At 10am on Tuesday, the staff of London's Lux Centre were called to a meeting with the board. An ominous sign in itself, it turned out to be the last point of contact with anything one might recognise as a working reality for the people who worked at the centre: people devoted to the exhibition, distribution and production of film and video made by artists.
Staff were greeted in the cinema by board chairman Mik Flood, vice-chair Pauline van Mourik Broekman, secretary Roland Denning and a representative of PricewaterhouseCoopers "Business Recovery Services". What unfolded and its aftermath defies rational thought, but not description.
After a lengthy period in the Arts Council of England's recovery programme, we were informed that the Arts Council would no longer support the organisation. There was, apparently, no way through the difficult financial situation we'd been working under for nearly a year without having to spend twice as much as the Arts Council was prepared to spend. We were to cease operations with immediate effect. Lux staff were told to go home, without pay or notice periods.
A two month cinema programme beginning that evening was cancelled in its entirety; the current gallery exhibition was closed immediately; artists and editors working mid-edit were told to leave; colleges and institutions waiting for films from Lux Distribution were to cancel courses; the organisation was to vacate the building. Contract cleaners appeared from nowhere, suddenly turning out cupboards full of toilet rolls, bleach and numerous vacuum cleaners.
By 2pm, the shutter was down and a locksmith had been called. Individuals might be invited back to wrap up their departments, but access to the building would be by appointment only. The cinema hoarding still displays a text by the artist Ken Lum, due to give a talk in the cinema that evening: "HALLELUJAH! JESUS NOW WATCHES OVER THE LUX!"
Cold comfort that closure came two days after payday. Little solace that Europe's most important archive of artists' film and video is behind bars. We just had to cancel a programme that included artists and film-makers from all over the world: Canada, the US, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Belarus, memorial screenings for the much-loved film-maker Sandra Lahire and a week of the London Film Festival.
The Lux is not yet in liquidation. Our man at Pricewaterhouse-Coopers will be working towards an arrangement with creditors that will provide the "basis for a future Lux". It's just that "the Lux" has no employees, which somehow makes one wonder.
There is little to be said but many questions to be asked of our government's much-vaunted Film Council building a "strategy for cultural cinema" while never supporting the only exhibition space dedicated to just that. Many questions too for the Arts Council, the BFI, and the National Lottery money provided to set up an art centre in a rented building, subject to rent increases negotiated at open market rates.
In the meantime, and in defiance, we are determined to continue to promote, exhibit, make and distribute the work we believe in.
• Ian White was until Tuesday the curator of the Lux Cinema.
