The power of the imagination

Happy New Year. I’m imagining great things for 2025. A year that’s unburdened by a government intent on wrecking the public realm, that didn’t value arts and culture, that destroyed arts education, demoralised artists and arts professionals.

I’m imagining positive change for the year ahead, fast and furious, and much needed after a decade and a half of neglect. My glass, dear reader, is half full.

I’m channelling the writer and activist, Rob Hopkins who I first met as the co-founder of the Transition Network almost 20 years ago. I remember then his mantra – that if we can’t imagine a positive future, then what chance have we got of realising change?

Rob has applied this deceptively simple process of imaginative power to the existential crises of the climate emergency. He believes our imaginations are our creative superpower and that, individually and collectively, we can forge a path to the future we want.

Avoiding the doom loop

So that’s how I’m starting my year. Not in the obvious doom loop of spending reviews and omni-crises. I’m imagining a 2025 for arts and culture in only the most positive terms.

After a shaky start, I’m imagining the new government will find its feet in 2025 and start to make real and lasting progress in support of the arts. Come on Starmer and Reeves and Nandy – the creative industries can be at the vanguard of your plans for a decade of national renewal. The change starts this year.

I’m looking forward to changes in the fortunes of local authorities. Real-term increases in funding for all the things that make up a healthy local community – libraries, theatres, arts centres, concert halls, community spaces, museums, festivals.

Continues…

Signal to Noise, by Forced Entertainment. Photo: Hugo Glendinning

Turning the tide

In Scotland the extra £34m for 2025/26 will see a transformation in the cultural offer north of the border. More project funding, greater artistic risk-taking, new and exciting organisations coming into sustainable funding for the first time, better wages for cultural workers – a sea change after years of instability and gloom.

An extra £6m for arts in Wales signals a brighter future, and I’m imagining the tide turning too in Northern Ireland where a slow and painful reduction in investment in the arts over the last decade is reversed in 2025.

Inspired by this, and with positive reports about the green shoots of economic recovery across the UK, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy’s commitment to improving the settlement for Arts Council England is sudden, long-term and seismic. Real money, for capital and revenue, for buildings and festivals and touring companies, and quickly.

Educational renewal

I’m imagining a long-hoped-for increase in National Lottery funding for the arts. With the new lottery operator Allwyn turning things around with a boost in sales and money for good causes flowing through to organisations and projects, right across the country.

It’s a great year ahead too for school children with arts education right back where it belongs – at the centre of the curriculum. A long-term commitment to fundamental change signalled early in the year promises a decade of educational renewal.

Increasing hours of arts teaching, investment in training, and encouragement of GCSE and A-level arts subjects all presage hope for a generational shift.

ACE reset

I’m excited by the prospect of a reset at Arts Council England – reinstating the arm’s length principle, and ensuring government whim never again impacts artists, arts organisations nor the audiences they seek to serve. And the government review of ACE will celebrate both grassroots arts, in communities, across the country and world-class arts and culture, along with everything in between.

And this year, let’s not focus on the negative arts stories that have dominated the last couple of years. The stories of cuts, or forced relocation, or redundancies. Let’s celebrate the work of those that entered the portfolio in 2023 and who reflect the ambitions of ACE’s Let’s Create.

A shout out this January to companies that champion diversity include Inspirate, High Rise, Chineke! Orchestra and Unlimited. And those that got healthy uplifts from ACE – South Asian Arts UK, Graeae, Talawa Theatre, New Art Exchange – news of which got drowned out by the higher profile cuts to the opera companies and others.

This is the year Let’s Create begins to truly come good – more diversity, better representation, local people ever more deeply involved in deciding what their cultural provision looks and sounds like. Artists and creatives right across the country supported to thrive, not just survive. This is the work Matt Fenton and I want to support – changing the way arts and cultural organisations are run and led.

South Asian Arts in partnership with Future Talent. Photo: Declan Creffield

A stable decade

2025. No more Nadine Dorries. No more Matt Hancock. No more revolving door of Culture Secretaries (12 in 14 years under the last government). Lisa Nandy is planning a decade in the job to deliver the fundamental changes we all crave.

I’m also imagining this is the year when the culture wars fade. When we stop fighting each other over sensitive issues of politics and identity. And we turn that anger and energy into creativity that pushes back against those that want to see our arts sector diminished. Let’s call out the enemies of a rich and diverse cultural sector. When we’re all on the same side, we have the power to affect real and positive change.

This is the year I imagine BBC bashing will end. The new government’s commitment to inflationary increases in the license fee marks the beginning of a period of stability and creative renewal for our national broadcaster. No longer concerned about government interference, I predict a new era of arts on the BBC, radical new programming, and healthy relationships with artists and producers from across the subsidised sector.  

This is the year increasing numbers of shows transfer from subsidised theatres to the West End. The highest quality new work enjoying larger audiences, higher profile and a financial return. I’m imagining the Producers’ Club – a new £5m fund established by an enlightened group of commercial producers who want to invest in R&D within regional theatres.

A healthy resurgence

I’m excited by a change in the EU touring visa regulations, re-opening the continent to musicians and performing arts companies. The availability of these EU markets will be matched by a surge in arts funding across Europe. 2025 is the year German proposals to significantly cut culture budgets are reversed.

After years of neglect, UK touring is viable again. Venues are paying better fees and working harder to attract audiences for theatre, dance and opera that travel the country.

There’s a healthy resurgence in our festival culture this year. Mayfest is planning to come back as an annual event. New chapters for LIFT and Brighton Festival. Transform in Leeds is off the scale. Take Me Somewhere in Glasgow bigger and better than ever. Bradford 2025? Wow! What an unforgettable year across West Yorkshire.

I’m imagining a great year ahead. Full of hope and promise for a thriving arts and culture sector. Happy New Year.