Re:Frame Visual Arts Analysis
Project Board Statement - June 2026

Brighton & Hove has a vibrant visual arts history and an active and exciting community of artists, galleries and organisations. The city is home to a significantly higher number of artists and arts organisations than the national average, the home of world-class creative education institutions, and has a civic identity defined by creativity. Despite this strength however, the visual arts in the city face significant challenges, reflecting changes seen across the sector at a national and international level.

In response to this, Brighton & Hove City Council (BHCC) and Arts Council England (ACE) in collaboration with Brighton & Hove Visual Arts Coalition (BVAC) and Brighton & Hove Culture Alliance (BHCA), commissioned Cultural Associates Oxford to analyse the city’s visual arts sector, documenting its strengths and acknowledging its challenges, and then make a series of strategic recommendations to secure a confident and sustainable future. 

To facilitate this, a project board was convened featuring representatives from stakeholders across the visual arts sector in the city. Project board members spanned national funding bodies, local government, studio providers, artist and community networks, artistic fabricators, research institutions and independent researchers, collectively taking responsibility for reporting back to the sector and inputting on the production of the Re:Frame analysis.  

Whilst the board provided operational direction, direct engagement with visual arts stakeholders in the city was paramount, and Re:Frame is the product of extensive dialogue with local artists, arts organisations and institutions. As detailed in the report, an open survey allowed anyone working in the sector to share their experiences, whilst two targeted in-person ‘Innovation Sprint’ events invited a broad spectrum of stakeholders to interact directly with the consultants and project board. You can read more about these engagement process and outcomes within Re:Frame. 

We hope that the sector finds the data and observations of Re:Frame useful as material to be redeployed in strategic documents and as contextual evidence for funding bids, project proposals and advocacy for the sector, and that its recommendations spark new collaborations and leadership opportunities for different groups across the city.

A significant direction to Cultural Associates Oxford when commissioned to lead this work was that recommendations should be able to be owned by the sector and not rely on additional direct investment from either Arts Council England or Brighton & Hove City Council, as public funding is under extreme pressure in the current climate.

To begin the sector conversation on taking these recommendations forward, the project board wanted to indicate the activity engaged in so far and highlights where there are opportunities for new collaborations and leadership from the sector. It reproduces the ‘Phased Summary’ table from pp.80-81 of Re:Frame with additional notes indicating direction of travel and live projects. The board sees this as an operation in transparency, and a way to ensure that the report is actioned further and has the impact required to help stabilise and develop the visual arts sector in Brighton & Hove.