(By Ruth O’Looney, TV Producer/Director)

Last week, the BBC series “Imagine” looked at an art ownership scheme that has been running in the UK for the last five years.

The Own Art scheme offers interest -free loans (up to £2,000) to people who want to buy contemporary artwork.  Organised and run by the UK Arts Council, 12,500 loans have been taken out since the scheme was initiated.    Anyone can apply for a loan and you can borrow as little as £100.  Each loan must be paid back over a ten-month period and no interest is charged. 

The aim of the scheme is to make contemporary works of art and craft affordable and accessible for people from all walks of life.  To date, 80% of the work bought through the scheme was fine art – paintings and sculpture – with the remainder being ceramics and jewellery.  The idea behind the scheme is very straightforward and, as is often the case, demonstrates that simple ideas are very often the best.  To date, Own Art has generated £10.5 million in five years and is perceived as hugely beneficial for artists and galleries in the UK.    

What were most interesting were the owners of all these pieces of art! Too often we only hear about the highbrow, high-end side of the art world.  Whether it’s Russian oligarchs paying millions for art at auction or struggling to understand what exactly a shark in formaldehyde means, many people think that contemporary visual art is something that very few understand and even less can afford.  The “Imagine” programme gave us an alternative view of the contemporary art world, a view that showed us that not everyone who collects art is a multi-millionaire.  The programme makers spoke to several participants in the Own Art scheme – a factory worker, a pig farmer and a policeman among others   – about their reasons for taking out  loans.

Several of the participants told how they had grown up in homes where art wasn’t a feature of everyday life but how over time they had come to recognise and love certain artists’ work.  Some had already been collecting work for years others were novice art collectors.  The scheme had allowed them the opportunity to buy art that otherwise might have been outside their reach financially.  To them, it wasn’t about keeping up with the Joneses’ or buying for investment’s sake.  Their art was personally meaningful; they engaged with it and felt that it made their home a better place.  It’s said that Art can Change Lives, the Own Art scheme idea helps make this a reality.

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