The spirit of resistance

As thousands of students descend on Parliament Square today to protest against tuition fee rises, many have also been staging sit-ins at universities and organising flash mobs across the city.

Last weekend, students at Goldsmiths College and UCL’s Slade School of Fine Art occupied campus buildings to demonstrate their anger at proposals they say will threaten the future of arts education in the UK. Colourful banners and flags were hung outside while lively debates continued indoors.

Perhaps the most visible activity to date was the picketing at the Tate Britain Gallery during the Turner Prize ceremony, where hundreds assembled to vent their frustration with the government’s attitude towards the arts funding.

On Tuesday, Arts & Cuts went to Royal College of Art’s Long Night to talk to students and teachers about their feelings and plans. Throughout the evening, people squeezed into the common room to participate in discussions and sign a petition addressed to Nick Clegg.

Conceptual artist Mark McGowan spoke first and offered his support. “This level of culture bashing is equivalent to book burning,” he said. An RCA lecturer agreed, “[This is] the most vicious ideological attack. It’s a system where you’re artistic only if you can afford it”.

Despite the sombre mood, people were hopeful that there would be strength in numbers. Organisers of the Slade Occupation shared advice (“students are the first wave, not the last”) and the duo behind Space Hijackers humorously recounted their adventures, including driving a tank into central London for the G20 summit.

Three students from Chelsea College of Art & Design explained how the movement was gaining momentum. They felt that art schools in the capital were quite fragmented, especially within the University of Arts London, but were noticing a growing sense of unity.

Noel Douglas, a professional graphic designer and programme leader at the University of Bedfordshire, gave a presentation on the history of grass-roots campaigns and encouraged students to be optimistic about the future. He told us why he believes art and design are fundamental to society:

At 11pm, students of the Royal College of Art voted in favour of occupation.

RCA – The Long Night

Students, lecturers and artists gathered at the Royal College of Art on Tuesday 7th Dec to vote on a sit-in:

Interview with Anthony Alderson

The cuts could provide an opportunity for reform

This week A&C spoke to Anthony Alderson, director at Islington’s Pleasance Theatre on North Road. The Pleasance is one of the few entirely self-sufficient large theatres still to be found in London, so it’s no surprise that its director has some strong views about government funding, its impact on those who accept it, and where it could be redirected.

Choosing to avoid Arts Council England (ACE) funding was a founding principle of the theatre, for which Alderson cites two reasons. The first and more pragmatic is that subsidies can suddenly be withdrawn for reasons outside the recipient’s control, as we are currently seeing.

The second reason is a more fundamental one. The theatre wanted to ensure that it retained “freedom to programme and to do what we want, rather than being curated or channelled by ACE policy.”

While the theatre itself doesn’t receive ACE funding, there are plenty of theatre companies who perform there which have Regularly Funded Organisation (RFO) status. To Alderson, this inevitably means giving up some freedom to the “young producers [at ACE] essentially curating what the arts in this country are, and I don’t think that’s the right way to fund things.”

Surrendering a degree of creative control is bad enough for companies struggling to produce impactful work on a shoestring budget. Unfortunately, this is not the only indignity suffered by the RFOs.

“I object to having to spend money on administration simply to track money and justify what you’re doing,” says Alderson. He describes the drip-feed of funding diverted into keeping track of itself as simply “bonkers”.

For him, there are far more efficient ways ACE and local government could help local theatre to flourish, and some of them needn’t cost a penny. The most critical factor in the success of any production is public awareness – and this is exactly where local authorities can help.

“What if we allowed artistic communities free space to advertise – for example on lampposts? This would bring greater exposure and it would pay for itself in ticket sales and less money spent on fly-posting and flyering.”

This kind of assistance to the arts isn’t just about packing in audiences and boosting sales revenue for theatres and companies, however. For Alderson, increasing the visibility of the theatre ought to be central to the government’s strategy for rebooting communities and instilling a new spirit of localism in Britain.

“The centre of the Big Society is the arts. Theatre brings communities together on all levels. We ought to be spending money on getting people in who wouldn’t ordinarily go into the theatre.”

Theatres, in Alderson’s view, provide a nexus for communities, functioning as a meeting place, a “pressure valve… the expression of our democracy,” and a stimulus to local businesses. He believes that tens of millions of pounds are spent in local pubs, restaurants, and other enterprises as part of the halo effect of theatrical productions.

“The return is far greater than the investment,” says Alderson. This may have been the argument deployed by every sector as they sought to hold off the Chancellor’s axe, but theatre has a case study; the Edinburgh Festival.

“The Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which exists for 3 1/2 weeks of the year, puts between £85 and £100 million into the local economy,” he says. This is an exaggeration, but not by much; a study by Edinburgh Council in 2004-5(.pdf, summary on page 40) found that the Fringe generates up to £75m a year. Another study, launched earlier this year, will report on how much this has grown.

Ultimately, Alderson believes, it is the Fringe which points the way for the future of British theatre. “There is no culture for exchange or entrepreneurialism in some of the funded organisations…that’s where the money should be going.”

This is a far cry from the public lamentations of a prevision generation of thespians over the demise of the government funded repertory theatre (to which Alderson responded on The Guardian’s Comment is Free). And the Fringe can provide an equally rewarding career path for young actors as the rep once did; “There is a fantastic structure there for young people – plenty are happy working in the Fringe, not just the West End, and people make careers out of it.”

Alderson keeps coming back to the same refrain: the best place to spend money on supporting the theatre is on increasing its visibility. “There’s a balance to be struck between money spent on art and money spent on marketing,” he says. “Without marketing, you might as well not do the art.”

Whether that be allowing theatres and companies to advertise on council property for free, setting up local message boards for theatre companies to post programmes, or a central online box office selling tickets for every Fringe show in London, Alderson believes that artists need to be given the tools to get on with the job.

“It needn’t cost a lot of money and could be self-funding, but it needs capital to get it off the ground.”

For a government that hopes to save money by having ordinary people organise their local communities, the message couldn’t be any clearer.

The financial value of art

Last week two Andy Warhol pieces sold for a total price of $98.7 million (£61.7 million). While the figures may be staggering, this is actually part of a larger trend in the art market.

According to a recent survey by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, the financial value of art and antiques has risen significantly over the past 12 months. Due to ongoing economic uncertainties, art is proving to be a popular alternative investment. In fact, the growth in demand has not been caused exclusively by the fabulously wealthy or global corporations; more and more people are exploring galleries, fairs and exhibitions in the hope of finding work by up-and-coming artists.

Sarah Ryan, founder of New Blood Art, has noticed these changes but doubts that funding cuts will negatively affect her clients: