Cultural regeneration hit as austerity bites

Culture plays a huge role in both social and economic life in Northern Ireland. But can the sector survive austerity?

‘The whole cultural sector is running on fumes’, says Niamh Goggin, summing up the results of her recent study into arts organisations across Northern Ireland, commissioned by Building Change Trust and Arts and Business Northern Ireland.

Primarily made up of smaller and medium-sized organisations, and heavily reliant on public funding, Northern Ireland’s cultural sector is struggling as public funding for the arts is cut.

While some organisations have lost some or all of their funding from Arts Council NI since cuts begin in 2014, the reality for the majority of arts organisations is one of ‘standstill’ funding, leaving many of them hanging on by a thread.

‘There’s lots of great stuff happening but cultural organisations are being hollowed out,’ says Goggin. ‘They are laying off staff, turning full-time roles into part-time posts, cutting back on activities and unable to think strategically’.

While the decline of any sector has social and economic impacts for both individuals and broader society, the particular role that arts and culture plays in any society – but in Northern Ireland in particular – means that such a decline will have far-reaching consequences.

‘We are spiralling downwards’

Identified as the most contented region in the UK by the Office of National Statistics, Northern Ireland has high levels of social capital, and its arts and culture scene makes a huge contribution to that. But it is also a country with ongoing social issues as the legacy of the Troubles plays out; it has one of the world’s highest rates of prescription drug use and the highest suicide rate in the UK.

While large-scale programmes such as City of Culture – awarded to Derry in 2013 – grab headlines, there are numerous examples across the country of small-scale arts and cultural organisations playing a vital role in the re-building of places and people.

The Community Arts Partnership runs a wide range of programmes, from literature and poetry to street art, working with schools and communities from every walk of life, and advocates for arts and culture to play a central role in community life.

Its chief executive Conor Shields says that while the sector has always been precariously funded in Northern Ireland, the property crash of 2008 and now Brexit and the turbulent political situation signal ‘tough times’ ahead.

‘We are spiralling downwards,’ he says. ‘The necessary ecology to support arts infrastructure will not be sustained.’

The Arts Resource Centre, a building recently opened by the Community Arts Partnership in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter with facilities and support for artists, may now be threatened by large scale commercial redevelopment, and, as money has got tighter, the role of arts and culture has been gradually diminished.

Arts funding in Northern Ireland is now lower than other parts of the UK. Indeed, the government department responsible for culture recently dropped the word ‘culture’ to be renamed as the Department for Communities.

While an announcement has just been made to develop a Percent for Art scheme in Northern Ireland, this comes over a decade after the equivalent was set up in the Republic of Ireland.

‘Northern Ireland has a problem with culture’, says Shields. ‘It sees it as something that is political and tribal and elitist. It has fallen in the pecking order of government support.’

Measuring the value of culture

A more enterprising approach to arts and culture is now being advocated, by government and by the sector itself. But while bigger venues with assets can shift more easily to a social enterprise approach, there is a need for seed funding to help smaller organisations in particular make that shift.

To Niamh Flanagan, director of Theatre NI, austerity and fiscal conservatism has dampened the very innovation the sector needs to survive and thrive.

Her organisation unites the performing arts sector across Northern Ireland and provides training and skills opportunities, including a series of programmes for young people.

She would like to see greater research into the links between arts and the economy and greater collaboration between arts and other sectors such as health and wellbeing.

‘We need to ask the question “what would the world look like without arts?”’ she says. ‘We need to make the argument for the importance of arts and provide evidence.

Belfast Council has a cultural framework with themes around greater participation in arts, skills development in the sector and for the city’s cultural vibrancy and uniqueness to be celebrated.

But Shields says that a ‘haphazard’ shift towards outcome-based accountability has meant that the way the impact of arts is measured and accounted may further dilute its reach, and is again leading to a push towards big ticket arts venues to the detriment of vital work done with smaller and more distinct and sensitive populations.

Proving the worth of arts is a constant battle for arts practitioners and advocates. An SROI study conducted in 2005 found that public investment in arts is incredible value, returning £14 of public benefit for every £1 spent. Shields’ own measurements calculate that from £20m of arts funding, there is a financial return of £140m within Northern Ireland’s £38bn GDP.

The UK’s recent industrial strategy identified the creative industries as one of five sectors to be given focus and investment. As we face a not-too-distant future in which many jobs will be taken over by robots, the creative industries stands out as one sector that is immune to automation.

Even by the crude measurement of numbers of jobs and revenues the Northern Ireland cultural sector is a significant player in local economies. But the more intangible role the arts and culture plays in the development of people and places, their mental wellbeing, confidence and aspiration cannot be underestimated. Rather than being reduced to a tick-box exercise, arts and culture could and should run through the whole of community life.

As Shields said: ‘Communities become artists and artists save communities’.

——————————————————————————————————————————————-

Case study: The Open House Festival: reviving a run-down seaside town

One example of the impact of arts on culture on the whole of community life is The Open House Festival, now based in Bangor on the east coast of the country.

After the signing of the Good Friday agreement, Alison Gordon and her husband and business partner Kieran Gilmore moved back to Northern Ireland from London and wanted to use their experience in the music industry to re-build cultural life in Belfast. Tapping into a plan to develop the Laganside area of the city into a Cathedral Quarter, a new arts and culture area for the city, in 1999 they started the Open House Festival, celebrating traditional folk music.

While working in Belfast, however, they lived in the seaside town of Bangor, a dormitory town with a failing town centre and pockets of major deprivation.

The pair had a vision for the renewal of their town through arts and culture and in 2012 moved the festival to Bangor, expanded its remit to cover all arts and now see their vision for the ‘Brighton of the North’ running on its own steam.

‘There’s been a shift from people talking the town down to talking it up and spreading the message of hope and possibility’, says Gordon. ‘It’s like a tide. If you repeat a message, it ends up being said back to you.’

When the festival began, there was very little arts infrastructure in the town and events were held anywhere and everywhere, from shops, pubs and restaurants to boats and Bangor Castle. ‘We once had Patrick Kielty perform in a school’, remembers Gordon.

While attracting international acts, the festival is tightly embedded in the grassroots and local, from its huge volunteer programme to discount schemes for ticket holders to eat in local restaurants.

‘The town is the star of the show. The festival has cast the town in a different light and you can now see the potential and the creativity that exists locally.’

A number of initiatives have developed on the back of the festival, including plans by the local college to open a theatre, and as the town becomes more associated with arts and culture, its role as a hub is growing.

And while the festival is estimated to bring an additional £1m to the town each year, it is the social capital that makes the difference. ‘Everything we do is about the people,’ says Gordon.