Helga Henry: Arts short on festive cheer

Dec 24 2010 By Helga Henry

It’s going to be a cold Christmas for the arts in Birmingham this year.

Arts organisations, like all other recipients of public funding, are facing large cuts in previous levels of funding support.

Some emerging and dynamic organisations are not going to enter the funding portfolio and others have six months’ worth of funding in which to find alternative sources of financial support.

In the time that I have written this column, I’ve always tried to highlight the city as a vibrant hub of cultural activity.

From large-scale opera with (literally) casts of thousands to performances for one person at a time while nailed into a coffin, Birmingham’s cultural range and diversity has been something for which we should rightly be proud.

That range and diversity is now under threat.

Not because the work was solely dependent on public funding. Far from it.

All of the arts organisations I have worked with are thrifty, resourceful and gifted at finding new and innovative ways to make work happen.

They have created partnerships and alliances, encouraged support in cash and in kind to bring art to the city.

Public funding of the arts in a city is often the bedrock of “known” income that acts to guarantee some overhead and administrative costs.

With those costs covered, the staff can work to create a sufficient number of quality projects that will contribute to the core of the organisation in addition to the marginal project costs or attract the required level of donation.

So the danger posed by these cuts is that arts organisations lose a vital lever to other funds, whether by way of lost staff time, income or donation.

“Give me a lever long enough, and a prop strong enough, I can single-handed move the world,” Archimedes famously said.

The current cuts have single-handedly shortened the lever that arts organisations have at their disposal to create exciting and relevant cultural products and services.

I do not think that the arts are a “special case” that should be shielded from the swathe of cuts facing all public spending.

I fear though, that the cuts will have a special impact on Birmingham culture.

* Helga Henry is a consultant at Fierce Earth and board member of Creative Republic