Analysis: Cultural life capital is famed for being put at risk by change

By IRENE KERNAN
Published on Thursday 16 February 2012 01:51

Just thinking of Edinburgh as the festival city, one of it’s strengths is that innovative, really exciting activities can happen really easily – you can even have an exhibition in somebody’s sitting room.

In visual arts that happens throughout the year, so that’s why you see artist-run organisations like Superclub, or Rhubaba springing up and making use of interesting exhibition spaces.

We used the old lighthouse down in Granton for one exhibition. One of Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop’s members, Andrea Geile, had a series of exhibitions in people’s gardens during the Edinburgh Art Festival.

These sorts of fees could really stifle that sort of activity and prevent it happening. If you have a very small capacity, then there’s limited ability to get any money back.

A lot of arts organisations are working on very, very small budgets. There could be lots of statutory requirements that would then come into place as a result as well, with additional costs and resources required which a small organisation would struggle to keep up with.

• Irene Kernan is the director of the Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop

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