Creative Exchange closes – but will the network go on?

It is with great regret that we announce that Creative Exchange will cease operations at the end of July 2008 after ten years. The closure is due to a lack of ongoing financial support for its work. But we hope the network will have new life elsewhere.

Thank you to the hundreds of people and organisations around the world who have been Creative Exchange partners – some of you since the very beginning when we held an inaugural event at Church House in London in 1997. Your vision, moral support and contributions have been one of the major drivers of our work.

We also support a network of thousands via our email systems and website. The team are working to find a way of maintaining the web resource to enable others to build on the research and knowledge we have accumulated on Culture and Development.

To ensure that our network can stay in touch we also plan a social networking space, independent of the charity, where our existing partners can maintain debate and dialogue. We do hope to have a final event in London to celebrate our achievements, which will be open to partners, friends and supporters. Further details will be provided in due course.

Creative Exchange has struggled to secure resources to maintain its network and projects throughout its history. It has survived on ‘a wing and a prayer’ for too long. The future was looking increasingly insecure with a lack of funding for ongoing projects and also with the proposed departure this summer of its Founder and Director, Helen Gould (who is training to be an Anglican priest).

This year Creative Exchange has been faced by a financial double whammy – there is much diminished funding available within the arts sector, and especially for networks in the arts field. It is a loss to the UK’s international cultural networking capacity as London prepares to launch its Cultural Olympiad in August 2008.

We have also seen smaller scale funding for international development shrink considerably in recent years. The current economic climate has also put pressure on other sources of funding which disproportionately impacts on smaller charities.

Ironically, our closure comes at a time of gathering interest and support for Culture and Development within the UN system and EU. It is welcome to have the new UNESCO Convention on Cultural Diversity, which has affirmed the need to ‘incorporate culture as a strategic element in national development policies ..(and).. in international development cooperation.’ But there is a lack of institutional understanding of how to make this a reality on the ground: we would urge our partners and sister networks – especially in the southern hemisphere - to take up the challenge of influencing and informing these agencies with renewed vigour.

Arts and culture have always and will continue to have a role in social transformation. Culture is one of the social drivers behind human development – the arts help us to articulate our vision for the future and respond to the process of change. Arts and culture makes change human, rather than technical and strategic, and is essential for effective, people-focused, rights-based social change.

Thanks to you all. The Creative Exchange team wishes you courage, energy and above all, creativity, for the ongoing journey.

Helen Gould,

Director, Creative Exchange