Susan Jones says freelance artists carry a unique economic burden that has left them vulnerable to the vicissitudes of Covid-19. An answer lies in a funding model that doesn’t take their livelihoods for granted.
The Government and Arts Council England were praised during the Covid-19 emergency for fast, ad-hoc implementation of job retention schemes and strategies to financially support arts and cultural institutions. But as responses to the DCMS Committee’s inquiry into the impact of Covid-19 reveal, a vital tranche of the arts workforce was allowed to fall through the net, despite the prevailing equality and diversity rhetoric of funded arts.
Some 177,000 self-employed people work in... more
18 Nov 2020
Feature
Susan Jones says freelance artists carry a unique economic burden that has left them vulnerable to the vicissitudes of Covid-19. An answer lies in a funding model that doesn’t take their livelihoods for granted.
18 Nov 2020
Feature
Rishi Sunak said hard hit workforces like the arts may have to retrain to adapt to the new economy. Sara Whybrew counters that the new economy means we must adapt our approach to training.
17 Nov 2020
Feature
Big brands and advertisers are cottoning on to the marketing potential of street art. What does that mean for the artists? Timothy Watkins unpacks the legal issues.
17 Nov 2020
Feature
What the new importance of digital in arts and culture has shown most clearly is that now is the time to reinvent – not reinstate – the sector’s role in society, writes Samantha Lindley.
17 Nov 2020
Feature
Lucie Andersen-Wood explains how this year’s festivals have combined oral tradition with broadcasting – and given performers a new home.
12 Nov 2020
Feature
The groups least likely to visit a gallery can curate shows the public wants – and that directors would never dream to create, writes James Green.
11 Nov 2020
Feature
A culture strategy based on behavioural change isn’t sexy, but it is necessary if Plymouth wants to do more than simply survive, Hannah Harris writes.
10 Nov 2020
Feature
Adrian Vinken shares how the two biggest developments of 2020 – Black Lives Matter and Covid-19 – have affected commemorations of a brutal story of colonisation.
10 Nov 2020
Feature
Deborah and Michael Parkes say lockdown presents challenges to budding rural artists. It also gives them an abundance of two things they once lacked – connectivity and time.
10 Nov 2020
Feature
Covid-19 has intensified the barriers women face to becoming leaders in the arts, writes Sacha Lee. The most marginalised will be the most important vehicle for change.
06 Nov 2020
Opinion
"We have now had a glimpse of what direct government funding of the arts would look like – and it’s not a pretty picture" says Liz Hill.
05 Nov 2020
Feature
A live cultural event is about much more than just the performance, so when Covid-19 closed venues, innovators in the club scene set out to recreate the whole experience. Jack McNeill explains how.
05 Nov 2020
Feature
The tendency to overstate impacts through uncritical narratives of success risks undermining the credibility of arguments about why state subsidies for art and culture are necessary, say Leila Jancovich and David Stevenson.
05 Nov 2020
Feature
Would we still see the same benefits to wellbeing if we took art and culture out of ‘culture on referral’ programmes and sat people in a room together? Dr Robyn Dowlen uncovers gaps in the evidence base.
05 Nov 2020
Feature
While theatres are in lockdown it’s difficult to look ahead. But Andrew Howard sees technological change as driving a new and better customer experience in the future, and that change is almost upon us.