Just a reminder that there’s only a few days left to get your applications in for the £1 Arts Commission Scheme run by The Eccentric City:
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.
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…
Some of this might not be hugely relevant/interesting to most but hopefully it’ll be useful to someone out there. Interestingness will be resumed shortly.
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).
The première of the short film ‘Birmingham: The Creative City’ will be held at the Electric Cinema tomorrow afternoon.
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.â€
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.â€
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.
This is great. Kerry of Fused magazine explains the steps taken to put on a showcase of Birmingham bands at SxSW in Texas with the usual mix of serendipity, funding applications and hard work. Invaluable reading.
The Stirrer has a short interview with Sally Luton of the Arts Council where she lays out the conditions for Birmingham Opera Company to continue to receive funding. Here’s the meat:
“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.
D’log has the full list of Arts Council cuts in the West Midlands and rather than repeat them here I’ll send you over to him. He’s got links to them all and commentary.
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.
It’s always a good thing to come across a contrary view when the prevailing opinion seems pretty unanimous, especially when that view is well thought out and comes from the grass roots.
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:
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!
It seems Tory MP Michael Fabricant got his facts wrong when he said the Birmingham Rep was “no longer going to receive it’s funding” in the House of Commons. Anthony Herron inquired and is happy to report “the REP is not facing cuts it is likely to get an inflationary increase.” Thanks Ant.
Sour note – terrific and concise defence of Birmingham Opera Company in the Times by Richard Morrison. Hard to pick a small bit so here’s three paragraphs:
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 streamâ€. 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
If you’re at all interested in following the Arts Council funding cuts and how they affect the region you really should be reading D’log who is compiling reports from across the web like a blogger possessed. Good work, sir.
D’log notices in this Times Parliamentary sketch that the Birmingham Rep is, apparently, losing some funding in the current round of arts cuts. Nothing else in the news that I can see. Anyone know for sure? And if so, what it might affect?
As you may already be aware Birmingham Opera is facing an uncertain future, possibly closure, after their Arts Council grant was cut as part of the bloody cull of last month. The Post has all the details which I’ll attempt to parse here:
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…
D’log continues his coverage of Arts Council cuts. The Guardian article he links to gives a bit of context:
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.
An amusing spoof at theSpoof.com with a Birmingham angle:
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.
