Phyllida Shaw
1999

£4.00 + p&p, 32 pp
B/w illus
ISBN 978 0 903319 90 4
Buy from Central Books

Latent Talent reflects on the mechanisms currently used to spot and nurture talent in the arts in the UK and urges new patrons of that talent to extend their searches beyond the traditional sources. What happens to talented individuals without the qualifications to get into art school or music college? What about those who may never have thought of taking the traditional routes to recognition? How can the organisers of bursary and fellowship schemes ensure that they consider artists from varied educational and cultural backgrounds and of different ages?

The advent of the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) and its interest in supporting talented individuals has prompted discussion, in the arts, about where and how patrons can identify gifted artists and support their development. The Gulbenkian Foundation commissioned this report to draw the attention of talent-seeking patrons and funders to some of the opportunities available to artists to develop their potential outside the formal education sector.

Latent Talent focuses on arts organisations which have gone out of their way to identify talent in people who might not know they had it in the first place and to set them off on a trajectory from which they can fulfil the best of their promise. As with so much in the arts world, provision nationally is patchy and it is to be hoped that funding bodies will take note of these examples, give such dedicated organisations the right level of support, and seek to create more routes for fostering excellence.

Phyllida Shaw is a researcher and writer specialising in arts policy and management. She has worked extensively for the British arts funding system, arts organisations, central and local government, higher education institutions and charitable trusts and foundations. She is an adviser to the Baring Foundation on arts in education and the community and is a regular contributor to Classical Music and Artists’ Newsletter.