The lift at the Glynn Vivian is being replaced, and not before time: British Art Show 10 arrives in February and the gallery runs across five floors.
The £250,000 for the job is the biggest of eleven awards to venues from Carmarthen to Ystradgynlais in the first round of the Arts Council of Wales‘s Arts Capital Investment Fund, announced on Wednesday, which shared £8m of Welsh Government money among 58 organisations. The Arts Council says the lift is “urgently required” to keep every level of the gallery open to visitors.
Across Swansea, Neath Port Talbot, Carmarthenshire, Bridgend and the top of the Swansea Valley, the money adds up to just over £1m.
Swansea: £602,000 across five
Swansea Print Workshop gets £224,681 for structural repairs, including money towards a new roof. Mission Gallery on Gloucester Place gets £54,000 for renovation work and a survey of what the building needs next.
Tŷ Tawe, the Welsh-language centre on Christina Street that opened in 1987, gets £36,300 through Menter Iaith Abertawe for a permanent modular stage, a raised wheelchair-accessible viewing platform, stage drapes, a lighting rig, LED house lights and an induction loop. The Arts Council calls it “Swansea’s only venue offering a regular programme of professional Welsh-language arts activity”.
C3, the Centre for Creativity and Culture, gets £36,900 to kit out its Creative Hub studio with production and digital equipment and put in a modern heating system.
Neath, Llanelli and the valley
The Gwyn Hall in Neath gets £40,500 to replace technical equipment. Ystradgynlais Miners’ Welfare Hall gets £40,000 to survey the risks to the building and draw up design proposals.
PeopleSpeakUp in Llanelli gets £40,000, but the project is in Carmarthen: a feasibility study on turning the former BT building on Spillman Street into an “artist incubator hub”. Arts Care Gofal Celf in Carmarthen gets £2,162, the smallest award in Wales, for specialist software.
Bridgend: Tanio and the Grand Pavilion
Tanio in Bettws gets £99,823 for renovations and planning its next phase. Awen Cultural Trust’s £199,552 covers three venues, with the bulk going on stage, sound and performance equipment for the Grand Pavilion in Porthcawl ahead of its reopening after redevelopment; £42,193 goes on seating at the Met in Abertillery and £31,400 on equipment at Y Muni in Pontypridd.
The rest of the fund, and what’s next
Elsewhere, Welsh National Opera took the largest single award, £510,000, and Newport City Council £396,900 for the Riverfront Theatre, where the announcement was made. Cabinet minister for culture Heledd Fychan said the fund was “about more than bricks and mortar, it’s about safeguarding the venues and spaces that bring people together”.
The fund reopens at 9am on Thursday with a further £2m, taking this year’s total to £10m, and closes at midday on 19 October. Applications go through the Arts Council’s funding page.
It follows a February round in which Elysium Gallery took £227,000 for the second phase of its move into the former JT Morgan store and the Grand Pavilion £678,000, on top of £1.5m the year before.
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