Partnerships & Collaborations
We have developed closer relationships with other national networks and strategic organisations to further support our work.
At European level we are a member of Culture Action Europe, an advocacy and lobbying organisation promoting arts and culture as a building block of the European Project. Its aim is to influence European policies for more and better access to culture across the continent and beyond. CAE has immediate access to EU decision makers and we are widely recognised as a unique resource for information and expertise on the EU and its cultural policy. The EU institutions see Culture Action Europe as the first port of call for informed opinion and debate about arts and cultural policy in Europe, and it is the biggest umbrella organisation representing the cultural sector at European level.
CVAN is the only National network in England representing visual arts at European level within Culture Action Europe.
In the UK we are members of :
Visual Arts UK (VAUK)
An alliance of national bodies working collectively to be a powerful voice for the visual arts in the UK. Members share knowledge, information and best practice, and lobby for the visual arts at National level.
Members include: AiR, a-n The Artists Information Company, Artquest, Axis, Contemporary Art Society, Crafts Council, DACS, Engage, International Curators Forum, National Federation of Artist Studio Providers, Live Art Development Agency, The Space.
Cultural Campaigns Alliance
This is a cross artform alliance that shares intelligence within the culture sector and ensures that members share details of any campaigns that they may be embarking on. The purpose of the alliance is to ensure that there is awareness and sectoral support for members’ campaigns and also to avoid duplication and clashing campaigns. Further details of active campaigns will be posted here:
What’s Next?
Across the Country network members are taking part in the What’s Next? conversations, and some are hosting regular meetings. The What’s Next? agenda compliments the work of CVAN and both are mutually supportive of the work. From a national perspective CVAN has a strong relationship with What’s Next? Further details can be found here
Museums Sector
CVAN presented a session at the Museums Association Conference 2013 entitled ‘Artists and the Elastic Museum,’ which explored the role of contemporary artists within museum and heritage settings. Working with the museum sector is important to CVAN and we continue to explore collaborations at both regional and national level.
Scottish Contemporary Art Network
CVAN works closely with the Scottish Contemporary Art Network, sharing knowledge and looking at potential economies of scale in rolling out programmes of work.
Audience Finder
The Audience Finder initiative from the National Audience Agency for England is one of CVAN’s closest programme partners. CVAN members are working with them to capture, for the very first time, national audience data for the visual arts. Further information on this is filed on our Programmes page.
The Family Arts Campaign
The Family Arts Campaign is a large scale, national collaborative programme led by CVAN and a number of other partner organisations. It provides training, resources and marketing opportunities for the visual and performing arts sectors, in order to increase levels of arts engagement by families. Find out more at familyarts.co.uk.
engage, the National Association for Gallery Education is delighted to announce Children’s Art Week 2016 will take place from Saturday 11 to Sunday 19 June. Events can take place in galleries, arts centres, museums, libraries, schools, and community and youth centres. Venues can register their event until Monday 23 May
Leading UK and international artists have partnered with nine museums in the North East and Yorkshire to produce new artworks inspired by the museums and their collections.
The Get Creative Family Arts Festival will run throughout October 2016, marking the fourth year of this hugely successful national initiative funded by Arts Council England. On 30th March this year’s Festival will be officially launched at the Family Arts Awards event held at The Albany in Deptford, London.
Arts Council England has commissioned a new national study, to find out directly from visual artists in England about the economic, social and cultural factors which affect their ability to develop a sustainable practice.
The Creative Case for Diversity is the Arts Council's approach to diversity and equality, setting out how both can enrich the arts for artists, audiences and our wider society. Eight organisations in the North have been awarded Creative Case NORTH bursaries to support them in exploring how they contribute to the Creative Case for Diversity.
Meeting Point initiated by Arts&Heritage was funded by the ACE Museum Resilience Fund and supported by CVAN to develop and enhance the skills of museum staff in commissioning contemporary art in ten small/medium sized museums across the North East and Yorkshire.
Arts Council Collection Curators’ Days are designed to provide an informal forum for curators from around the country to meet and network. Each event has a special focus, either looking at particular areas of professional practice or visiting new buildings and important exhibitions. All include guest speakers and opportunity for discussion.
Find out ECVAN's winter highlights featuring exhibitions and opportunities
Venture Arts has received funding from Arts Council England for an exciting partnership and project called OutsidersXchanges. Venture Arts is working in partnership with BALTIC, Gateshead, Castlefield Galleries, Manchester and the Contemporary Visual Arts Network to build on experience and audiences.
Breeze Arts Festival is a multi-arts festival organised by young people, for young people aged 11-19. Events take place all across Leeds during the festival. Arts Development are looking for organisations to create a project (in any art form) for young people aged 11-19 to be delivered in the lead up to and during Breeze Arts Festival.
There is one issue that continues to be a barrier for many arts and cultural organisations in their attempts to work outside the UK (on trans-national projects or EU funding applications or touring their work) – and that barrier is the search for partners.
It takes just ten minutes to upload a listing and benefit from the Get Creative Family Arts Festival’s largescale marketing and press campaign, which is targeted at family audiences nation-wide and is run by a professional PR team. Journalists will now be directing families to event listings on the Festival website this half-term.
YVAN has been successful in winning the commission to edit the last of the four ‘Untitled’ magazines being published in the run-up to the British Art Show.
The Get Creative Family Arts Festival, an initiative of the Family Arts Campaign, for which CVAN is a partner organisation, takes place this October 2016. The Festival is a national initiative promoting thousands of arts events for families, and is an entirely free marketing opportunity for arts organisations.
New research from the Audience Finder National Visual Arts cluster has shown that galleries play a significant role in the visitor economy, with one in three visitors specifically planning their trip to visit a particular gallery.
Bacc for the Future 2 has got off to a fantastic start: 33 organisations are now supporting the refreshed campaign and over 3,300 individuals have signed up to the petition.The Bacc for the Future campaign is back again following the Department for Education’s announcement of plans to introduce a compulsory list of subjects at GCSE level.
This week in a speech to Policy Exchange, the Minister of State for Schools, Nick Gibb MP, announced that the Government would once again be trying to make the EBacc compulsory for secondary school pupils.Back in 2013 CVAN were part of a successful campaign (of 45,000+ individuals and 120+ organisations) to stop the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) from becoming compulsory in all secondary schools.
On Thursday 30 July at The Tetley, Leeds, Picture This will share the findings from the National Visual Arts cluster of the Arts Council England funded Audience Finder programme. The event is free but places are limited, so early booking is advisable.
The small-scale arts sector in the UK has long lobbied for its survival within the decreasing funding scenarios offered by the public purse.
Sheffield Creative Guild will unite and showcase the creative talent, energy and output of the city, formally launching on May 20th, with a party at creative cooperative, Roco.