South London Gallery, Corsica Studios and ballet company Rambert are among the south-east London cultural organisations that have been awarded more than £12m in government funding as the country emerges from Covid-19 lockdown, writes Kit Heren…
More than 135 groups in Southwark, Lambeth and Lewisham have been given about £12.5m through Arts Council England as part of the latest stage of the Culture Recovery Fund.
Rambert, a contemporary ballet company based on the South Bank, has been given £393,000 for community dance classes and rehearsals for new work online.
South London Gallery in Peckham, which won the Art Fund Museum of the Year in 2020 and specialises in modern art, got £193,000. The gallery said it would use the money to plan and present exhibitions and events when it reopens.
Nightclub and live music space Corsica Studios, in Elephant & Castle, got £125,000, which will support the venue’s mix of online and in-person events.
Elsewhere, educational arts charity Peckham Platform landed just over £89,000 for skills training for young people between 16 and 21. British Youth Music Theatre, also in Peckham, got £82,500 to fund its summer 2021 programme, including training camps to “find the next rising star”.
BYMT’s patron, the actress Zoë Wanamaker, said: “Fantastic news. BYMT has been awarded a grant in the second round of Arts Council England’s [Culture] Recovery Fund.
“This grant will help to underpin our Summer Season; enable the commissioning and creation of new work – [ten] productions taking place around England this summer, including Halifax, Ipswich, Plymouth and London.”
It comes after the News also reported last week that Rotherhithe’s Brunel Museum was given more than £89,000 as part of the Culture Recovery Fund.
In Lambeth, the Young Vic theatre got nearly £220,000 to help staff reopen safely, and launch an interactive digital platform for people to watch performances at home. Brixton-based “Youth-culture” radio station Reprezent was awarded £115,000 for artist training and live broadcasts. Rapper Stormzy is among the station’s alumni. The Florence Nightingale museum at St Thomas’ hospital was given about £64,400.
The museum’s director David Green said: “The trustees of the Florence Nightingale Museum and I are very grateful for the support of the Cultural Recovery Fund, which has made an immeasurable difference to our survival.
“Whilst deeply ironic, the threat of losing the museum at a time when the global nursing professions which Nightingale inspired were working so hard, was sadly very real twelve months ago.
In Lewisham, music venue the New Cross Inn was awarded £112,500 for live-streamed events and future socially-distanced performances.
Some 2,700 cultural institutions across the UK have been awarded about £400m in grants and loans in the latest round of recovery funding.