Free movement of artists and creative work at stake

The free movement of artists and performers must be protected after Brexit, Sir Nicholas Serota and Tristram Hunt have urged. They were speaking in London at a conference for the Creative Industries Federation. Serota, who stepped down as director of the Tate last year to head Arts Council England, said there was a risk Britain would “stagnate” and become “irrelevant to a changing world” if it chose to shut its doors on a two-way flow of talent from abroad. His thoughts were echoed by Hunt, director of the V&A Museum and a former Labour MP, who said he was “deeply concerned with the impact of Brexit on the single European cultural market”. Serota said the referendum “also reminded us of how valuable international work and exchange has become for the quality, diversity and strength of our national culture. A two-way flow of talent is crucial to the arts in Britain. It is the interaction of forces that has made British culture so rich and increasingly complex”. He said that no matter what the outcome of Brexit negotiations, when it came to the seamless movement of artists, exhibitions and creative work in and out of the UK, it was vital to “retain the conditions that currently work well and extend these to artists and creatives globally, including those coming for short working visits. “We owe much of how we see ourselves — especially our romantic side — to the perspective of incomers,” he said. “Where would the visual arts in this country be without the contribution made by artists like Frank Auerbach and Lucian Freud in one generation, Chris Ofili, Mona Hatoum or John Akomfrah in another?” Hunt said that if barriers were put up to the easy lending of objects between European institutions “that will affect our capacity to operate as a global museum”. The V&A director also said the referendum result had highlighted a disaffection among regional communities with the metropolitan elite and metropolitan institutions and that it was now a “responsibility of national museums to reconnect with the hinterland”.