STATE OF THE ARTS

Gallery Director James Green, responds to THE STATE OF THE ARTS, a report published by the Campaign for the Arts and the University of Warwick, which presents a summary of the challenges faced by the arts and arts education since 2010.

The United Kingdom has a good claim to being a ‘state of the arts’, recognised around the world for its vibrant culture and heritage. The State of the Arts report lays bare the challenges the UK now faces to maintain and enhance this – at a time when the arts are under huge pressure, but also have huge potential to transform lives, society and the economy for the better.

PARTNERSHIPS

Over the past seven or eight years we have refocussed our work with contemporary artists around delivering outcomes that improve the lives of people in our community. Much of this work has been delivered in partnership with exceptional groups and charities such as Wild Young Parents, Black Voices Cornwall, Social Prescribing networks, The Intercom Trust, We Are With You, and YZUP. In this time, we have seen participants’ lives change for the better and have many testimonials from people in crisis, who, as a result of our programmes, have found the confidence to thrive.

We have also undertaken strategic programmes in schools to try and address the stark decline in arts education. Since 2010 the number of hours of art teaching in state secondary schools has dropped by 23%, and the share of GCSE entries in arts subjects has declined by 47%.

ART IN SCHOOLS

In 2018, I became a Trustee of the Truro Penwith Academy Trust (TPAT), which operates more than 30 primary and secondary schools across Cornwall, to gain a perspective from the inside, and to seek to find ways of ensuring young people in our area have a hope of engaging with a balanced and enriched curriculum.

The gallery has delivered multi-year teachers’ CPD programmes across schools in West Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, building the confidence of non-arts­ specialist primary school teachers to teach art. We are now raising funds to extend this work to a cluster of schools in Perranporth, including a new TPAT­ run secondary school in the town, that I’m delighted to say is committed to delivering a STEAM curriculum.

I suspect very few people would expect a contemporary art gallery to be engaging in these agendas, and all of this has happened against a backdrop of plummeting public investment in the country’s arts infrastructure.

PUBLIC INVESTMENT IN THE ARTS

As the State of The Arts report details, out of 25 European countries, the UK now ranks 23rd for spending per capita on cultural services, behind countries like Slovakia, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovenia. Hungary invests over three times as much, per capita, as the UK government.

Lord Bragg describes the situation like this:

“The arts are being systematically undermined and devalued and incompetently treated. That’s where we are. That’s the sort of country we are at the moment. And it’s a disgrace.”

We have reinvented our business model to respond to economic challenges, and are now much more aware of the financial contribution we make each year to our local economy. In 2023/24 we contributed £2.5m GVA to the local economy and attracted significant inward investment.

We now wait, hopeful that change will come over the next parliamentary term, on issues such as the funding of the arts, for all of the direct and indirect social and economic benefits it brings.

You can read the report here

James Green
Director, Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange