Funding culture, connecting communities
Brighton & Hove's cultural life is shaped as much by bus timetables and fares as by artistic vision. If funders are serious about access in 2026, travel support needs to move from the margins of the budget to the main line.
Embedded artists are moving into planning departments, housing teams and public health work — not as decoration, but as civic colleagues. Brighton & Hove has a real chance to fund this properly, with fair pay, clear accountability and a long enough horizon to matter.
The grant cheque gets the ribbon-cutting and the group photo. The hard part starts the following week, when the room still needs to be paid for and the person who ran everything is quietly falling apart. A frank look at what sustainability actually asks of Brighton & Hove arts projects.
Pub function rooms, church halls and community centres carry a huge share of Brighton & Hove's cultural life, yet almost none of them appear in a funding strategy. Here's who runs them, what they actually need, and what a small civic venue fund could realistically buy.
Brighton & Hove now has something happening most weekends from April to October, and a fair few in between. More culture should be good news. So why do artists, volunteers and half the audience feel like they're running a relay they never signed up for?
Public art in Brighton & Hove is commissioned through notices, scoring matrices and panel meetings most artists never see. This is a look at how the money actually moves — and why the city's own makers so often end up on the wrong side of the shortlist. Not a complaint. A list of things that could change by next spring.
Brighton's outdoor arts season is still budgeted as though summer were a guaranteed delivery partner. A practical look at weather-resilient staging, licensing, access and why the promenade deserves commissioning in February as well as July.
Every time a studio block becomes flats, the city loses something it cannot rebuild. An argument for treating artists' workspace as infrastructure – and for creative land trusts, community ownership and planning conditions with actual teeth.
From Portland Road to Elm Grove, independent shops are clearing their windows for local artists — and getting footfall, colour and a story in return. Here's what a shopfront gallery actually involves, what retailers really want, and how to pitch one without cornering a manager on a Saturday.
Small grants are landing in neighbourhoods that cultural funding has historically skipped — and the effects go well beyond the artwork. We spent time in three estates to find out what targeted funding changes, what it can't fix, and what should happen next.
Most cultural policy is built around people who already decided to turn up. That's a mistake. If Brighton & Hove wants belonging rather than just footfall, it should commission for the passer-by — the person on the 5B who wasn't going to a gallery today.
Everyone tells you to 'apply for a grant' as if there's one door marked Grants. There isn't. Here's how the small funds, seed pots and micro-commissions actually differ in 2026, how to pick the one that fits your idea, and what assessors quietly mark you down for.