strange Ways Cheapside Show is there until 12 July and there are some talks on 25 July which I’ll blog about later.

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There is:
No criteria.

We offer:
The successful recipient  (£1) and the opportunity to publish the results in our 3rd tabloid paper (10,000 free emotional copies will be out later in the year (we are annual)).

The next submission date is 5 July, so if you’ve got an eccentric idea but lack the funds then head to the website to get more details.

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Some great news from the peeps at 7 Inch Cinema landed on the virtual doormat today.  The Flatpack Festival is the worthy recipient of funding for the next three years, securing it’s future and allowing the organisers to maybe think a little bigger.

Peter Buckingham from the UK Film Council (who are providing the funding) said of Flatpack:

Their innovative approach to screening films in churches, warehouses and shopping centres as well as cinemas and gallery spaces is a brilliant idea because it helps to attract new audiences to some great short films, animation and live film events

Flatpack 3 will take place in Feb 2009 and will launch “with a tribute to Birmingham’s pioneering film showman Waller Jeffs“.

DeafFest at Wolverhampton Light House have also received funding so well done to them too.

Last word goes to the understandably chuffed Flatpack producers:

without going all Oscar-night about it, it wouldn’t have been possible without all the filmmakers, volunteers, artists, promoters, technicians, funders, venues and enthusiastic punters who have chipped in to help us get this far. So thanks a lot, and here’s to Flatpack III in February 2009 and beyond…

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Arts & Business Awards

“Nominations are now open for the 30th Arts & Business Awards, designed to celebrate excellence in the field of arts and business partnerships and sponsorships”
Deadline for nominations is 30 May. Further information might be on their website but, frankly, if they want to deliberately hide it away I’m not going to look for it.

Open 08 West Midands

“Open is a biennial collaboration between Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery and Wolverhampton Art Gallery, celebrating the vibrant talent of the art scene in the West Midlands and allowing regional artists the chance to show their work at these prestigious venues.”
The deadline is 28 May 2008. Follow the link for application packs and further details.

Short Cuts Film submissions for ArtsFest

D’log reports that the Short Cuts Film programmers are seeking submissions but warns that the deadline for seeing and agreeing films is tight. I’ve not found any further useful information on this but D’log has the contact details so I’d start there if you’re interested. (Via D’log).

BSCI grant funding suspended

The budgets for Birmingham City Council’s feasibility and creative space grants is now fully committed. If this affects you, or you’d not heard of these grants and are interested then bookmark this page and check back in June. Appreciative nod to Simon Gray.

Changes to Grants for the Arts

From 20 May 2008 several changes to the programme run by Arts Council England will come into effect. Further info on the Arts Council England website. (Via Audiences Central News).

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From the Press Release:

Birmingham City Council Creative Development Team and Audiences Central are premiering a short film directed by BAFTA Award Winning Director Natasha Carlish on Tuesday 11 March at The Electric Cinema, Birmingham. Birmingham: The Creative City celebrates some of the personal stories and amazing work delivered as part of the Equal II: The Last Mile programme in Birmingham over the last two years.

The Equal II: The Last Mile programme was established to develop the Creative Industries as a route to employment in Birmingham. This creative business support project was established in 2005 to develop the creative industries as a route to employment for creative talent and arts professionals in Birmingham.

Co-ordinated by Birmingham City Council’s Creative Development Team and funded by the European Social Fund, the Equal II: The Last Mile programme has engaged over 400 individual artists and creative businesses and 18 partner organisations across Birmingham. The programme, and the creative industries, have made a significant contribution to Birmingham’s economy through employment and improved quality of life.

The film, Birmingham: The Creative City is testimony itself to the wealth of creative talent within the region directed by one of the region’s BAFTA award winning directors, Natasha Carlish and Dreamfinder Productions and created with partners including John Mostyn who worked with music for film debutant Bass Flo, Quench Design who titled the films DVD menu and cover artwork and Supercool Design who worked on brand and design elements.

Director Natasha Carlish said: “Nurturing and developing new creative talent in our city is something I feel extremely passionate about. So to be asked to create a film to illustrate just one area of work that is focusing on this very important issue was a real privilege. I was really inspired by the contributors to the film, their determination to success and their stories and I was really lucky to work with some great collaborators such as Endboad, Quench, John Mostyn and Bassflo’, the Audiosuite, Aquila Film and Television and Shefali Oza.”

Talking about the impact of the Equal II: The Last mile programme overall, Paul Cantrill, Head of Creative Development at Birmingham City Council said: “The creative industries are one of the key sectors of growth and expansion in the region. In partnership with 18 organisations across Birmingham, the Equal II: The Last Mile programme has created many opportunities to enrich and support the wide diversity of talent located in this unique city.”

