Axis, the online resource for contemporary art, is launching a curator directory to run alongside its established artist directory. The website will support and profile the work of curators based in the UK and overseas, aiming to promote online dialogue between curators and UK artists, broker opportunities, raise awareness of contemporary art and become an international resource for arts professionals.
w: http://www.axisweb.org/curators
Arts & Business has revised the format of its annual UK Private Investment in Culture survey. For the 2006/07 survey, A&B is inviting all arts and cultural organisations across the UK to fill in an online questionnaire in order to establish how much money the cultural sector receives from businesses, individuals, and trusts and foundations.
w: http://www.aandb.org.uk/survey; t: 020 7940 6439
The Roald Dahl Museum in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, has won the Small Visitor Attraction of the Year Award as part of the Tourism ExSEllence Awards, sponsored by EDF Energy. The Museum and Story Centre opened in June 2005 to house the manuscripts, photographs, Ideas Book and correspondence of Roald Dahl, who was determined that all his papers should stay together after his death. It provides access to this archive both via touch-screen monitors in the galleries and through its website, and more than 135,000 visitors have visited since it opened.
w: http://www.roalddahlmuseum.org
A new publication documenting the positive contributions of artists to places experiencing regeneration or growth is available online and free of charge from Arts Council England. Arts and regeneration: creating vibrant communities comprises a series of case studies that reveal the benefits felt by those who have invested in the arts to manage change, and explore the experiences of community members who have taken part in arts-led regeneration projects.
w: http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/publications
A new initiative by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland has been designed to provide support, including grant aid, to community and voluntary organisations that have not yet received any Arts Council funding and struggle to find funding from other sources. STart UP specifically aims to help groups in areas where there has been little or no arts activity, to run arts-based projects supporting community development and cohesion, increasing participation by making the arts more accessible, enhancing skills, and encouraging creativity. Contact Ann Ward or Sonya Whitefield, Community Development Officers.
t: 028 9038 5200; e: award@artscouncil-ni.org
Independent museums are at the margins of local council support, according to a new report for the Association of Independent Museums by Adrian Babbidge of Egeria Heritage Consultancy. The report reveals that most small museums receive no core funding from local or national government and receive no benefit from the free admission policy promoted by the DCMS. Only 8% of all local authority money spent on museums goes to these independents. The report is available online.
w: http://www.aim-museums.co.uk
Visiting Arts is offering a new round of funding to enable artists from the UK to invite artists from overseas to visit them for a week in March 2008. The Artist to Artist International Scheme aims to bring together artists who are aware of each others practice and to support new dialogues across international borders. It is intended to support artists who have not worked together previously.
w: http://www.visitingarts.org.uk/our_work/07nov_artisttoartist_2008.html
Findings relating to childrens engagement with culture, leisure and sport have just been published by the DCMS, based on data from its Taking Part survey. In face-to-face interviews with 3,000 11-to-15 year olds, the majority of children (94%) said they had participated in both cultural and sporting sectors. A small proportion (5%) had participated in culture and not sport, and a smaller proportion still (1%) in sport and not culture. Fewer than 1% had engaged in neither culture nor sport.
w: http://www.culture.gov.uk
Publishing Scotland, the not-for-profit company with responsibility for representing and developing the publishing sector in Scotland, has announced a new board which includes a member of The Society of Authors in Scotland. According to the company, this is the first time in the UK that authors have been included within an industry organisation. Lorraine Fannin, Chief Executive of Publishing Scotland, described the move as a significant step towards improving communication and understanding between authors and publishers the two sides of the industry.