Arts organisations and galleries across New South Wales have voiced their relief after the state government announced $15.4m funding over two years, allaying worries of a looming crisis for NSW’s regional galleries.
Sixty-two arts organisations across NSW will receive $15.4m funding for the next two years through Create NSW’s Arts and Cultural Funding Program (ACFP), the state government announced on Thursday, with $7.5m going to 31 regional arts organisations, including 10 regional galleries.
The announcement on Thursday comes a month after more than 50% of the applicants – 76 of 158 – were knocked back after applying for four-year funding from Create NSW. This shocked many previously successful applicants, who then had to rush to apply for two-year funding instead.
At the time, some worried that the low success rate for regional public art galleries – below 18% – was a sign the state government was shifting costs on to local government, as many regional galleries already rely on councils to fund infrastructure and core staffing costs.
But the chief executive of Regional Arts NSW, Dr Tracey Callinan, they were “very pleased” with the outcome.
“This is a really positive response and one that acknowledges that regional arts has great value, but its own challenges too,” she said.
“Not everybody has been funded, but that is the reality of a funding program.”
Callinan said Regional Arts NSW would work to support those galleries who missed out on funding, and she remained concerned that local councils “will have to pick some of this up to keep their galleries open”.
Broken Hill city art gallery, the oldest art gallery in regional NSW, applied for $100,000 a year – what it currently receives from Create NSW – but failed in both the four-year and two-year rounds.
“This is a very disappointing outcome for the gallery and a sad day for artists and the industry in the far west in general,” Broken hill city Art gallery manager, Kathryn Graham said.
The gallery’s role in supporting artists, students, tourism and First Nations cultural programs gave them a “compelling case” for state funding, she said.
“It’s a significant loss of funding for a gallery of our size, and we now face the unpleasant task of reviewing our operations and reducing our services in line with the funding shortfall,” Graham said.
Regional galleries who will receive funding include Wagga Wagga art gallery, which will get $110,000 a year; Tamworth regional gallery, which will receive $85,000 a year; and Maitland regional art gallery, which will also receive $85,000 after applying for $110,000 a year.
“This will probably impact our forward plan, but we welcome the funding,” Maitland’s director, Gerry Bobsien, said. “We’ve got a really fantastic program scheduled for the next two years, and we’ve been sitting here wondering what we need to cut. Now, we’re just keen to get on with it.
“For many of us in the sector, we’ve been working with less for ever. Finding savings, being entrepreneurial – it’s just business as usual,” she said.
Just under $3m was allocated for 23 arts organisations in Sydney, including Australian Design Centre in Darlinghurst, which now receives $300,000 a year from Create NSW and will now get $150,000 a year. ADC also recently lost $200,000 a year in federal funding.
“ADC is grateful for any funding support from the state government,” the executive director of ADC, Lisa Cahill, said.
“However, we applied for $200,000 per annum – $150,000 per annum is short of that. It’s also 50% of what we currently receive and have been in receipt of for the past decade – and obviously that $300,000 has not kept up with costs.”
ADC’s recent public appeal raised close to $50,000 in donations, which Cahill said was “wonderful”.
“But in real terms, we’re receiving about a third of what we got a decade ago,” she added. “This level of uncertainty and erosion of support is obviously creating a great deal of uncertainty and stress on the organisation, and the people in it.”
The chief executive of Museums & Galleries of NSW, Brett Adlington, said the organisation was “delighted” by the outcome of the ACFP after being “nervous about what was coming”.
“There’s still some challenges out there for organisations who weren’t funded and perhaps some organisations might need to rethink their plans. But generally we’re very happy and very grateful.”
In addition, $3.29m has been allocated for individual projects that will support 1,296 artists and workers, Create NSW said. One of them is western Sydney artist Khaled Sabsabi, who was reinstated as Australia’s representative at the Venice Biennale after controversially being removed from the position.
His unnamed “monumental” work will explore “shared yet distinct experiences of displacement and migration, focusing on the intersections of multicultural and multi-faith communities locally and globally”, Create NSW said.
The NSW minister for the arts, John Graham, described the regions as “the big winners” from the revamped ACFP, which has dropped an annual application process in favour of the new biennial option after feedback from arts organisations.
“We have heard the message from the sector that they want less paperwork, and less acquittals. That is why the move from annual to multi-year funding for so many of these organisations is so welcome,” he said.