To find out more about the amazing journeys that the beneficiaries and partners have undertaken as part of Equal II: The Last Mile visit www.creativecompass.co.uk.

Unfortunately invitations for the event are now closed. However you can watch the film online.

© jgilbert for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | One comment |

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“The issue has never been, ‘is this good quality work?’ The issue is that the work happens infrequently, so how can we ensure that a company which claims to be about community opera actually is part of the community.

“Each of their projects tends be a one-off which is very exciting, but what happens afterwards? Can we have a programme of year round activities, maybe by developing partnerships? That’s the issue.

© pete for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | One comment |

Actually, his commentary on Midwest was taken to task by Nikki Pugh who gives a nice account of her experiences with the organisation.

In related news it seems the Birmingham Opera Company have been saved. Sort of. According to The Stirrer there’s no money for this financial year but funding for 2009-10 has been “reserved”. General manager Jean Nicholson is quoted as saying “Hopefully, this can be the start of a new relationship with them. We’ll have the chance to restate what we can do, they can tell us what they expect from us, and hopefully we can meet somewhere in the middle.”

I’ve not been completely on the ball in keeping up with the Arts Council shenanigans but D’log has so if you need to catch up go read him.

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Paul Burns reckons many of the funding decisions made by the Arts Council might be correct and explains at length. Go read the whole thing but in summary:

• It’s been managed really badly. This episode illustrates some serious problems with the way the Arts Council operates. “Many of these decisions may be right, but the process and its lack of transparency is obscuring this.”
• “Cutting funding per-se is not bad. No arts organisations should receive funding ad infinitum, and no-one working in the arts should expect the government to pay their wage.”
• “The Arts Council is responsible for arts development in England, which suggests change, renewal, growth and transition – not the maintenance of the status quo.”
• “Statements about “no confidence” in Arts Council England, or the organisation being “no longer fit for purpose” do not help the arts in any way. What do we replace it with?”

I could go on but I’ll just be reprinting the whole post.

Paul, trading as Wechtie, works in “contemporary dance, music and visual arts” and is currently with DanceXchange. His weblog mostly covers contemporary dance.

Note: when writing to me about this Paul said he’d not mentioned his blog before “as it’s rather niche”. This is the wrong attitude! I’ve been waiting for someone to start a dance-related blog all year! Niche is good!

© pete for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | 2 comments |

© pete for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | One comment |

Well, as anyone who has dealt with the Arts Council will expect, the reasons have nothing to do with art or excellence. The Arts Council is miffed that BOC hasn’t established a “third income stream”. In other words, it doesn’t get much private funding, so relies too heavily on public subsidy.

That’s firstly untrue (its recent Traviata was backed by £50,000 from the Moores Foundation); secondly based on too narrow a definition of private support (many local companies support it “in kind” by donating premises or goods – such as those coffins in Giovanni); and thirdly misses the point. Of course swanky sponsors aren’t going to be attracted to opera presented on gritty industrial estates: where would they ply their clients with champers and canapés? But does this mean that opera must always be staged in venues where the middle-classes feel comfortable? Is that the view of James Purnell, the new Culture Secretary?

The underlying truth seems to be that Vick is a maverick, and the company he created and to which he lovingly returns (between directing engagements with every great opera company in the world) is created in his image – ie, structurally unconventional. Far too much so, clearly, for the pen-pushers at the Arts Council, who complain about BOC’s “high-risk strategy” as if risk is a bad thing in the arts.

via D’log

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They currently get £324,000 from the Arts Council and £197,000 from the city council. While the former has been removed they can apply for a “project grant” capped at £100,000, though getting this is not guaranteed.

According to The Post “The Arts Council is understood to have disapproved of the company’s decision to bring Vick’s production of La Traviata to the NIA, regarding it as too great a financial risk.

This production (blogged about in advance here and here with post-performance responses collated here and here) sold 9,908 of the 10,000 seats and, while profits were slim, was generally considered a success. Here’s a photo:

What sets Birmingham Opera apart from other opera companies is their pathalogical desire to bring people into opera who wouldn’t normally do it, not just watching but performing. Which, personally, confuses the hell out of me since I thought that’s what you needed to do to get Arts Council funding these days.

The closing quote from the AC does sort of answer this though:

“While we recognise the quality of Birmingham Opera Company’s work, we have been talking to them for some time to flag our concerns about aspects of their business and financial models. We are still in constructive talks to explore other funding opportunities available to them.”

In other words, they were told to sort the books out or face losing the money and they didn’t. Of course the timing of this decision, coming along with a massive reduction in arts funding, does make this reasoning rather suspect.

