This is the fourth round of the Ambition for Excellence, which is a £35.2 million programme aimed at stimulating and supporting ambition, talent and excellence across the arts sector in England. The fund aims to realise significant impact on the growth of an ambitious international-facing arts infrastructure, especially outside London.
ACE has projected that between 80 to 90 per cent of this fund will be committed outside London, to support its intent to ensure that a minimum of 75 per cent of Lottery funding is committed outside the capital by 2018.
“This round of Ambition for Excellence awards really illustrate the power that art and artists can have in celebrating and defining place,” Alison Clark, National Director, Combined Arts & Programme Lead, Ambition for Excellence, Arts Council England. “Each of these three projects will work with a wide range of partners to reimagine and regenerate their city through creativity, whilst producing some extraordinary art.”
Sheffield Culture Consortium will receive £550,000 for ‘Making Ways’, an ambitious three-year project that will develop, demonstrate and celebrate exceptional contemporary visual art produced in Sheffield. The project will develop artistic talent and leadership and create a living economy for the arts community that will stimulate and support growth.
The Sheffield Culture Consortium includes Museums Sheffield, Yorkshire Artspace, Sheffield Theatres Trust, Site Gallery, The University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University and will coordinate a visual art programme that complements the Year of Making Sheffield 2016 – a new festival and partnership between culture and businesses.
MK Gallery will receive £750,000 to create ‘City Club’ an ambitious arts project that will bring together artists, arts organisations and the local community, inspired by the city’s heritage and design, as part of Milton Keynes’ 50th anniversary celebrations. The project, which aims to develop the city’s cultural offer in preparation for European Capital of Culture 2023, will create new cultural spaces in the area surrounding MK Gallery, MK Theatre and the approach to Campbell Park.
Artichoke will receive £750,000 for its proposal London’s Burning, the centrepiece of the Great Fire of London 350th anniversary commemorations later this year. The project represents a continuing artistic collaboration between Artichoke, the Burning Man organisation in the USA, the UK and European “burner” community, and award-winning filmmaker Penny Woolcock. Unemployed young Londoners from boroughs surrounding the City will work to help design and fabricate a sculptural representation of 17th-century London, which will ultimately be set alight as the climax to the Great Fire 350 commemorations.
Mian Image
Weston Park Museum, part of Museums Sheffield, which is part of the successful Sheffield Culture Consortium awarded £350,000 for a three-year visual art project
