Just found a blog that details all the partlimentary debate and that around the proposed merger of the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen into 'Creative Scotland', a Ill-concieved plan which seems to have been put into motion by those kindly folks who know nothing about the workings of the artistic community but who have spreadsheets that kindly inform them that this would be a hood idea for all involved.
The worst part of it all is that the whole thing is being pushed ahead without any consultation from the Scottish Artist Union or any arts organizations and seemingly unsympathetic to the Scottish arts community at all.
Consolidating the Arts Council and scottish screen means consolidating thier funding pots and means artists, designers and filmmakers are all going for the same grants. As well as therlse grants they are proposing to offer investment opportunities and repayable loans to fund projects.
I may be being completelly silly here, but the nature of the artistic world is that there is no product to sell and the last thing we want is unneccessary debt that will be nigh on impossible to pay back given the nature of most contemporary work. This being the reason that the artist grant system was set up in the first place.
There appears to also be a seven million pound price tag on the administstive costs in bringing this about which will most likelly cut into the capital available for use. SAC isn't perfect but at least it manages to provide funds for loads of organizations and projects, and the same for Scottish screen, so why should we need to waste seven million quid merging them?
After initial excitement about an SNP led Scottish Government, my confidence is beginning to wane. With Alec Salmond sticking his oar in with Ian Wood's selfish unfounded ludicrousity and now this, just seems to me highly ironic calling this thing Creative Scotland when chances are it'll force those creative folks in Scotland to look elsewhere. Creative industies like visual art, craft, film and music are some of the country's biggest exports and it doesn't seem like our Government is willing to support us.
1 comment:
no product to sell? that will come as a surprise to Damian Hirst as well as to the thousands of Scottish painters, sculptors, jewelry desginers, composers, dramatists etc. who regularly sell their wares in galleries, shops
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