In the pandemic, government and Arts Council England built a defensive hedge around the most visible aspects of the arts infrastructure. Staffers in institutions got time, space and money to address fragile business models and secure their futures. However, the emergency arts funding schemes for freelance artists failed to address their artistic, emotional and livelihood needs.
Significantly though, early evidence from a new qualitative study that demonstrates how the lives and artistic prospects of many artists positively improved in pandemic conditions. It offers clues to the shifts in arts policy and infrastructures that are necessary to honour and sustain the talents and vibrancy of the diverse artists’ constituency in future.
Read Artists’ precarity is not just about pay on Arts Professional