The charity Art Fund has launched a £1 million crowdfunding appeal to help save UK museums, galleries and historic houses as coronavirus lockdowns pummel the arts sector. Art Fund has said many cultural institutions are at a “make or break point” as a result of the COVID crisis. In fact, several are in danger of never reopening once restrictions are lifted.  

A Cultural Crisis

Following a survey that suggests 60% of workers in the arts sector fear for the survival of cultural organizations, Art Fund launched the Together for Museums crowdfunding campaign. Its target sum of £1 million will go towards assisting cultural institutions in urgent need of financial aid. Art Fund has said the funding aims to help museums to, “care for their collections, support their staff and keep connecting with people everywhere.”

Recent research has shown that visitor figures for the UK’s museums, galleries and historic houses for October 2020 were a quarter of those for the same period last year. In addition, a survey by Art Fund found that at 77% of organizations who were contacted, income had fallen “significantly or severely”. The charity also said that only one-third of museums that are currently closed have indicated they will reopen in the next months. Of the institutions in the survey, 92% declared a need to “adapt and innovate” in order to survive the COVID restrictions. 

The COVID pandemic has generated an emergency in museum funding. Coronavirus lockdowns have decimated incomes reliant on ticket sales. “Many museums are charities, receive no public funding, or rely on volunteers. For those that have been able to reopen between lockdowns, social distancing measures have severely limited income,” Art Fund writes on its campaign page. 

How Museums Can Adapt and Innovate

Together for Museums intends to assist the UK’s museums, galleries and historic houses in adapting to COVID restrictions. “This year we’ve seen how determined museums are to rethink how they work, make their venues Covid-secure and take exciting projects out into their communities, despite enormous challenges,” writes Art Fund. “They can only do this with continued support. Now is our opportunity to help them survive – and shape a brighter future.”  

Donations will therefore finance alternative and COVID-safe ways for museums, galleries and historic houses to open their collections. Funding will go towards “facilitating everything from pop-up museums and outdoor exhibitions to learning resources for home-schooling.”

Already, Art Fund’s emergency funding has been assisting stricken museums over the past six months. For example, it enabled the Roald Dahl Museum to make its collection accessible to students who can’t visit in person. It also allowed Aerospace Bristol to create a digital storytelling experience and Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art to commission emerging artists. However, these emergency funds that totaled £2.25m are now exhausted. Many more museums still need financial help to ensure they can survive despite the coronavirus restrictions.

In order to do so, the latest crowdfunding campaign now hopes to “empower so many more to respond to this crisis with creativity and reimagine a better future.”

Art Fund Gets Support from Leading Artists to Save UK Museums

Several artists are collaborating with the campaign by offering artworks and products as donation incentives. Donations of £25 receive a set of tea towels designed exclusively for Together for Museums by David Shrigley. At the £100 mark, donors are rewarded with a special-edition Michael Landy print. Landy, one of the Young British Artists, explores socio-political issues of consumerism and commodification of art through his work. 

Renowned artists Lubaina Himid and Anish Kapoor have also contributed works. Himid, who won the Turner Prize in 2017, explores themes of marginalized cultural histories and identities through her art. She was an early contributor to the UK’s Black Art Movement in the 1980s. In 2018, she received a CBE for services to art. Her signed, limited edition print The Blanket of Reasonable Luxury will reward the first 50 donations of £500. 

A donation of £4,000 will receive a limited edition Anish Kapoor print, numbered and signed by the artist. Kapoor, a leading contemporary British-Indian sculptor, specializes in large scale installation art. His immediately-recognizable public sculptures use abstract, organic shapes and curved lines. Kapoor has said his monumental sculptures, “occupy the territory, but the territory is an idea and a way of thinking as much as a context that generates objects.”

Applications for Art Fund’s previous £2.25m emergency funding totaled £16.9m. This meant only 17% of museums and galleries in need were able to receive financial aid. Those institutions whose urgent requests did not receive funding can now apply to the Together for Museums scheme. The fundraising will continue until March 2021 and has already succeeded in raising 32% of the target amount.