News

33-year-old Thomas Ellison, from Fenham in Newcastle, has been sentenced to 90 hours of community service for placing a lunchbox with a circuit board and a doll on a major bridge in the city in 2017 as ‘art’. Roads were sealed, trains were stopped and the emergency services were called – at a total cost of £3,500 – while the apparent bomb threat was investigated.

Architects Matheson Whiteley’s designs for Studio Voltaire in Clapham – which will refurbish existing buildings and enlarge studio and exhibition spaces as well as creating a new café, retail space and entrance – have been approved by Lambeth councillors.

Far-right president Jair Bolsonaro has merged the country’s three ministries of culture, sports and social development into a single department called the ministry of citizenship. New department head Osmar Terra and culture secretary José Henrique Pires both support changes to a 1991 statute that allows organisations and individuals to use up to 1% of income tax to fund cultural activities.

Up to 40 employees – around 14% of the theatre’s workforce – could be impacted by a planned restructure, although the theatre said the number of redundancies would be much lower than this. The venue, which says a “difficult financial year” has forced it to cut costs, will close its current exhibition space and repurpose it for commercial hire.

The two-year, £22m project, which began last October, will create a new set of galleries from former office, storage and display spaces; improve accessibility for those with mobility impairments; and landscape the adjoining East Princes Street Gardens to offer visitors direct access to the gallery.