After the closure of the Nantes site of the Regional Contemporary Art Fund (FRAC) Pays de la Loire last March, the Visual Arts pole is in turn confronted with the consequences of the regional financing decreases, whose subsidy represents 70 % of the operating budget. The community allocates it this year 64,000 euros, against 123,000 euros in 2024, a decrease of 52 %. And it will remove all of its grant in 2026.
Voted on December 20, this “Radical decision was made without consultation”According to Nathalie Le Berre, ex-director of the Visual Arts pole, licensed in early July. The association did not wait for the notification of the Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs (DRAC) – which decided in May to lower its subsidy to 15,000 euros in 2025, against 30,000 last year – to consider, in January, the economic dismissal of the 4 employees of the team.
“The Pays de la Loire visual arts center is the first national network to have brought together the whole ecosystem of the sector”recalls Nathalie Le Berre. The association, which today has more than 300 members, works to structure the sector in the Pays de la Loire region. This concerns the realization of studies and observations (in partnership, for several years, with the sociology laboratory of the University of Nantes) allowing the production of socio-economic data essential to the knowledge of this professional ecosystem; the production of resource tools, such as roadmaps and guides; The individual and collective support of members, the establishment of professional days and individual meetings. The current situation arouses strong concerns among members: “The actors are very afraid of the return to isolationexplains the former director. It is an atomized sector with significant precariousness ”.
With an overall budget divided by two (it was 266,000 euros in 2024), “We must completely rethink the project, the way of doing collective from the strength of volunteers”explains Nathalie Le Berre. Elected officials on June 13 during the Regional Assizes of Visual Arts, the 10 members of the new board of directors met on June 30 in order to develop the new roadmap of the association. This team will have to think of short and long -term actions, the next regional elections being scheduled in 2028. Smart consolation, the Foundation of France granted it emergency aid of 30,000 euros to perform its vital functions.
