UK Jewish Arts Foundation launches to give spaces and funding to emerging artists
Foundation's goals are connection, collaboration and empowerment
Emerging artists, gallery owners, Jewish arts organisers and supporters gathered at Bloomsbury’s Crème Fraîche Gallery last week to celebrate the launch of the UK Jewish Arts Foundation (UKJAF). The event was hosted by gallery owner Mark Stevenson.
Tania Black, chair of the UKJAF Trustees opened the event. ““It’s great to have you all here and to celebrate something positive,” she said. “You are all here because you enable Jewish creativity in the UK. You are artists, producers, you build the platforms, raise the funds, run the spaces and commission the work. It is you who make it possible for artists to create and flourish.
“And tonight is the start of something bold, and a conversation that starts to bring us all together. We’re all storytellers… it’s what we do, whether through painting, through words or through music and we connect those stories to audiences. It’s always been about stories: how we tell them, who we tell them to, and what they reveal about who we are.
“Our shared task is to make sure that the next generation of Jewish artists – the next Mark Rosenblatt, the next Jessie Ware, Sam Lee or Liorah Tchiprout – have the spaces, the funding, and the confidence to create, to question, and to thrive.
“That’s what tonight is about. That’s what the UK Jewish Arts Foundation is about. It’s about connection, collaboration and empowerment.”
Tania went on to outline the UKJAF’s three goals. First, to start the Big Jewish Arts Conversation. Secondly to create the Jewish Arts Fund – a fund that would be a new model of philanthropy and partnership to support emerging artists, art collectives, and bold new ideas, to seed a genuine renaissance of Jewish creativity.
And thirdly to create The Jewish Arts Biennale in 2027- a national celebration across all art disciplines and across the country. This will put Jewish creativity centre stage and link UK Jewish artists to the global conversation. It will be a showcase for the brilliance, range and audacity of Jewish art, from established names to new voices.
Director of the UKJAF Alastair Falk said: “The idea for UKJAF came about from a realisation of the pressure on arts funding. This was long before the events of October 7 but, of course, the unanticipated outpouring of antisemitism post- October 7 further underwrote the need for the Foundation.
“The idea is to encourage new philanthropy for Jewish arts. In turbulent times there can be a scattergun approach but what is needed is a long term strategy, and a voice for the Jewish arts. Arts funding is always stretched, and we are not trying to take from existing funding, we are talking about encouraging new philanthropy for Jewish arts. If we can create even 10 percent of the amount at present raised in the arts world, and give this new money to Jewish recipients, it would create a quantum leap. The impact it would have would be phenomenal and would help a huge number of people.
“As the founder of Tsitsit, the Jewish Fringe Festival, I know there is a tremendous amount of Jewish creativity, but there has not been a unifying voice for Jewish Arts in the UK. The UKJAF is about creating a long-term strategy and that much-needed voice.
By the end of the evening several new partnerships had been forged and collaborations and exhibitions arranged for new work by talented Jewish creatives.
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