Bristol Old Vic To Receive Funding Support From The Clore Duffield Foundation

Bristol Old Vic's Engagement work received £25,000 of funding support today from The Clore Duffield Foundation, chaired by Dame Vivien Duffield, who has announced a rescue package of £2,551,371 to 66 cultural organisations across the UK, to support their learning and community work during the pandemic.

Alongside Bristol Old Vic, the recipients are museums and galleries, theatres, music, dance, art centres and heritage organisations in all four UK nations including Birmingham Royal Ballet, the Foundling Museum, Hillsborough Castle, Kettle’s Yard, the Leach Pottery, Manchester Art Gallery, National Gallery of Scotland, National Museum Wales, the Roundhouse, the Royal Academy of Arts, the RIBA, the RSC, Sage Gateshead, Tate, Turner Contemporary, Unicorn Theatre, and the V&A.

The Foundation has provided in excess of £30m over the last two decades to fund Clore Learning Spaces within these cultural organisations. It now wishes to provide them with programme support as they contend with Covid-19.

When museums, galleries, performing arts venues and heritage sites closed in March, one thing that could continue – often in new ways – was their learning and community work. Many excelled at adapting to their new circumstances: from finding new ways of working with schools and families online; to delivering art packs to families via foodbanks; to finding new ways to work with vulnerable groups. While their buildings were empty, Covid-19 revealed as never before the positive social, educational and community impact of the work of learning teams within many cultural organisations. 

Bristol Old Vic continued working with Oi Polloi, a theatre company of people with experience of homelessness, ran Zoom sessions to provide creative opportunities for children in care homes, while the Young Six Six youth ensemble (design to build confidence and communty) and the Made in Bristol training programme for 18-25s moved online. Among the things that the fund will pay for will be digital needs (in-house learning team upskilling/training for digital and blended learning, production costs, kit for streaming etc.); general learning programme funding, including resources and art materials for packs; and additional freelancer costs for socially distanced workshop delivery (smaller groups require more workshop leaders).

Speaking today at the launch of the funding support, Dame Vivien Duffield said: “For decades my Foundation has been supporting work with schools and young people in cultural organisations. When they could no longer visit in person, we were so pleased to see so many organisations pivot to new ways of working with them, and with other community groups. The cultural sector had an important role to play in helping children, families and schools through lockdown, and it continues to support them now. We want to help with that process of adaptation, and to ensure that no child misses out on all the pleasures and benefits that the arts and culture have to offer. Even if the show can’t go on, the education work can.”

Grants have been made on the basis of a percentage of the original capital grant: recipients of up to and including £1m will receive 10% of their original grant; recipients of more than £1m will receive 5% of their original grant.

The list spans the cultural sector and features:

21 Museums 

19 Galleries

11 Heritage*

8 Theatres

3 Music

2 Dance

1 Arts centres

1 Film & television

* includes built and natural environment