Press release - 25 January 2005

A challenge to government - the NCA Arts Manifesto is launched

The National Campaign for the Arts (NCA) will tomorrow launch its Arts Manifesto at Tate Modern to an audience of artists and arts professionals from across the sector. The Manifesto speaks as the collective voice of the arts world, in all its diversity, as the lobbying document for the sector in the run up to this year's general election. It will be used to elicit commitments on arts policy and spending from the major political parties by demonstrating the power of the arts vote.

Launched by Joan Bakewell, recently appointed as NCA Chair, the Manifesto is the culmination of 18 months of extensive consultation into what the arts need from the next government in order to be sustained and developed as a key element in our national culture. The document outlines comprehensive, realisable goals for cultural policy which all political parties can incorporate into their own manifestos. Underpinning the document are two broad aims - the arts as a sustainable career and as a pleasure for life. The Manifesto will be used by artists and arts organisations from across the country to lobby government at a local and national level and will distributed to politicians, policy makers, think tanks and party strategy units to ensure that it reaches as many key decision makers as possible.

Victoria Todd, Director of the NCA said: "the Arts Manifesto speaks with one powerful voice to politicians. It unites the forces of the arts constituency, raising a banner under which those who care about the arts can rally."

Joan Bakewell, Chair of the NCA said: "The Arts Manifesto puts forward strong, imaginative and achievable objectives, that will improve the quality of life for everyone. The arts don't cost a great deal, but their worth is beyond measure. Politicians should wake up to the fact that the arts can transform lives and enrich communities. They should pledge their support now. "

The document has the public support of some of the country's leading artists:

Antony Gormley, artist: "Art is the most powerful way that life expresses it's joy, anger, yearning and without it we are unable to be fully ourselves. Sustaining and valuing art is essential to any responsive people and particularly their elected governments".

Michael Morpurgo, Children's Laureate: "Now more than ever it matters that the arts reaches out into the entire community, to children in particular, for they are all our futures. A rich cultural life stimulates, informs, provokes, and enables, and must surely be the most significant civilizing influence on any society".

© NCA 2005

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