February 2008
Internationalism: supporting excellence in the arts
The Brian McMaster review ‘Supporting Excellence in the Arts’ says that “Internationalism is essential for artists and organisations to understand their work in a global context and to achieve and maintain world class status”.
Further on in the report, he says:
“The Arts Council, the British Council and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport must work together to investigate and implement an international strategy that stimulates greater international exchange, brings the best of world culture here and takes the best of our culture to the world.”
This move towards a more coherent approach to international work is to be welcomed. Currently, the success or otherwise of international work in the UK depends to a large extent on three main issues:
- Overall resources and how they are accessed
- Expertise in assessment
- Maximising opportunities and impacts of the work
At present, funding for international work in the UK comes from four main sources:
1. From organisations’ “core grant” which competes with internal budget priorities – staff training, infrastructure costs, new technology upgrades etc
2. From ACE/SAC/ACW/ACNI grants for the arts. These grants are administered regionally or from the Home Nations. While there is a good deal of support and good will for international projects, there is anecdotal evidence and sound reasons why international projects often suffer from being in competition with other local and regional priorities. It also means that each region needs to develop expertise in assessing international work. This places a big responsibility on a limited number of staff. It also means that each region is making decisions on work in isolation of each other whereas very often, international work tours across regions and, in fact across countries.
3. From Visiting Arts. This funding is now tied to larger programmes of work and is no longer available in an “open access” grant scheme.
4. From British Council. British Council’s remit is not to support arts and artists, but to develop cultural relations. Over the years, the arts constituency has built up a reliance on funding from British Council for overseas touring. To the extent that at times the perception by the sector of British Council as the outward touring arm of the arts funding system has overshadowed the important diplomatic initiatives possible when the artists and British Council’s objectives are aligned.
This fractured approach is far from ideal and there is anecdotal evidence that the overall amount of funding going to support international work is diminishing as a result of the competing priorities in all four sources of funding. An integrated process that is assessed with clear understanding of the special circumstances that surround programming international work and running international arts and cultural projects would be extremely helpful.
This approach would allow for assessment by panels brought together through their expertise in producing, touring and presenting international work and their knowledge of the specific challenges that this brings (peer review). Assessment would include regional and local reports to look at the impact and reach of the work as part of the criteria for funding. The importance of the international expertise is to acknowledge the additional elements required in successful international working:
- Understanding the cultural context from which the work comes and the quality of that work
- Understanding the logistical and contractual requirements and ensuring that these are adequately provided for
- Understanding and evaluating the marketing plans
- Assessing the quality of engagement contained in the proposal
- Understanding the importance of contextualising the work
- Assessing the opportunities for work to reach a wider community – cultural, public and diplomatic
In order that good quality international projects are taken forward, the report acknowledges two other important criteria. That diversity should be at the heart of the international work – both within the UK and overseas - and that young professionals should be encouraged to see more work and observe work practices overseas. This would signal the need for integrated programmes as well as funding.
These programmes would take a long term view starting with small research visits building to fully curated visits, executive training schemes, exchanges, work placements and funding for collaborative projects. This approach would allow for experienced professionals to work with new entrants in a mentoring capacity and ensure the “technology transfer” also referred to in the report or, in other words the sharing of knowledge and learning. Visiting Arts programmes have been doing this for some time and would welcome an opportunity to see the work expanded and become available to more people – particularly new entrants from non-traditional routes such as community based producers and young entrepreneurs.
International Working – Festivals and their legacy
One-day seminar led by Visiting Arts
Attended by representatives of festivals in the public,
private and education sectors across Yorkshire
The critically acclaimed Township Stories was presented
by UK Arts International in association with the
South African State Theatre, Traverse Theatre and
Theatre Royal Stratford East following a Visiting Arts
producers’ visit to the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown.
Courtesy: Traverse Theatre
The Review also acknowledges the importance of touring. In the report, touring is principally seen as a method to ensure wide access to work but there are two other increasingly powerful arguments to increase touring of international work – firstly, the imperative to maximise the public pound and to make programmes more cost effective and secondly, to help to reduce the carbon footprint of international touring by ensuring the visit to the UK is maximised.
While the Review makes other recommendations to support excellence, those outlined above could well have a significant impact on the quality and - with more, better focused funding - quantity of international work which would drive up standards through inspiration, aspiration and increased sensitivity to new work and cultures.
Yvette Vaughan Jones
Executive Director
Visiting Arts
yvette.vaughanjones@visitingarts.org.uk
McMaster Review: Supporting excellence in the arts - from measurement to judgement
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McMaster Review: Supporting excellence in the arts - from measurement to judgement
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