Peter Hewitt, chief executive of Arts Council England, recently addressed the Arts Marketing Association annual conference, outlining the challenges and priorities he believes lie ahead for the arts. Central to his argument is that the arts can be transformatory. This is the transcript of his speech.
When I was a young boy, my family lived for a while in Ireland, just south of Dublin. I went to the local primary school. Homework every night included Gaelic but recognising that I was there for just a few months, the teacher – Miss Quigley realised that there was no point in me doing Gaelic. Instead, I had to learn a poem every night, and recite it to the class next morning. Many of the poems were challenging for a nine-year-old and I just learnt them by rote (or on occasions failed to learn them!).
