Arts Council England All shall be well

All shall be well…

Hazel Edwards, the new South East Area Director at Arts Council England, reflects on her first few months in the role and a hopeful future.

I’ve been in post for nearly three months and as I write this, I feel it is a perfect time to reflect on what I’ve seen and heard since I joined the Arts Council. The team here has worked so hard to distribute the Government’s Culture Recovery Fund, whilst also continuing to support the sector.

The breadth of this covers our work with National Portfolio Organisations, Creative People and Places projects and Music Education Hubs; as well as also through investing in creativity via our National Lottery Project Grants; and through enabling creative practitioners to make a step change in how they work via our Developing Your Creative Practice programme.

I can tell you now, as someone fresh to the organisation, I am full of admiration for the way sector leaders and stakeholders, and my colleagues, have worked together to ensure the survival of culture and the arts.

For more than a year, we’ve all lived in the most surreal of worlds, where Covid has led us to protect our health and that of others by staying inside and wearing masks. Whilst we know that we must continue to be cautious, thankfully we are starting to see light at the end of the tunnel.

For the cultural sector, it has been a tumultuous year, one with far too many downs, financial fears, and existential questions. In tandem with Government, we have worked hard to get support out into the sector through the Culture Recovery Fund – helping organisations that form the foundation of our cultural sector to survive at first, and latterly to plan for reopening. It has seen us invest more than £135 million in organisations across the East and South East of England.

We know that the plans set out by many of these successful applicants also sought to provide vital employment for freelancers across the country. If organisations are the building blocks of our foundation, then freelancers are the cement that bind them all together – a symbiotic relationship which benefits all. As I write this, the 17th May has come and gone. It has been wonderful to see doors, real and metaphorical, across the East and South East of England – and more widely –be thrown open and audiences welcomed back for in-person cultural experiences. We know that this must be done cautiously and that not everyone is quite ready to embrace the new possibilities, but at the same time we can be hopeful – hopeful that the worst is behind us and light at the end of the tunnel will continue to get closer and closer.

If the growing number of invitations that are flying into my diary are anything to go by, the sector is embracing this hope and running with it! At the end of April, I had the pleasure of being part of the digital launch of England’s Creative Coast – a fantastic project that brings together culture and tourism to promote visual-art along the Essex, Kent, East and West Sussex coasts.

And more recently, I travelled to Norwich to meet with local cultural leaders and stakeholders, and dip into the Norfolk and Norwich Festival programme, including an uplifting performance by the classically trained South African cellist Abel Solace. He combines virtuosic performance with improvisation, singing and body percussion drawing on his South African musical heritage. Abel’s immense charisma made it a night to remember as he gently coaxed the audience, despite masks and social distancing, into adding their voices to his music.

My Norwich visit also included a tour of the National Centre for Writing where I was given a post card bearing the words: All shall be well by Julian of Norwich, the Medieval anchoress who devoted her life to prayer. And this is certainly the message I took away having listened to the many inspiring stories of survival and recovery. The future may not be what we expected, but creativity is endlessly adaptive. I am very pleased to be on this journey with you to help culture flourish for everyone’s benefit, now and in the future.