Arts Council England Sparks Ire with Guidance on “Political Statements”

Arts Council England (ACE), the government-financed body that distributes funds to British arts organizations, is set to update its latestguidelines, released January 25, after the contained suggestion that it would withdraw funding over “political statements” ignited public outrage,The Guardianreports. The new guidelines warned organizations to avoid connections to people or groups whose personal actions or statements might be perceived as “controversial,” “overtly political or activist,” or as “being in conflict with the purposes of public funding of culture.”

The guidelines, which revealed ACE to expect its funded organizations to support freedom of expression—despite suggesting that certain expressed ideas would result in the breaking of funding contracts—weresummarizedon X (the platform previously known as Twitter) by Arts Professional on February 13, in a series of posts garnering millions of views. A widespread backlash ensued in the arts and cultural sector, with a number of artists, writers, and performerstaking to social mediato decry the new framework. England’s performing arts and trade union, Equity, today announced that it was “deeply concerned” that the guidance would result in the censoring of work and that it represented an attempt to silence artists both professionally and personally.

“Far from protecting artists, it sends a clear message to discourage the creation of art that is political, and to avoid full participation in civil society if you are an artist who wishes to work with Arts Council funding,” the union said.

“Arts Council England is subject to political pressures from the government of the day, and its new guidance will allow it to divest and disassociate itself from artists who speak truth to power.”

Shortly thereafter, ACE posted astatementin which it acknowledged that it would “publish an updated version” of the guidelines “as soon as possible.” ACE further clarified that it did not “seek to stop any artist or organization from making the art they want to make, or speaking out in any way they wish.”