Gibraltar 'perfectly placed' to strengthen economy through the arts

An Irish organisation that has spent nearly four decades brokering partnerships between companies and artists says Gibraltar is “perfectly placed” to use the arts to boost its economy, social cohesion and international profile.

Valerie Ringrose Fitzsimons, Head of Business Development at Business to Arts, was on the Rock for a number of meetings with local stakeholders and for a presentation to artists and businesses held last Thursday at the Fine Arts Gallery.

Speaking to the Chronicle she said that Business to Arts, an Irish membership-based charity, has shown that a structured collaboration between corporations and cultural organisations has transformed Ireland’s artistic landscape.

“For me, it’s all about connecting people and helping them tell their story,” she said.

“There’s no better way of doing that than through the arts. And even better when you have creative corporate collaborations.”

Business to Arts was founded in 1988 by leading Irish companies from the banking, insurance and property sectors. Today it has over 300 members, including around 200 arts organisations and around 100 corporate members.

Many of these corporate members support bursaries, commissions and curated collections designed to showcase contemporary Irish artists inside workplaces.

One flagship collaboration is Women on Walls, a long-running partnership with Accenture and several academic institutions including Dublin City University, University College Cork, the Royal Irish Academy and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.

The project has commissioned portraits of women in science, technology, engineering, medicine and the humanities to redress the historical imbalance in institutional portraiture.

“For generations, the walls largely had men only, as if women’s contributions never existed,” she said.

“We’re righting that now, and those works will be there for generations to come, inspiring young people.”

Business to Arts manages the commissioning process, liaising between funders, institutions and artists.

She explained that the experience in Ireland is that every €1 invested in artists generates a €1.40 social and economic multiplier.

She argued that arts funding is not “a nice-to-have”, but a strategic tool for economic impact.

Tourism can see increased visitor spend, extended stays and higher local consumption, while social cohesion can benefit with the provision of positive outlets for people from disadvantaged or marginalised backgrounds, including those with physical or intellectual disabilities.

Business too gains innovation, diversity, creativity and other elements for employees.

“It’s a gorgeous way for people to channel their energies and their creativity in a positive way, so that ultimately everyone benefits,” she said.

She added that Ireland’s international literary success, with the high number of Booker Prize winners per capita, was an example of how sustained investment in culture can translate into “soft power” on the global stage.

Turning to Gibraltar, she praised the work of the Fine Arts Association and the “beautiful” gallery space in Casemates, but stressed there was scope to go much further.

“Gibraltar is such an exciting cultural hub of so much talent and energy… and a great business centre,” she said.

“I see further room to support the arts here, not just the visual arts but also the performing arts, for the benefit of everybody.”

She suggested Gibraltar could leverage its tech, financial, legal and professional services sectors to back local artists and organisations.

They could use culture as a soft-power tool to enhance its image abroad. And offer richer cultural experiences to cruise passengers and visitors, encouraging them to stay longer and spend more.

She also suggested that, as in Dublin, the arts could be used to reanimate urban centres, particularly as traditional retail weakens in the face of online shopping.

Public art festivals and performances, she said, can give people new reasons to come into town, stay longer and spend locally.

She also spoke about how the Irish government has underpinned arts development with targeted fiscal and social policy.

Among the measures cited were artists’ tax exemption (earnings from artistic work are exempt from tax up to €50,000 per year) and tax relief on donations when companies donate to registered arts charities.

For example, corporations in Ireland can make a €1000 donation and claim back €125, calculated at the jurisdiction’s corporate tax rate of 12.5%.

In addition, if a business purchases or commissions a work of art and displays it in a publicly accessible space for eight years, it can write off 12.5% of the cost against tax each year.

Ireland has also launched a Basic Income for the Arts scheme, where artists selected through an application process receive €325 per week for three years.

The scheme is “already seeing huge benefits to the mental and physical health of those artists,” she said, while also reducing dependency on social welfare.

This is one aspect the Fine Arts Association hopes to address with the Government locally too.

Environmental sustainability is another element, with Ms Ringrose Fitzsimons stating that many artists are responding to climate change through digital art and new media and that some festivals in Ireland are being explicitly themed around sustainability.

“If you had an outdoor event, you could potentially bring sustainability into it,” she said stating that messaging and design could encourage audiences to take responsibility for their impact.

Regarding promising young artists from Gibraltar who may struggle to find viable pathways to continue their practice at home, she said that bursaries are making a comeback and that corporate bursaries of around £10,000 or €10,000 can act as “game changers” for emerging artists, providing a year’s worth of focused work leading to a body of work or an exhibition.

This helps artists to stay in the field rather than drifting into unrelated employment.

“Handing that amount of money to an artist, they can make great use of it,” she said.

“They’re startups themselves. They know how to invest that money in materials and studio space very wisely.”

While Ireland’s Business to Arts operates as a privately funded charity, she also noted that, in the UK, there a similar organisation known as Arts & Business which combines public and private funding.

These models could offer templates for an eventual Gibraltar-specific structure bringing together government, business and the cultural sector.