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An overhaul of funding priorities for Esmée Fairbairn shifts focus to visual arts.

The Esmée Fairbairn Foundation has amended its funding priorities to favour the visual arts over performing arts. The Foundation?s £5.8m annual Arts and Heritage Fund is introducing the changes from the beginning of May this year and the new priorities will remain in place until April 2008. The move was prompted by an appraisal of funding schemes, which suggested that visual arts organisations have difficulty in obtaining funding from independent trusts and foundations.

Over recent years, the Foundation?s Arts Programme has devoted the majority of its funding to performing arts, particularly classical music and traditional theatre, leading to what the Foundation?s Programme Director for the Arts, Shreela Ghosh, describes as a ?virtuous circle [which] supports some funded organisations at the expense of others.? The new focus on visual arts, which will include crafts, architecture, design, fine art, new media, photography, public art and sculpture, is an attempt to reverse this bias and provide opportunities in particular for individual artists and regional galleries. Hilary Gresty of the Visual Arts and Galleries Association said, ?This is obviously very good news for the visual arts, where public enthusiasm and expectation are outpacing capacity.? Susan Jones, Director of Programmes at A-N, The Artists Information Company, said, ?The landscape for ?no strings? support to artists has changed radically over the last fifteen years, thanks to forward-thinking within the charitable sector. Paul Hamlyn set the scene with major artists? awards launched in the ?90s... Esmee Fairbairn?s decision to focus on artists ? the largest arts practitioner sector ? will be welcomed by artists? initiatives and networks across the UK.?

The Esmée Fairbairn Foundation is keen to emphasise that performing arts organisations will not simply be dropped as a result of the new funding priorities. ?The tap is not being turned off,? says Shreela Ghosh. ?Throughout the three-year focus on visual arts, the door will be kept open to performing arts organisations to come back to us.? However, no grants will be available to organisations that have not been funded by Esmée Fairbairn in the past five years. The shift in available funds is unlikely to be compensated by smaller trusts. The £5.8m that it has available for arts grants annually makes Esmée Fairbairn one of the largest independent grant-giving bodies in the arts. Unlike many charitable foundations, it has been largely unaffected by the turbulence of the stock market in recent years. Other organisations such as the Baring Foundation have completely cut their arts project grants due to reduced income. A spokesperson for the Association of Charitable Foundations said, ?The downturn in the market has affected the amount of investment charitable foundations have available. While the stock market has started to recover, it?s not clear that this has fed through to the income received by foundations.? The Esmée Fairbairn Foundation has amended its funding priorities to favour the visual arts over performing arts. The Foundation?s £5.8m annual Arts and Heritage Fund is introducing the changes from the beginning of May this year and the new priorities will remain in place until April 2008. The move was prompted by an appraisal of funding schemes, which suggested that visual arts organisations have difficulty in obtaining funding from independent trusts and foundations.