Emergency funding from the Arts Council

The MAC is extremely grateful for the emergency funding of £157,520 received recently from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and the Department for Communities and we want to thank the Communities Minister, Carál Ní Chuilín for bringing forward this much needed support. We now look forward to working with the Arts Council, Belfast City Council and our other funders to get back on our feet.

This funding will help the MAC to survive the devastating impact of Covid. Along with most other parts of society in NI, the arts sector is struggling to overcome the enormous challenges presented by the public health emergency.

The doors of venues of all sizes and in every part of NI closed almost 8 months ago; most of our stages, galleries and workshops have been silent and empty since then. The artists and other freelance professionals whose creativity, talent and dedication make possible performances, festivals, exhibitions and events throughout NI, lost their livelihoods overnight.

Despite the ongoing difficulties presented by the pandemic, the MAC is more committed than ever to doing all we can to achieve our goal of making Northern Ireland a better place through the creation and enjoyment of, and participation in brilliant art.

We can’t do this on our own and - what’s more - we don’t want to.

The MAC 's success will continue to be dependent on our ability to work in close partnership with the artists and producers who share our vision and want to work with us to help realise it.

Our funders fully appreciate that the business of making and enjoying art is an interdependent enterprise: venues don’t work without artists and audiences and vice versa.

We look forward to the imminent announcement of further emergency funding support for the entire sector.

Although we have been, for the most part, closed to the public, the building itself has been a hive of creative activity in the development of new work. In the short window when the MAC re-opened in September, we welcomed over 5,000 people to the visual art exhibition we presented in partnership with Ulster University.

And even though we have closed again we are still working with artists of every discipline in the creation of work which makes us proud and which we know enormous numbers of you throughout the UK, Ireland and beyond have been enjoying.

So, we want you to know that we’re still here thanks to the longstanding and continued support of the Arts Council.

We’re working hard.

And we are confident that we can play our part to make 2021 a whole lot better than 2020.

- Anne McReynolds, Chief Executive