The Independent Cinema Office has launched a new, free advisory service for arts agencies, centres, groups, funders and production agencies. It aims to offer advice to arts organisations which wish to screen work within the UK cinema network, and can help with venues, marketing, rights negotiation, certification, technical requirements, publicity, budgets and touring.
http://www.independentcinemaoffice.org.uk
The Arts Council of Northern Ireland (ACNI) has developed a new online archive covering artworks created against the backdrop of the Troubles. It aims to recognise the contribution that the arts make to understanding the Troubles, and to investigate the impact that the conflict has had on the arts in Northern Ireland. The archive includes works by more than 80 artists, including Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney. ACNI is inviting feedback on any significant gaps in the archive through a questionnaire.
The Big Lottery Fund’s ‘Reaching Communities’ fund, which offers grants to voluntary organisations that work to offer people better life chances, build stronger communities, develop improved rural and urban environments or improve health and well-being, has simplified its application process. In response to a public consultation in 2009, grants of up to £40,000 a year will now be administered with a ‘light-touch’ system to speed up decisions.
http://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk
The Office of Fair Trading has declared that there is “no realistic prospect of theatregoers losing out through higher prices or an overall reduction in choice of productions or theatres” following the £90m purchase by the Ambassador Theatre Group of 16 theatres formerly owned by Live Nation. The sale has therefore been cleared and will not be referred to the Competition Commission.
The BBC and The Henry Moore Foundation have agreed a new partnership that will put all of the BBC’s documentaries online, to coincide with Tate Britain’s retrospective of the sculptor. Tate Britain will be the first gallery to use newly digitised material from the BBC, which will be available to the public.
The National Campaign for the Arts (NCA) has published its Advocacy Toolkit in advance of the upcoming general election. The NCA is urging its members to promote the importance of art in their own constituencies, by writing to politicians with their suggestions and concerns. The toolkit contains advice, facts and useful information that people might wish to include when they contact MPs and politicians.
http://www.artscampaign.org.uk
A new research opportunity for Indian or Bangladeshi artists who use new technologies in their artistic practice is being set up by ISIS Arts, visual and media arts organisation, and Dance City Creative Partnerships. It forms part of a wider collaboration between the North East of England, India and Bangladesh.
http://www.creative-partnerships.com
Almost £800,000 is being shared across Scotland through the Inspiring Communities fund, which aims to connect people through the arts and encourage long-lasting links between people, places and ideas. Invergordon Off the Wall has been awarded £200,739 for ‘Evolution’ an 18-month project to develop three public artworks around the industrial history of Invergordon, reflecting the community’s role in aluminium smelting, glass manufacture and stone quarrying. The Scots Music Group in Edinburgh, which works with homeless and isolated people, and singers, musicians and dancers, was awarded £75,750.
http://www.scottisharts.org.uk
The Musicians’ Union has launched a new campaign, ‘Music Supported Here’ to help fans understand the need for musicians to have the right and means to control how their music is used. It aims to give musicians a platform to discuss issues such as file-sharing and the Internet, as well as how their music should be distributed.
http://www.musicsupportedhere.com
Northampton’s Royal & Derngate Theatre is working with Corby Borough Council on a new arts facility within the civic hub currently being built in Corby town centre, which is due to open in October 2010. An independent charitable trust is being established to manage the theatre at Corby Cube, which has yet to be named.
http://www.royalandderngate.co.uk
The Musicians’ Union has launched a new campaign, ‘Music Supported Here’ to help fans understand the need for musicians to have the right and means to control how their music is used. It aims to give musicians a platform to discuss issues such as file-sharing and the Internet, as well as how their music should be distributed.