An online survey being conducted by The Art Fund is aiming to build an authoritative picture of the status of the UK’s museums and the impact of the recession on their income, visitor numbers and collection policies. The survey findings will be published in October to provide an overview of current challenges facing the sector.
w: {www.artfund.org}; e: [email protected]
The three winners of the Edinburgh International Festival Fringe Prize 2009 are Hampshire-based theatre-makers The River People, playwright and director David Leddy and theatre company Inspector Sands. Prize winners are invited to present a work in progress as part of the Edinburgh International Festival’s ‘Behind the Scenes’ programme in 2010. The work of founder and pioneer of the Edinburgh Free Fringe, Peter Buckley-Hill, has also been recognised with The Edinburgh Comedy Awards Panel Prize. The £4,000 prize is awarded annually to the person who best embodies the ‘spirit of the Fringe’.
Creative & Cultural Skills, the sector skills council for the creative and cultural industries, is urging a review of the careers information, advice and guidance that is provided for young people, and for more employers to take responsibility for ensuring that young people get the right information about their sector, and that entry routes into the industries are accessible to all. Currently, 93% of the workforce is white and more than half of employees are educated to degree level: over 50% of graduates working in museums and galleries have a masters degree or PhD.
Geese Theatre Company is the 2009 winner of the annual Arts and Health award, established by the Royal Society of Public Health and Canterbury Christ Church College, which this year recognises the work of arts organisations in mental health. The award reflects the company’s long-standing commitment to the education and rehabilitation of offenders and those at risk of offending, this being a population that experiences a high level of mental health difficulties.

Dundee Rep Theatre is offering a free programme of workshops and master classes to bring together freelance actors from across Scotland and the Rep’s permanent company. The programme will offer participants a range of training opportunities within an ongoing CPD programme, and is being promoted to attract those who have been professionally employed as actors in the past six months. It is part-funded by the Scottish Arts Council and being delivered in partnership with the Federation of Scottish Theatre.
e: [email protected]
Good creative teaching and learning practice should be given proper emphasis, according to Professor Ken Jones of Keele University in a new paper published by Creativity, Culture and Education. ‘Culture and Creative Learning: A Literature Review’, the latest in a series of papers published by the government’s creative and cultural learning body, traces the development of the idea of culture and how it has influenced policy-making and education.
w: http://tinyurl.com/l9eafm
In response to the growing number of public art commissions within the Government’s Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme, public art think tank Ixia has published a review and guidance on public art and the BSF process. Recent changes to national BSF guidance documents include the requirement that every local authority sets up a Cultural Stakeholder Group to champion the arts, culture and cultural learning within its BSF programme, to advise on the provision of arts spaces in schools and develop links between BSF and existing and emerging arts and cultural organisations and initiatives.
w: {www.ixia-info.com/research/education-2/}