Naturally, Birmingham Opera are planning to fight this and have a chance to appeal this month. One thing they want to do is get a forum or similar set up on their website so their wide and disparate support network can come together and build a strategy. This needs to happen as soon as possible so if someone web-savvy can help them get something up and running quickly please get in touch with them. I don’t think it needs to be anything complicated – phpbb should do. (I’d do it but I’m sort of not around…)

The 2007 review will continue tomorrow…

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Nearly 200 arts organisations in England have been told that their funding will end from next April in the biggest and most bloody cull since the Arts Council was set up more than 50 years ago.

Many organisations will, however, have had good news. Of the 990 bodies which get funding, three-quarters have been told to expect inflation or above rises.

and informs us that Birmingham Jazz are getting a grant increase from £23,000 to £71,500 so we should hopefully see some interesting work from them next year building on the success of Rush Hour Blues. Who knows, they might even get that blog going again.

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Shoppers in Birmingham’s City Centre were confronted by the spectacular vision of the city’s Arts Czar this morning. As they feebly attempted to keep their minds on their Christmas shopping their imaginations were captured by the charismatic figure of Theodore Parker Bowles, Birmingham’s Arts Czar since 2000.

Wearing nothing but his specially commissioned pink latex body suit, accessorised with juxtaposing vivid blue codpiece and shimmering nipple tassels, Parker Bowles strutted his stuff along Corporation Street between 10 and 11 am, hoisting a placard demanding “Attention for THE ARTS”.

via D’log who takes it as a cue to look at “the coming Arts Council bloodbath.” He writes:

As I wrote on the 23rd November it seems like the recent official spin about a “rise” in arts funding was actually a smokescreen for cuts. But I didn’t realise how massive those cuts would be.

Sobering stuff.

© pete for Created in Birmingham, 2007. | One comment |

Here’s a couple of interesting things currently on their front page. The first is a European Media Artists in Residence Exchange.

The newly established European Media Art Network will give 16 production awards to emerging media art talent to explore the creative possibilities of innovative content for new media platforms.

The international residency programme has been running since 1995 and has worked with artists including Dane Watkins, Paul Harrison & John Wood, Martin Howse, Kypros Kyprianou, and Mike Stubbs.

Media artists in the fields of digital media (including internet and computer based art, video and sound) are invited to apply for a two month residency with one of the following partner organisations: Impakt (Netherlands), Werkleitz Gesellschaft (Germany), Interspace (Bulgaria) and Vivid.

Residents will receive: A grant of 2.000 Euro, Free accommodation, Up to 250 Euro in travel expenses, Access to technical facilities and media labs, Individual exhibition following residency, Major group exhibition in 2009 in Halle (Saale), Germany

Applications have to be in by January 7th. Here’s the application form (Word.doc)

Ben Callaway – ‘Carousel’

The second is a screening of Fresh Moves: New Moving Images from the UK, “a collection of film and video works by 24 of the best emerging and established UK-based artists” introduced by Laure Prouvost, curator at tank.tv

Compiled by a panel including Hans Ulrich Obrist, director of Serpentine Gallery, and Stuart Comer, curator of film and video at Tate Modern, Fresh Moves encompasses fictional narrative, digital film, animation, montage and installation-based film work. Exploring a variety of subjects including politics, identity and aesthetic practices, the collection celebrates not only the artists featured, but the art of moving images as a whole.

The screening takes place on Thursday December 6th at 6pm for a 6.30 start. Tickets are £3/£2 and you’re advised to dress warmly, Vivid being effectively a warehouse space, albeit a very nice one!

via Creative Wolverhampton

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The details of next year’s festival are still being put together, but I can reveal that it will be a four-day showcase and it will give everyone in the region the chance to really get stuck in to experimenting in a digital world.

When plans for this were being mooted earlier in the year there was a lot of emphasis on the weight of governmental support (both local, regional and national) behind it and, with this announcement that the city council has committed their portion of the cash it looks to be becoming a reality.

It’ll be interesting to see how this develops over the next year. There’s more to “digital” that just using computers – it’s about embracing the culture that digital environments encourage. One to watch.

© pete for Created in Birmingham, 2007. | One comment |

Artist Jan Bowman is in the latter camp and has written an impassioned article on why artists shouldn’t accept state funding on Spiked.

Artists have always had to work around their patrons’ whims and political agendas. However, New Labour’s social agenda is more intrusive than the most autocratic client could ever be.

[...]

Were we living in a society where the arts were under attack and artists starved in garrets, there might be a case for artists to claw as much as they can out of the state. Today, there is no justification for it financially; even less from the viewpoint of artistic survival.

