The National Gallery will be the first national gallery to open its doors to the public since COVID-19 lockdown in the UK began to be eased. The London institution will reopen on Wednesday 8 July.
The Culture Diary intends to update this page with opening dates of cultural venues in the UK as they are announced. Contact us at info@theculturediary.com with details of your plans to reopen or hold new events.
Museums and Galleries
Government and independent organisations have published guidance on reopening various sectors with the arts, culture and creative industries. Links to guidance resources are below and will be updated as more information becomes available:
New guidance for reopening of museums, galleries and the heritage sector (GOV.UK)
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society has been given a special funding package from the Scottish Government to help the festival survive its cancellation this year.
A £1 million interest-free loan has been granted to the Fringe Society, which is the charity that oversees the annual performance festival. It will also receive £249,000 in grants from the City of Edinburgh Council (£100,000) and the Scottish government’s relief fund for businesses deemed vital to the country’s economy (£149,000). The £1 million loan will be repaid by the Fringe Society over six years.
"Tomorrow's Another Day" is a song for our times. I wrote it in the hope that it may provide some comfort during this challenging period (of Coronavirus).
It is a song that is close to my heart as I turned 47 this year (2020) and am the same age at which my mother died of cancer - exactly 30 years ago. It has made me mindful of how precious life is. I have felt quite motivated to try to create something that I hope would have made my mother (and my sister, fantastic little niece and nephew and father - who now lives in a care home) proud.
The Philharmonia Orchestra has launched The Philharmonia Sessions, a summer programme of three world-class, free digital concerts, broadcast on YouTube and created especially for an online audience. Renowned musicians and the Philharmonia Orchestra will work together to create bespoke concerts for people at home.
Farnham Maltings has invested almost £40,000 in South East theatre makers to create new work during the COVID-19 pandemic since the end of March 2020. The 'Making Theatre in Extraordinary Times' fund was first announced three days after theatres closed, and the first round of commissions included a community light show and song, monologues written over WhatsApp, and a jukebox telephone line, all created by artists in the south east of England as immediate responses to the Covid-19 crisis.
Disabled artists from across the UK are planning a day of action on social media to celebrate the depth and diversity of inclusive & disability art on Wednesday 17 June 2020. It will be led by artists sharing their artwork online (across all art forms), focussed on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, using the hashtags #WeShallNotBeRemoved and #EndAbleism
Back in March 2020, BBC launched Culture in Quarantine - a broadcast and digital festival of the arts during a time of national lockdown. This has included bespoke programming and collaborating with almost every major arts organisation as well as many smaller institutions including 25 new commissions decided with Arts Council England and The Space.
Set up as a short-term initiative to deal with the crisis the BBC has decided that Culture in Quarantine will continue, according to Director-General Tony Hall, with two further phases.
Part of Japan-UK Season of Culture 2019-20, the new Northern Ballet work 'Geisha' was set to tour the UK during the spring. Due to COVID-19, touring is currently on hold.
Oliver Dowden, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), will chair a Cultural Renewal taskforce responsible for the future of recreation and leisure sectors. Its mission is to develop blueprints for how and when closed businesses and venues can reopen safely.
Members of the task force are:
