Category: issues

“A study by Hill Strategies Research found that of the Canadians who give, only 3.3 per cent give to the arts. The report is based on figures from 2007, when the recession had not yet hurt donation practices.”

“First, gaming grants were cut. Then funding for the B.C. Arts Council was slashed from $19.5-million in 2008/09 to a projected $2.2-million by 2011-2012, according to the service plan presented in last year’s budget. When the province brings down its new budget tomorrow, the arts community will be watching closely.”

“An annual event could come to be perceived outside Adelaide as being targeted more at local constituents. A government that boasts of the festival’s $14m economic impact would be wise to bear that in mind. But this year parochialism has already taken hold.”

“The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities stands to lose $290,000 in state funding in the next fiscal year and have all remaining support — more than $1 million — withdrawn in 2011, according to a proposed budget. The foundation runs more than 20 statewide programs on literature, history and culture, including the Virginia Festival of the Book.”

Newspaper archives migrate online, and people start demanding changes in old articles about them. Books, old documents and recordings get digitized, but what happens when new software can no longer read them? Who pays to store and maintain all the digitized information on servers, and what happens when those servers shut down?

“We can justify ourselves with economic indicators and KPIs and graphs and acquittals but it just makes us look like any other industry, and we are not. The arts operate at the core of human identity and existence. They operate at the cutting edge of a science that is now trying to unravel the puzzle of consciousness and identity.”

Development “threatens at least 10 clusters of studios where artists live and work on the fringes of the city. … Many artists are furious because they were lured to the villages with long-term leases — some for nearly 20 years — and encouraged to invest their life savings in renovations.”

The Association of Leading Visitor Attractions reports rises last year “at free venues such as the National Gallery (up 9% with 4.78m visitors) and the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich (up 15% to 2.37m). Alva said the increases came as people sought good value days out during the economic downturn.”

“Vancouver Games organizers expect to exceed their prediction of 1.5 million in total attendance during the 60-day festival … Ticketed performances account for 496,000 people while the remainder is attendance at free events.” So far, 20 out of 40 shows have sold out completely.

“A new report … envisages reductions of between 7.5% and 15% in public spending in the 2011-14 spending round. It also suggests that ring-fencing areas such as health and education may result in cuts of 20% or more to some ‘unprotected services’, which include arts and culture expenditure.”