A comparison between the work of designers and artists is useful here. A designer only gets state support because the fundamental value of their work can be judged objectively. With fine artists this is impossible, since art deals with individual feelings and emotions and its direct value is unquantifiable. The state can only judge artists’ work in terms of how it fits in with government agendas. This is like trying to measure how blue something is with a ruler.

The result is a burgeoning fellowship of ‘artists’ and ‘arts practitioners’ who owe their careers entirely to the state and who survive by ticking the right boxes in return for accommodating to the government’s propaganda requirements. For all Tessa Jowell’s fine words about the unique, transcendent value of art, New Labour will accept an awful lot of rubbish from artists so long as the results send the right ‘message’ about smoking, drinking, child abuse, internet porn, recycling, or any other current government obsession – even better if the process involves sufficient members of the public, from nursery upwards.

I’m not sure where I stand on this, and admittedly as someone who isn’t a working artist my opinion isn’t all that relavent. On the one hand I think it’s useful to have a financially secure environment for artists to work in – doing compromised work is better than doing no work at all – but on the other hand most of the great artists I admire don’t work for the government. They’re too independent in vision for that.

With Jan’s thoughts in mind this piece on Digital Central was amusing.

Culture West Midlands are holding a symposium to address the lack of attention cultural agencies and organisations have given to the issue of climate change.

I’m sure the people involved with Culture West Midlands have everyone’s best interests at heart but there’s certainly something prescriptive about that sentence. Hmm.

© pete for Created in Birmingham, 2007. | 2 comments |

The scheme offers writers based in the West Midlands region up to £5,000 to help develop ideas and treatments into original screenplays, improve existing drafts, or adapt an existing work.

The deadline is Friday 5th November.

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The organisation’s funding will rise from £417 million this year to £467 million in 2010\11, a real-terms increase year-on-year of 1.1 per cent (or 12 per cent in cash terms across the whole period). Grant aid to England’s national museums and galleries will increase from £302 million this year to £332 million in 10/11, an increase of slightly above inflation.

The Arts Council’s response is pretty jubilant, as you’d expect.

“This is fantastic news – the Government has acted on the case we have made for the arts.

“It’s a recognition of the work of our artists and arts organisations whose energy and imagination have made our cultural life genuinely the envy of the world.”

Good news, obviously, given the concerns about the Olympics taking all the cash, but let’s keep things in a little perspective. The proposed replacement of the Trident nuclear deterrent system is budgeted at £15-20 billion. Good to see we’ve got our priorities straight.

Thanks to Jack Dour for the heads up

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The next Out of Hours at Light House is on Monday 3rd September, 5.30-7.30pm and is all about funding. While it takes place in Wolverhampton a lot of these organisations are West Mids-wide so this is pretty relevant to Birmingham folks. (And Light House is a lovely place to visit.)

Guests at this informal chatting session include:

Marina Ibrahim: SP/ARK

Nigel Jordan: Wolverhampton University Creative Media Technology project.

Matt Stocker: Advantage Creative Fund

Chris Adams: Creative and Knowledge Industries Business Adviser for Business Link West Midlands.

Dave Taylor: TIC

Dave Roberts: Creative Launchpad

Sarah Bell: Music for Media Project

Peter McLuskie: PLOT

They’ll all spend five minutes of so explaining what they do and who they can help and then there’ll be a chance to mingle and ask them stuff.

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On Wednesday I popped along to the Rhubarb Rhubarb Light Sale at Curzon St Station, another great arts event put on with a not insubstantial amount of sponsorship and funding. Hanging outside the venue were two huge banners flapping in the wind, one of which looks like this:

A little over a third of the notice is devoted to logos, most of which are illegible from the street and hardly any of which are of interest to the general punter. Hewlett Packard I get since they’re in the photo printing business and local establishment like the MAC have some recognition, but most of them are insider brands. And, frankly, it looks pretty naff, not to mention ugly. There’s no denying the involvement of government agencies and private industry is essential to arts provision in this age but when did this obsession with cramming all the brands in one aesthetic car crash become the acceptable norm? What train of thought leads a sponsor to say, yes, you can have a substantial amount of money but we insist you spoil your publicity by including our cryptic logo? And has anyone done any research into what effect all this has on the general public’s perception of the event? I suspect it might be a little negative, tainting the work with the notion that it’s taking money from sick children or something. I know when I see the “Arts Council Supported” logo I have to fight back prejudices even though I completely understand the importance of getting that funding.

Since this is the creative sector we’re talking about can’t we be a little more creative with how sponsorship is declared?

I’d welcome comments on this.

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