NPO2022

A festival in Lancashire is pairing artists with local manufacturers through its annual residency programme.

The Blackburn-based National Festival of Making, which became an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation in the 2023-26 round, is working with five local manufacturers.

These include suppliers of workwear and jeans, a cardboard box maker, and a company that specialises in garage doors and roller shutters.

Pairings for the Art in Manufacturing programme, now in its fifth year, include Ibukun Baldwin with clothes maker Cookson & Clegg, Stephanie Jefferies and Sarah Marsh with textile manufacturer Herbert Parkinson, and sculptor Steve Anwar with garage door specialists SWS UK.

Programme curator and festival co-director Elena Jackson said: “2023’s commissioned artists have hugely ambitious practices with individual focus on audience experience, access and imagination.

“We can’t wait to see the ideas that have been crafted by artists emerging from these residencies – ideas that will be at the heart of a packed programme of thought-provoking exhibitions, workshops and interventions for our audiences to experience.”

This year’s festival takes place 8-9 July.

A museum in Rochdale that joined the National Portfolio this year is to close for 18 months in August for redevelopment works.

Touchstones museum and art gallery is operated by Your Trust, which became a National Portfolio Organisation last month, receiving £325,000 a year for the next three years.

The museum's Grade II listed building, which is currently home to five temporary galleries, is closing for a refurbishment that forms part of an £8.5m investment package into arts and culture in Rochdale over the next three years. 

Funding for the investment project has been granted through the government’s Cultural Development Fund.

The redevelopment at Touchstones will create new performance and production spaces for artists and improved areas for training, live events and exhibitions. A new retail and catering space, alongside improvements to archives, collections and displays are also planned.

Head of Engagement and Heritage and Touchstones Rochdale, Mark Doyle, said: “Closing the building for a significant amount of time is never the ideal option, but the teams are working hard to coordinate activities and groups to ensure we’re still working across the borough throughout the redevelopment."

A coalition of trade unions are calling on Arts Council England (ACE) to produce a “realistic strategy” for the future of English National Opera (ENO), alongside additional funding.

Last month, ACE announced an additional £24m will be granted to ENO - after it lost its National Portfolio status - to help the opera house establish a main base outside London.

The Musicians' Union, Equity and Bectu have raised concerns about the viability of that amount of funding meeting ACE’s objectives and allowing ENO to maintain its output.

In a joint statement, the unions accused ACE of “failing to factor in the significant associated costs of establishing a new base in a new city”, while also raising concerns on the impact several premises will have on staff.

They added that stretching the funding across two premises would impact the amount of opera ENO can produced and deliver, causing a knock-on effect on income streams and ticket sales.

“We need commitment from ACE to work with the unions and the ENO on a thorough and realistic plan for the company,” Head of Bectu Philippa Childs said.

“One that sets it up for future success and protects the livelihood of its staff and freelancers.” 

Equity General Secretary Paul W Fleming added: “If ‘levelling up’ is real and not just a populist ploy, we have to see a settlement which provides for good jobs at the current London base, with additional funding to create new work opportunities around a regional home for the ENO.”