Opinion

You don’t get to work in the arts and support the monarchy

Image outside Buckingham Palace

22 May 2024

With a Royal garden party for the creative industries coming hot on the heels of cultural leaders’ participation in a trade mission to Saudi Arabia, Steven Hadley reflects on why the sector is happy to give legitimacy to imperialism and oppression.

Will the restoration of Stormont benefit the arts in Northern Ireland?

Production shot from Agreement by Owen McCafferty

20 Feb 2024

With the return of devolved government to Northern Ireland, Roisín McDonough, Chief Executive of Arts Council Northern Ireland, reflects on what it might mean for the arts and cultural sector.

Northern Ireland

In defence of trigger warnings

Sign saying: Trigger Warning - Explicit Content

12 Feb 2024

The colossal efforts to advance and champion diversity and accessibility in the sector are undermined by negative press criticising the use trigger warnings before shows. But, as Fiona Moon argues, they should be viewed no differently from accessible seats or toilets.

Health and wellbeing

The shifting world of arts comms

Graphic showing the letters PR

08 Feb 2024

For the past two years, Mobius Industries has run a survey to take the temperature of arts PR. As Emma Berge reports, the results reveal widespread concern about the shrinkage of arts coverage.

We are all philanthropists

Graphic showing aerial view of people holding hands in concentric circles

01 Feb 2024

The Secretary of State for Culture, Lucy Frazer, has called for an attitude shift towards philanthropy to boost arts funding. But that view, writes Caroline McCormick, fails to recognise the huge contribution of the 99%.

Reporting requirements: NPO leaders share their frustrations

Illuminate website login page

25 Jan 2024

Nearly a year into the latest investment round, many National Portfolio Organisations are finding the new reporting requirements unduly burdensome - at best - and, in some instances, unfit for purpose. A group of NPO Chief Executive Officers explain their struggles.

Audience development

Orchestral music as an agent for change

Young people playing classical music instruments

30 Jun 2024

In a radical reimagining of the classical music paradigm, Sarah Alexander shares the National Youth Orchestra’s model for engaging young people.

Children and young people

Don’t dance, because nobody's watching

Children dancing

24 Jun 2024

Dance is part of the national curriculum and schools are statutorily obliged to provide it. So why is a blind eye being turned to the dramatic decline in dance education at all levels? asks Joe Hallgarten.

Health and wellbeing

Sector finances revelations pose big questions

image from Coventry City of Culture

19 Jun 2024

Following extensive research into the finances of arts organisations, Sarah Thelwall of MyCake reflects on the serious implications for the sector.

Uncomfortable truths

Set of 8 children's illustrations of young people

19 Jun 2024

Arts organisations are committed to reaching marginalised young people through their creative practice. But what happens when young people say things we don’t want to hear? asks Louise Govier.

Children and young people

Teacher professionalism and the arts

Schoolchildren playing musical instruments

12 Jun 2024

Regardless of the setting, every school deserves a teacher who is afforded the space and professional trust to teach an inspiring arts curriculum, writes Steven Berryman.

Children and young people

Are arts students a burden on the taxpayer?

Drama students

05 Jun 2024

The Higher Education sector is up in arms about proposed cuts to creative arts courses which, it says, will further damage the UK's creative industries. Carole-Anne Upton thinks the proposal is short-sighted and harmful.

Closing the ‘enrichment gap’

Schoolboys at a drama workshop

03 Jun 2024

The erosion of opportunities to study the expressive arts in school has created a crisis in arts teaching, writes Sally Bacon.

An explosive level of jeopardy

Images of school pupils with a lousie bourgeois sculpture

21 May 2024

The challenges facing London’s cultural sector are legion, but they cannot be addressed in isolation. Southbank Centre's Artistic Director Mark Ball says we need to create an interconnected national ecology.

Supporting artists

Open letter to Dame Mary Archer

Let's Create image

20 May 2024

Representatives from across the cultural sector have written an open letter to Dame Mary Archer, who is due to chair the government's Public Body Review of Arts Council England.

Call for more joined-up thinking in music education

ISM demonstration outside Department for Education

01 May 2024

The decimation of arts education has hit the music sector particularly hard. Deborah Annetts of the Independent Society of Musicians calls on government departments to work together to stop the decline.

Let's get smart about paying artists

Image of 'stoned fox'

26 Apr 2024

To mark World Intellectual Property Day, Adele Morse thinks it’s time the UK caught up with other countries in paying its artists fairly.

Supporting artists

A cultural revolution in the arts

Image of three faces with mouths taped closed

24 Apr 2024

Co-Founder of Freedom in the Arts, Rosie Kay, thinks the arts in the UK have strayed into a culture of intolerance, which has led to cancellation and a climate of self-censorship that has to be addressed.

The race for London’s City Hall

Image of autin dance theatre

24 Apr 2024

Voters across England go to the polls next week (2 May) to elect many thousands of new councillors and 10 metro mayors – one of them being the Mayor of London. Phoebe Gardiner outlines what mayoral hopefuls need to understand about the capital’s culture.

Time for a national youth arts trust?

Teenagers in an art class

18 Apr 2024

There has been a massive decline in arts for young people over the last 15 years. So much so that Joe Hallgarten thinks we need a dedicated national organisation to repair the damage. The current review of ACE might provide an opportunity.

Children and young people

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