Cutting the creative state: funding changes threaten the cultural future of Melbourne, arts workers warn

‘The arts are in a really sad, grim place’ … Anne Virgo is chief executive of the Australian Print Workshop, which for the first time in its 44-year history will no longer receive arts funding from the Victorian government. Photograph: Joel Carrett/AAP

Late last year, there was a palpable tension among Victorian arts organisations. Rumours were that one of the most important arts funding rounds was going to be a bloodbath.

They were right.