Arts leaders are joining forces to champion culture. Important figures from both the commercial and subsidised sector, including director Stephen Daldry and Cultural Olympiad chief Ruth Mackenzie, have launched a new collective, What Next?
It follows the showcasing of the arts in the Olympics and Paralympics which they believe provided a “great opportunity” to show what they could do.
The new body is planning a conference in London in February to discuss how to mount a national campaign. In a letter sent to hundreds of people in the arts this week, the organisers call for “new kinds of campaigning, advocacy and collaboration”.
“If we act together, we can maximise our resources, contacts and, most important of all, our ideas to find better ways to communicate the power of the arts and culture to everyone in Britain.”
The arts fear further reduction in support in the next round of spending. They suffered a 30 per cent hit to the Arts Council and local authority cuts last time round. Signatories to What Next? already include War Horse creator Tom Morris, Nicholas Allott, the managing director of Cameron Mackintosh’s theatre business, Sandy Nairne, director of the National Portrait Gallery, and the artistic bosses of the Royal Court, the Roundhouse, Sadler’s Wells, the Southbank Centre and the Young Vic.
