Restructures across all levels of arts funding have deprived institutions of money and led some to scale back their ambitions or even close. By Santilla Chingaipe.

Every week, it seems, there are reports of cuts to arts and cultural institutions. Across Western countries, from the United States to the United Kingdom and Germany, access to public funding in the arts is dwindling. 

In Australia, the situation is equally bleak. There have been funding changes at the state, territory and federal level. The Albanese government introduced the five-year national cultural policy “Revive”. New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory have all introduced decade-long arts policies aimed at supporting artists, creatives and cultural organisations. 

Yet while many have welcomed these measures, arts advocate Esther Anatolitis argues that there remains a gap between policy and funding commitments. 

“This is a time where we need policy and funding to be coming together,” she says, “but there are just so many diabolical priorities for governments that even those governments who are actively prioritising cultural policy are not finding the levels of funding that are so urgently needed.”…

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