Funding our museums - post Brexit
Investing in art for the sustainabilty of our towns and cities was the central topic for discussion at our recent forum held at RIBA, London.
Simon Wallis, Director of the Hepworth Wakefield joined our second panel debating the investment in public art collections and in particular how he runs the gallery.
The Museums Association has been campaigning against government cuts which it feels are increasing and damaging our collections. However, Simon explained that he felt the move of the Hepworth Wakefield in becoming an independent charitable trust which still receives a third of its income via a £1 million investment from the local authority, was a very good model.
Simon commented that museums and galleries need to be thinking constantly about how to draw in audiences and that post Brexit we should be thinking about financing city art as a whole, across the UK. Please his watch his video above and Christine Riding, Head of Art and Curator of The Queen's House, which is part of Royal Museums Greenwich, below.
Christine felt that funding wasn't as much as an issue for her, but creating local, UK and international audiences was challenging in an area of London that has so many competing activities.
Crowd-funding to save the Armada Portrait for the Queen's House has been one of the recent success stories for the museum. The project was also supported by Art Fund and other sponsors, but Christine says it proves that there is still major interest in historical art as well as the contemporary and that it has many resonances with the current political landscape.