Arts quango boss defends use of public cash for sex project
THE under-fire boss of Creative Scotland yesterday defended a decision to use taxpayers’ money to fund an explicit sex project.
Chief executive Iain Munro told MSPs the arts quango had not been aware the ‘challenging piece of experimental performance art’ would feature hardcore sex.
He told MSPs Creative Scotland had withdrawn funding after a public outcry over the Rein project’s explicit nature.
But he admitted it had failed to recover all of the nearly £85,000 paid to the filmmaker behind the project.
The organisation has not published the funding application from director Leonie Rae Gasson. But she disputes that Creative Scotland was misled.
In a letter to Holyrood’s culture committee, Mr Munro said: ‘Rein was originally supported in the knowledge it would be a challenging, creatively ambitious piece of experimental performance art, with a clear storytelling narrative, strong sexual themes and simulated sexual performance.
‘However, as became clear in March 2024 when the project team developed new content for their website and publicised that as part of a call-out for participants, one new and significant difference emerged which took the project into unacceptable territory.
‘That was the intention to include real sex, as opposed to performance depicting simulated sex, in the work.’
Creative Scotland took legal advice and withdrew the funding due to the change, he said. It had awarded the project £84,555, recovering about 90 per cent of the money as some had already been paid to third party freelancers. A total of £23,210 was also paid for the ‘R&D phase’ of the project which Creative Scotland is not seeking to recover. Earlier, the committee’s convener Clare Adamson had noted the ‘public concern’ about Rein and suggested that Mr Munro may now be called to appear before MSPs.
Opposition MSPs had called for all of the money to be clawed back and criticised Rein’s funding at a time when other cultural projects are struggling for cash.
However, those behind the project said they disagreed with the quango’s version of events.
A statement said the project had been ‘misrepresented’ and that ‘it would have been ‘a new, immersive art installation fusing moving image, multi-sensory set design and dance in an erotic exploration of lesbian and queer sexuality set in the Scottish landscape’. It added: ‘The artists do not agree they misled the funding body.’