Case Study

The Culture Diary and Arts Council England is taking a delegation of visual arts leaders and emerging designers from across the UK to Hong Kong next month from 2–7 December. The mission takes place at Business of Design Week and is a direct result of working with a number of Culture Diary members eager to expand their creative and cultural practices internationally. The mission will work with the Department for International Trade and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office via the GREAT Britain Campaign.

Drama and performance experts at the University of Nottingham, in collaboration with East Midlands company Red Earth Theatre and D/deaf audience members, have developed technology to allow more D/deaf audiences to enjoy theatre.

The new tech will generate captions for dialogue much faster than traditional software and uses projection mapping to display them on the set, props and actors.

Battersea Arts Centre (BAC) has created the Moving Roots Touring Network which will craft new socially-conscious arts projects for communities in partnership with culturally-deprived partner towns across the country.

BAC has partnered with:

• Action Factory, Blackburn
• Common Wealth, Cardiff
• Lyrici Arts, Chatham
• Jumped Up Theatre, Peterborough
• The Old Courts, Wigan

The partnership will create live performance projects communities that are intended to get local people to engage with their pressing local needs. 

The Mayor of London has designated Walthamstow High Street the first Night-Time Enterprise Zone for the pilot scheme from October 2019 to January 2020. The pilot will see Waltham Forest try a range of proposals for its high street.

Based on research from residents and business-owners in the area, the Night-Time Enterprise Zone will include:

The Culture Diary spent a few days in Edinburgh for the opening of the British Council Edinburgh Showcase 2019.

Taking place 19-24 August, we had a presence at the trade fair on Wednesday 21 August, promoting the use of the Culture Diary to a large amount of UK culture organisations also presenting, as well as international programmers invited by the British Council to attend.

A new DCMS National Museums Partnership Report reveals that an extra 33 million people saw objects from UK museums last year thanks to around 450,000 objects being loaned from 17 national museums.

750 museums across the UK benefitted from national museums loaning more than 60,000 objects, which were seen by more than 18.5 million visitiors, boasting local economies.

Showing the power of exporting culture worldwide, the 17 national museums toured 41 exhibitions to 79 international venues, which were attended by around 7 million people.

The latest Arts Council England annual report shows the amount of support the organisation has given to UK arts and culture in 2018/19.

Download and read the report here.

Key stats include:

Jerwood Arts has published a new employers toolkit on socio-economic diversity and inclusion in the arts.

A combined effort with the Bridge Group, the toolkit gathers practical ideas and case studies to support long-term change in the arts sector. It includes top 5 tips, which are:

The Centre for Economics and Business Research has prepared a study for Arts Council England on the arts and culture industry in the North of England.

In 2016, the arts and culture industry in the North of England:

Music Venue Trust (MVT) has published two free guides to support individuals and organisations in creating and running their own music venue in a bid to increase the number of venues opening in the UK.

You can download How to Open a Grassroots Music Venue here and How to Run a Grassroots Music Venue here.