A reprieve for Inverleith House?

Edinburgh’s Royal Botanic Gardens have today posted on the Inverleith House web page announcing the creation of a Working Group in partnership with Creative Scotland to look into the ‘development of arts and cultural engagement’ in the former gallery space. The statement highlights the importance of financial returns for the building, a difficult proposition for a space formerly dedicated to the promotion of free, cutting edge contemporary art to the general public. 

The statement concludes by reaffirming the RBGE's commitment to changing the purpose of Inverleith House from a contemporary art focus, dashing the hopes of the thousands of signatories to the peitition to keep the space open. There has been no public response to the widely shared open letter published by Product Magazine, which posed 23 questions to the Board about, amongst other things, transparency and the use of public funds.

No mention is made of whether Val Kilmer’s intervention was the catalyst for the reassessment, or indeed if Leonardo DiCaprio’s recent trip to Edinburgh is somehow connected.

Here’s the statement in full:

Following discussions between Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE), the Scottish Government and Creative Scotland it has been agreed to establish a short life Working Group to advise the RBGE Board on the strategic direction of its programme for arts and cultural engagement across RBGE that would include, but not be restricted to, exhibition making at Inverleith House. The Group will be convened by an independent Chair and will be tasked with establishing a clear vision for the development of an arts programme that would align with and amplify the core mission of RBGE and that would be achievable and sustainable within the current financial climate.

The Group, which will include senior staff from RBGE, Creative Scotland and invited expert advisors will be asked to: review the current position and approach of the RBGE with regard to exhibition making and other arts /cultural activity; to establish an informed view of programming possibilities; to test and establish a series of options for wider consideration by the RBGE Trustees at their meeting in June 2017.

This Working Group is the next stage in the development of the future events and exhibitions programme at RBGE and follows a decision by RBGE Board that Inverleith House would no longer be dedicated to exhibiting contemporary art.

In reaching this decision RBGE Trustees gave careful consideration to the Report “a Future for Inverleith House”, the purpose of which was to make recommendations on how a programme of contemporary arts exhibition might be might maintained and developed, addressing audience development, public engagement and financial sustainability.

The Board noted that Inverleith House had built up an excellent reputation as a contemporary art gallery. However, it was the view of the Trustees that the financial model proposed in the Report was high risk, required further financial investment and included untested assumptions. They further agreed that the need to increase income meant that it was no longer appropriate for RBGE to subsidise a dedicated contemporary art gallery. Although the Board did not accept the central recommendation of the Report, a number of options for making Inverleith House more relevant to and integrated with the work of the Garden were suggested and will be considered as the future events and exhibitions programme is developed.

Although the Trustees cannot continue to support Inverleith House as a venue dedicated to contemporary art, RBGE remains committed to being an art venue across the board, be it for botanical art, illustration, performance, photography, sculpture and contemporary art.