Written evidence submitted by Film and
Video Umbrella Ltd (FVU) (arts 169)
1. SUMMARY
— Public funding has supported innovative
artistic practice, where private giving is often more supportive
towards established art forms and established artists. —
An immediate effect of significant cuts to the arts ecology is
a slowing down of productivity as partnerships and funding become
slower and less secure—this in turn makes projects more
time-consuming and expensive.
— In a sector where a large proportion
of contributors operate with not-for-profit or charitable status,
there are little or no margins to cut and any reduction of support
will directly effect productivity.
— Following on from the abolition of UK
Film Council, a strategic rethink of support for cultural film
could greatly benefit artists working in moving image from within
the establish arts infrastructure.
2. INTRODUCTION
This is a submission in respect of the forthcoming
inquiry into The Funding of Arts and Heritage by the House
of Commons Culture, Media & Sport Select Committee, on behalf
of the Arts Council England-funded arts organisation Film and
Video Umbrella Ltd (FVU). This submission is in response to an
email from Arts Council England's Chief Executive Moira Sinclair
in which she encouraged FVU and other RFOs (regularly funded organisations)
to register their views on a number of questions posed by the
Culture, Media & Sport Select Committee. The submission also
includes a Director's Statement from Steven Bode, who has been
director of the organisation for the best part of two decades.
3. ORGANISATIONAL
PROFILE
Film and Video Umbrella programmes, produces,
presents and promotes film, video and new media work by artists.
Underpinning these various interlocking strands
of our activity is a commitment to touring as the most effective
model of reaching and generating an audience, and to working collaboratively
with diverse, often regionally based venues to achieve this.
A similar eclecticism and scope is at the heart
of our programming, which not only seeks to champion contemporary
film and video work but also clearly and concisely locates it
within a broader artistic or cultural context.
FVU is an RFO of Arts Council England and in
addition to our ACE grant we currently raise approximately 50%
of our turnover from funds and from paid fees. FVU employs three
full-time members of staff, four part-time members and a further
three freelance creatives on a project-by-project basis.
4. DIRECTOR'S
STATEMENT
Like a lot of organisations across the country,
we have been taking some time this summer to focus on the challenges
and priorities of the months ahead. Everyone working in the arts
faces some difficult, unavoidable choices, and an across-the-board
review of strategic funding to look at best value for artists
and audiences is an important part of that process.
Broadly speaking, the early responses to the
situation that have emerged from Arts Council England strike us
as both appropriate and imaginative. The challenges ahead obviously
call for further innovative and creative thinking, qualities with
which the arts community, to its good fortune, is particularly
blessed.
While the arts community is able, and willing,
to think differently, there are some fundamental principles that
need to be highlighted, and reiterated, as part of any wide-ranging
review, however radical, or well-intentioned. Much of the expansion
of the contemporary visual arts in this country over the last
decade has coincided with a strong, reciprocal relationship between
publicly funded organisations and the commercial sector. While
private giving, by wealthy collectors and other benefactors, has
acted as an important stimulus in this, it needs to be recognised
that there are certain activities (at the more experimental end
of the spectrum especially) that the art market will much less
inclined to support, but which are nevertheless crucial to the
development of artistic practice. (It is worth reminding ourselves
here how innovations outside today's mainstream often accrue cultural,
and commercial, value a few years on). We are not convinced that
there is a queue of private benefactors who are able to fully
grasp, let alone materially support, the range of professional
and conceptual development that publicly-funded organisations
regularly fulfill. The prospect of greater philanthropic giving
is appealing, and not without potential, but its limits, as a
regular and consistent source of outside revenue, need to be appreciated.
Similarly, we are not convinced that there is
as much scope as might first seem to be the case for organisations
sharing day-to-day resources. The current economic challenges
have already seen a number of like-minded organisations working
collaboratively and consensually to help further common aims and
aspirations. Any move towards actively merging organisations'
operational/administrative functions in the interests of savings
needs to be thought through very carefully, however; especially
in the case of small- to medium-scale organisations.
Steven Bode
5. DETAILED RESPONSE
TO QUESTIONS
RAISED BY
ARTS COUNCIL
ENGLAND
In addition to the above statement we would
like to add our responses to a couple of questions specifically
from FVU's perspective:
What impact recent, and future, spending cuts
from central and local Government will have on the arts and heritage
at a national and local level
The recent funding cuts amongst arts organisations
and the prospect of further cuts to come has meant that both FVU,
and the organisations with which it collaborates, have been forced
to remodel their budgets, and to consider the likely implications
of any shortfall on their future programming. A number of projects
that are currently in development have been placed on hold, waiting
for confirmation from potential project partners—we are
unlikely to receive these commitments until the impact of the
settlement is known. In our field is not uncommon for projects
to have a production/development life of 12-18 months, so the
knock-on effect of the uncertainty in itself, let alone any cuts
to funding, is likely to be felt for quite some time.
All of our collaborative partners are as aware
as we are that the pressure on current sources of funding is due
to become increasingly competitive and that a higher percentage
of applications is likely to be rejected. This will mean that
development and pre-production of projects will not only be more
uncertain but that more person-hours will need to be committed
to getting a project off the ground.
One concern is that funders will come to favour
"safer" projects with significant institutional backing,
and that more challenging, niche and artist-led projects will
consequently struggle for support. This would slowly but surely
undermine a thriving arts ecology where experimentation at grass
root level feeds through to the nation's major museums as well
as being part of the lifeblood of its small independent galleries.
What level of public subsidy for the arts and
heritage is necessary and sustainable
The level of public funding for arts and culture
that has pertained over the last decade has resulted in an extraordinary
variety of internationally acclaimed work that has been accompanied
by an equally significant groundswell of public interest in contemporary
art. If previous levels of support have, in effect, got us to
where we are today, there must be concern that a drop-off in funding
will undo some of the advances that have been made.
The impact of recent changes to DCMS arm's-length
bodies—in particular the abolition of the UK Film Council
and the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council
As an organisation with a long-standing commitment
to creative innovation with the moving image, Film and Video Umbrella
is waiting to see how strategic policy for this area will be realigned
following the abolition of the UK Film Council, but has been reassured
by recent statements from Government stressing the importance
of "cultural film" within the publicly-funded sector.
6. CONCLUSION
Regular funding from Arts Council England has
allowed FVU to set new benchmarks of artistic practice, audience
outreach and technical innovation. A fall-off in that level of
public funding presupposes new streams of income to make good
that loss. We are not convinced that philanthropy and private
giving will significantly ameliorate a substantial cut in funding,
since collectors and other benefactors often follow the market
rather than cutting edge artistic activity. The long-term effect
of not nurturing today's up-and-coming talent would be that the
artworld and the larger moving-image industry would miss out on
a number of important future players, and that the area would
be poorer as a result.
In a more immediate timeframe, one of the practical
obstacles FVU is faced with is the feeling of delay and hesitation
which characterises the art world at present. This means that
ambitious and forward-looking projects are not only difficult
but also more time-consuming and therefore costlier to get off
the ground.
In our experience the arts industry is already
lean and operating with little or no margins. It is therefore
a given that cuts in funding will directly affect artistic output.
September 2010
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