Reflecting on the current discourse regarding exploitation, discrimination and systemic bias in the sector,  Paul Hobson, Director of Modern Art Oxford and Chair of CVAN South East, considers the role of publicly-funded art institutions in promoting greater equality and inclusion in the sector…

Referencing recently-published research into artists' livelihoods, Susan Jones raises questions about the Arts Council's future policies for support for artists:

CVAN celebrates the many successes of our strongly embedded regional base delivering fantastic support to arts organisations through our regional networks but we also need to draw together and do more to promote our interests as a sector overall. So through the coming year CVAN will be looking at how we can work better together as a national network, how we innovate, how we engage across sectors and in creative partnerships regionally, nationally, and internationally, and how we promote diversity in the visual arts.

Welcome to the last Director’s blog for 2018 and our very best wishes to CVAN regional networks and the visual arts sector. Time to banish the gloom and spice the wine!

Let's start with a bit of seasonal roundup cheer. The British painter, Jenny Saville, became the most expensive living female artist in October when Propped (1992) sold for £8.25m (£9.5m with fees) at Sotheby's in London according to the 2018 roundup in The Art Newspaper but her success was drowned out by a shredder! Congratulations also to Charlotte Prodger’s Turner Prize-winning exploration of queer identity, language, technology and time. CVAN celebrates our truly stellar female artists and looks forward to a New Year of innovation and diversity in the visual arts and continued international cooperation…

We've been incredibly busy over the past month - having published our 3-year strategy, we are now working on a new communications strategy likely to include a rebrand and relaunch in 2020. We're also working hard on developing new partnerships, collaborations, and projects to address the many pressing issues facing our sector.

Whilst Governmental bandwidth is obviously hogged by Brexit this month, we have seen the publication of a new Civil Society Strategy and developments in the ongoing quagmire of Higher Education debt and fee levels which are likely to have a specific impact on the creative sector.

As a sector, the visual arts have always been committed to European membership, movement, and collaboration, but we now have very little realistic hope of influencing the government's thinking on migration and freedom of movement and are increasingly concerned about the design of replacement funding structures. CVAN is therefore looking at what we need to do to minimise the impact of Brexit (in whatever form) on the sector as well as supporting campaigns such as Free Move Create…

As we go into the busy Autumn season there's quite a lot going on in cultural sector policy. The Arts Council England (ACE) is entering the third phase of development for their 2020-2030 strategy development, the Brexit clock is ticking loudly and the Spending Review is likely to be pushed back post-Brexit. Changes to the way that evidence is gathered in the sector and the creative research landscape are also beginning to form up…