Source: nadinemuller.org.uk
With the Australia Council for the Arts announcing its grant recipients this week in several categories, it raises the question – what happens to all those good ideas that didn’t get funding?
Part of the answer is pure economics. Some projects are just too expensive to realise without funding assistance. Perhaps they get rolled onto another application via another funding source, or simply are shelved until opportunity again presents itself.
Kate Denborough, co-founder of Melbourne physical theatre company KAGE, said: ‘As a performer, I would rely 100% on successful funding outcomes to get a project up.’ She added however, ‘As a maker, I am less influenced by funding grants during the research and development stages of creating new work as this is often an ongoing, life long journey of exploration and discovery. As soon as I want to collaborate with anyone else, however, I would rely 100% on successful funding outcomes to get a project up.’
It was a sentiment Candy Bowers, Director and performer at Black Honey Company, shared. She said, ‘I am not consistent in my approach – I ebb and flow. Last year I won one grant for $30k, which covered around 10 Artists on a project and all of my other endeavours were covered by royalties and earnings. The year before Zero. Recently I was successful in two grants, so next year is more reliant on grant winnings.’
Bowers added that at a glance, ‘Over last 12 years I’ve probably won about 200k worth of grant monies, sunk about 500k of my own money, and had 50k worth of direct commissions.’ So the reliance on grants to fund her projects was ‘sometimes a quarter, sometimes half, sometimes none.’
For others the business of applying for grants has other purposes.
Visual artist Mai Nguyen-Long said, ‘For me the most useful thing about a grant app is that it forces me to crystallise my ideas and assess the representation of my practice in a broader context.’
Nguyen-Long said, ‘I understand that a constructive way of understanding the grant application treadmill is that it is a way of placing your artwork in front of the powerbrokers, forcing them to take notice and consider your practice.’ She added, ‘It is a pro-active way to keep yourself on the radar.’
One might ask how much of this is the result of an over-professionalisation of the artist with their multi-degrees and nurtured ability to frame their work didactically.
‘I like to think of it as proposal art,’ said visual artist Tony Twigg. ‘Art that ticks all the right boxes and reads well in the vernacular of institution-speak, but should the funding not come through, the passion for many evaporates quicker than sweat and the next proposal is already in draft.’
Twigg added, ‘The desire, in fact, is for the funding not the project. The fact that there are grants on offer encourages the creation of projects that satisfy the grant requirements.’
Are artists simply applying to throw their hat in the pot in the hope of financial aid, especially as the costs of living and producing continues to escalate?
While doing a residency with Red Gate Gallery in Beijing last year, a fellow artist spent the entire month in her apartment writing grant applications for the next gig. Her head was constantly elsewhere rather than absorbing and engaging in the moment.
Are grants and residencies merely a means of survival for some artists? While there is a truth in this reality, the majority of projects envisaged and tabled through grant and residency applications are an attempt to extend an artist’s realm.
Nguyen-Long said, ‘I was brought up to believe making art is a luxury and a choice. If this choice is made it is the artist’s responsibility to self-support, not to seek money from the state.’
Denborough said, ‘For me the ideas and integrity never changes, just the scale and number of people able to be involved is what often needs to be flexible in relation to funding.’
Bowers said, ‘A lot of my time is spent reading about grants to see if my work will fit them or not. I’ve never made anything because a grant exists.’
Tamara Winikoff of the National Association of the Visual Arts (NAVA), which has published an annual guide Money for Visual Artists, now in its 11th edition (2012), said, ‘Artists use grants in a great variety of ways; to secure opportunities to expand their exposure, fund (artistic) development and earn income.’
Winikoff added, ‘One of the trickiest things of public and private sector funding, is the need to cleverly articulate an idea, which will often be the deciding factor. This can be difficult for people for whom visual expression is their primary form of communication.’
Nguyen-Long said, ‘It takes a lot of courage to be an artist and perhaps a tad more courage to be an ‘un-endorsed’ artist.’
She added, ‘Whilst funding makes the making so much more feasible and perhaps encourages outcomes to be slicker, bigger, glossier, more ambitious, innovative, inclusive…I’d like to believe it is not too idealistic to think there is space for non-funded projects in the realm of societal contribution – despite the financial pain and shame.’
Denborough seemed to agree, presenting the majority view, ‘It’s not easy to get funding anywhere.’
Bowers said, ‘Subsidising or gaining philanthropic funds isn’t easy- it’s a job and some are better at it then others. There’s an enormous amount of talent needed.’
NAVAs guide (free online to members) lists over 700 grants, awards, prizes and residencies reiterating that despite our feelings of a shortage of cash, there is an enormous funding pool out there to dip into.
The competition, however, remains fierce, not unlike a lottery – the edge is in the proposal. The integrity is to carry it through.
