Executive Summary

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About Ovada
Aims
Project so far
What do we mean by Visual Arts?
Contact

The Oxfordshire Visual Arts Development Agency exists to facilitate and promote access to high quality visual arts for all the residents of and visitors to Oxfordshire.

Ovada is the newly formed Visual Arts Development Agency for the City of Oxford and the County of Oxfordshire. We are an umbrella organization that will deliver some core work directly and some in partnership with others. Ovada is a not for profit Company Limited by Guarantee with a board of voluntary directors.

The organisation was formed in early 2004 in response to a number of concurrent opportunities in the cultural scene that represented a threshold moment.

In the preceding two years Oxford had taken part in the competition to become European Capital of Culture, achieving Centre of Culture status as one of the five short listed cities. The bid process brought together a group of key stakeholders for the first time: the City and County councils, both the old and new Universities and the Arts Council's regional office. Oxford Inspires now represents the shared vision of those stakeholders and through their achievements in the competition a substantial degree of momentum was created in the cultural sector. The scene was set for developing new opportunities with greater ambition - a major legacy of the bid will be in 2007, when a year long festival programme will celebrate culture across the County.

In 2003 funding for the development of Ovada was secured from the City and County Councils and from Oxford Artweeks. A freelance facilitator was appointed to work with the steering group (led by the chair of Artweeks) to develop ideas around the following core areas:

develop the visual arts infrastructure through expansion of the X-Change Gallery in Gloucester Green, Oxford
develop a county wide annual visual arts festival that would ambitiously build on the successful history of Oxford Artweeks, towards 2007 and beyond
create a new organisation to take this work forwards

The idea of creating a visual arts development agency emerged through this research, recognising that the core work around the gallery and the festival would have wider implications and should be closely connected to each other, thus ensuring that opportunities around fundraising, audience development, professional development for artists, infrastructure provision, education and so on are maximised.

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Ovada aims to

develop high quality visual arts in Oxfordshire
build the national and international reputation of Oxfordshire for the visual arts

We will:

increase the amount and quality of visual arts activity
develop a new visual arts festival Emergence 2005 as part of the plans for 2007 & beyond
develop new, diverse audiences and participants for the visual arts
attract more visitors to the County
provide an exhibition, events and related education programme
increase the amount and quality of visual arts activity
attract more funding to the County for the visual arts
commission and support the development of new work
provide support for the professional development of local artists
facilitate the development of the visual arts infrastructure
increase access to the County's existing resources
work in partnership with HE & FE colleges and other education providers

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The projects we are developing that will help us to deliver these objectives:

The Xchange Gallery redevelopment, expansion and design, providing city centre offices for Ovada and an exhibition space/hub for the new festival and an exhibition programme of work by local and regional artists. A programme of artists' residencies will take place at the Gallery all year round.
The Emergence 2005 visual arts festival. A new county wide visual arts festival season from April through to the end of September that will both include existing activities such as Artweeks or twinning, and commission new work, exhibitions and events from emerging and otherwise under represented artists.
Milk: a programme of flexible studio provision based on free or low cost studios that aims to provide opportunities for artists who are presently under represented. Artists will effectively be offered residencies that will aim to both expand the public understanding of contemporary practice and to diversify the local artist base.

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Progress so far:
The first artists in residence have started work at the X-Change Gallery and plans for the new Emergence festival in 2005 are underway with funding secured from the Urban Cultural Programme. Opportunities for local artists are published on www.oxfordarts.info and www.oxford-artsculture.net and details of how to contact us are below.

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What do we mean by Visual Arts?
We aim to work with a definition of visual art that is broad, inclusive and interdisciplinary (including live art, time based media, fine art, crafts, design, illustration etc.). During 2004/05 we are working with photographers, painters, basket makers, sculptors, sound artists, musicians and installation artists . . . we look forward to expanding that list further.

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Contact us:
If you would like to keep up to date with Ovada plans you can:

register on our mailing list (postal and/or email) for news and information about events and activities
continue checking this web site
ask for details of our Friends scheme
contact us if you are an artist living or working in Oxfordshire

Janine Charles
Acting Development Director

Ovada is funded by Artweeks, Oxford City Council, Oxfordshire County Council and Arts Council England South East.
The post of Development Director is supported by the Arts & Culture Initiative, Oxford Brookes University.

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