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Arts cuts "disastrous" for Liverpool, says festival director

Next week marks the beginning of a month of literary events across Liverpool to celebrate the re-opening of the city’s Central Library. Starting with World Book Day on 23rd April, Liverpool will host a range of high-profile authors, speakers and artists to celebrate the two-year renovation of the library and to introduce new talent.

Bdaily spoke to the ‘In Other Words’ festival director, Madeline Heneghan, from community organisation Writing on the Wall (WoW) to talk about Merseyside’s thriving arts community and how further government cuts could spell disaster for the region.

“In Other Words came about through a decision made by the city council, and Writing on the Wall was asked to curate the festival.

“The library will re-open officially on Liverpool’s Light Night, which is the 17th May. World Book night also then came on board on 23rd April. So the council decided to have a celebration between those dates with a literary festival.

“It’s going to be a fabulous celebration and there’s going to be something like 350 events to mark the library re-opening. I’ve been into the building and it’s absolutely beautiful with state-of-the-art facilities. We’ve been taking people in on small tours, including community groups, and it’s really exciting to be a part of it all.”

WoW is a partially funded social enterprise that has existed in Liverpool since 2000. Madeline told us more about how the organisation works.

“WoW is very community driven. We aim to bring in high profile speakers, artists, thinkers, commentators, into the city, but for them to be very accessible at a community level.

“We’re known as being leaders in the field for having very diverse audiences. As well as bringing in the big names, we’re about helping to support the creation of new work and promoting that to audiences.”

The arts sector is a key component of Liverpool’s economy, with large organisations such as the Tate and the Philharmonic Hall standing alongside small and medium-sized bodies like WoW. As a former European Capital of Culture, the city prides itself on a blooming cultural scene. Madeline spoke about how funding was vital to keep this part of the economy alive.

“If Liverpool arts were hit by more cuts it would be absolutely disastrous. Not only for artistic production which is part and parcel of health and wellbeing, but it would have a significant impact on the local economy.

“There are 25 organisations who’ve formed a collective called the Creative Organisations of Liverpool. Just these organisations alone have an annual turnover of £6m, and we’re provided hundreds of jobs. It just shows how our collective turnovers impact on the local economy in a significant way.”

The ‘In Other Words’ will kick off on World Book Night on 23rd April and finish on 19th May to coincide with National Children’s Book Week.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Miranda Dobson .