Blog

From the 18 June to 18 July 2021, Art Night are running a month-long contemporary art festival filled with 80 free online and in person events taking place across the UK, from the Tetley in Leeds to the Towner in Eastbourne. The festival, supported through National Lottery Project Grants, showcases a programme of bold new art outside of the galleries’ walls.

We caught up with this year’s curator and Artistic Director Helen Nisbet and Director Philippine Nguyen to discuss how artists inspire the programme and how they’ve adapted through the pandemic.

Andrew Ellerby, Senior Manager, Environmental Responsibility discusses our Environmental Responsibility Investment Principle, and what the arts and culture sector can do to change our environment forever.

We spoke to Louise Blackwell, member of our South East Area Council, to find out about what the role involves.

To mark Pride Month, we caught up with StoneCrabs on the Isle Of Wight for a closer look at their oral history heritage project, Out On An Island, which has led to the Island’s first ever exhibition dedicated to LGBTQIA+ history.

Ginny Lemon, UK Drag icon and star of Rupaul's Drag Race UK Season 2, has released their new audio and visual project 'Tonic'. The album, supported through a National Lottery Project Grant, explores their experiences with gender, class, disability and queerness throughout the pandemic and has evolved from a live performance idea to a fully fledged album over lockdown.

We caught up with Ginny to discuss 'Tonic', what music and performance means to them, exploring their gender and sexual identity through music and what performers they're looking forward to seeing after lockdown.

It’s Loneliness Awareness Week, and as we reach 15 months since the initial coronavirus lockdown in the UK, the subject can seldom have been more pertinent.

For many, separation has been a defining characteristic of this period – as we’ve all been largely confined to our homes, prevented from seeing wider family and friends by our desire to protect each other. Many of our shared social spaces, including arts venues, museums and libraries as well as pubs, clubs, restaurants and beyond, have been closed or heavily restricted. Even those of us who’ve continued to attend workplaces physically rather than digitally have been unable to engage with colleagues or clients as we would have in the past.

From the 9-13 June 2021, Manchester City of Literature are running Festival of Libraries – 80 free online and in person events across every Greater Manchester borough. The festival, which is supported by Arts Council England, showcases a vibrant programme covering wellbeing, culture and creativity, digital and information and, of course, reading.

We caught up with Jo Flynn from the festival to discuss how everyone can get involved, how they’ve adapted through the pandemic, the role libraries can play in bringing communities together and her hopes for the future.

John Knell from Counting What Counts explains why there’s never been a better moment to rethink and realign your approach to evaluation data.