The National Trust issued a statement about proposed spending cuts this week. As a result of expecting to lose nearly £200m in revenue this year, the charity is planning to cut more than £100m (nearly 20 per cent) of its annual expenditure, through greater efficiency savings, and making up to 1,200 members (some 13 per cent) of its staff redundant. The Trust has already announced a recruitment freeze and the deferral of projects amounting to £124m. The organisation’s director general, Hilary McGrady, said, ‘We are going through one of the biggest crises in living memory…and like so many other organisations the National Trust has been hit very hard.’ The plan for budget cuts and proposed redundancies is now subject to a 45-day consultation period.
At Leila Heller Gallery in Dubai, Indian contemporary artist Manish Nai invites viewers to reconsider the materials that surround them. In In Search of Material within Material, a solo exhibition bringing together works created between 2021 and 2026, discarded objects, industrial surfaces and familiar everyday materials become the starting point for an exploration of form, memory and transformation.