News & Media

Home News & Media Small is beautiful, but can small-scale programming survive within growth markets? – Arts Hub
Media
Small is beautiful, but can small-scale programming survive within growth markets? – Arts Hub

Arts Hub, Jo Pickup
24 January 2025

The value of smaller scale arts projects is being neglected to the detriment of the wider arts ecology.

Co-founder of the former Proximity Festival in WA, Sarah Rowbottam, reflects on current prospects for independents developing small-scale works – and how difficult it is for them to find the kind of solidarity, exchange and momentum Proximity provided.

“Independent artists are having to produce, deliver and apply for funds all at the same time – which is totally exhausting,” she says.

A recent survey by Theatre Network Australia (TNA) all but confirms this trend, with data showing that while mid-career and established independents are now working on the same number of projects they were before the pandemic, emerging creatives are working on fewer.

The survey also finds that 79% of independent artists maintain jobs outside of their creative practice, which is not so surprising, but the fact that there has been a steady increase in artists working in part-time and full-time jobs that are sometimes outside of the arts, is a concerning finding.

As Rowbottam says, “There are so few opportunities for smaller, independent projects to attract funding to work over longer periods of time and work in a more sustained way.

“I think this is contributing to knock-on effects in the wider sector, because it is diminishing the diversity of the arts landscape, while at the same time shrinking the pipeline that leads artists to go on to work on larger projects and build their careers.”

Read the full article.

 

More Related Posts

Media

Media

Media