Arts funding

Up to 50 freelancers will be employed as arts tutors in some of Scotland's most remote and culturally distinctive communities.

Creatives and artists who have lost work due to Covid-19 or Brexit can apply to work with primary schools in the Scottish Islands of Na h-Eileanan Siar, Orkney, Shetland, Argyll and Bute, Highland and North Ayrshire.

Gaelic arts body Fèisean nan Gàidheal will deliver the programme whilst the University of the Highlands gives tutors support and accreditation. The tutors in turn will support the development of assistant tutors to continue delivering arts education.

Fèisean nan Gàidheal CEO Arthur Cormack said training will increase freelancers' "resilience" and better equip thme to work in schools in the future.

The programme is funded by the National Transition Training Fund and through the Scottish Government's Islands Programme.
 

A grants programme to help UK music companies market their products and projects overseas has been given a £330,000 boost.

The Music Export Growth Scheme gives grants of £5,000 to £50,000.

The extra finance was announced this week as part of a package of measures in the Department for International Trade's (DIT) new 'Made in Britain, Sold to the World' campaign.

Museums will also benefit from new research around reaching international markets.

Minister for Exports Mike Freer said the UK's creative industries are "a force to be reckoned with" - music alone exported £519.7m last year.

DIT expects Asia to be the next big market for British cultural exports: "The region [is] set to be home to the 66% of the global middle classes by 2030, hungry for high quality British goods and services."

Birmingham 2022 has released details of the six-month festival set to run across the West Midlands as part of the Commonwealth Games.

The £12m festival will showcase art, photography, dance, theatre and digital commissions between March and October next year.

It will open with a new production, Wondrous Stories, performed by Leamington Spa-based dance circus company Motionhouse. The festival's full programme is set to be released in January,

“This spectacular festival will feature over 300 brand new creative works, providing essential funding direct to artists and thousands of participatory moments for audiences,” Birmingham 2022 Chief Creative Office Martin Green said.

Birmingham Council's Creative City Grants will support the festival by offering 150 community groups grants of up to £20,000 to deliver creative projects that “impact positively on their community”.

This latest funding drive follows £100,000 pledged by the Games to create artworks depicting sporting events.

A recovery funding programme for Northern Irish creatives has been opened by Arts Council of Northern Ireland (ACNI) and the Department for Communities.

ACNI Chief Executive Roisin McDonough said the £5m Creative Individuals Recovery Programme (CIRP) is designed to help creatives continue developing important skills.

It can help pay to create new work, hire facilities or equipment, improve professional skills or attend industry events.

Grants of up to £2,000 are available, with applications closing October 6.

“CIRP funding can help our creative individuals to positively contribute, as they did before the pandemic, to the significant cultural value of Northern Ireland as a great place to work, live and invest,“ McDonough said.

The Arts Council of Northern Ireland has made £50,000 available for a new programme supporting artists from a minority ethnic background.

The mentoring and residency programme will offer grants of up to £5,000 for research, learning, networking and cultural exchange opportunities.

Applications are open until October 4, with artists at every stage of their career encouraged to apply.

Chief Executive Roisin McDonough said the programme seeks to address the "numerous and complex barriers to access, progression and representation in the arts" that minority ethnic artists face. 

The council is in the process of establishing a Minority Ethnic Deliberative Forum to strengthen diversity within the sector and inform future decision making.

Scotland’s Labour and Conservative parties are calling on the Scottish and UK Governments to agree a new funding deal for Glasgow’s culture and leisure services.

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar raised a motion in Holyrood calling for further support for Glasgow Life, which runs culture and leisure on behalf of Glasgow City Council.

The charitable organisation warned it cannot reopen more than 90 of its 171 venues if it does not receive more than the £100m guaranteed by the council over the next four years. 

Glasgow Life lost £38m during the lockdown, leading to plans to cut 500 jobs.

Scottish Conservative Glasgow MSP Annie Wells voiced her support for the motion.

“It should be a source of shame for the SNP Government that so many vital facilities and venues in Glasgow are under threat.”