The Australia Council has released a statement clarifying a funding decision relating to the adult performance of Casey Jenkins’ IMMACULATE.
The Council’s statement rejects suggestions that it had overturned a peer-assessed funding decision in relation to the performance.
“It has also been suggested that the Australia Council has made this decision based on negative media coverage of IMMACULATE, or because of Government intervention. This is also not the case,” the Council said.
“The funding for IMMACULATE, an activity that was introduced as a variation to a peer-assessed career development grant, was rescinded because it was not in keeping with the original peer-assessed grant and created potential legal risk for the Australia Council.”
The Council said the original grant was awarded in the Council’s peer-assessed February competitive grant round. It was not provided through the Resilience Fund, as had been suggested in some media coverage.
“The original grant was for career development to support opportunities for international market development and presentation. It did not include IMMACULATE,” the Council said.
“The original grant required variation due to the impact of international travel restrictions arising from COVID-19.”
The Council said it had received an extremely high volume of contract variation requests due to the pandemic that were expedited quickly and with the commitment of being as flexible as possible.
“It was in this context that the variation request was approved before being sufficiently reviewed and escalated due to the potential legal risk of IMMACULATE as a new activity.
“Our process regarding variation requests has since been reviewed and adjusted,” the Council said.
“Grants for experimental arts are intended to explore challenging new concepts in the creation and experience of arts and culture. This sometimes can lead to uncharted legal and ethical territory.”
It said the expert peer assessors carefully consider this as part of their deliberations. The decision to fund IMMACULATE was not made by peers and did not have the benefit of this consideration.
“When details of the variation request were escalated, the Council sought advice to identify potential legal issues related to this activity,” it said.
“Legal advice identified the possibility that a legal claim could be brought in the future, and the Council determined this was not an acceptable risk for a corporate Commonwealth entity.”
It said the Minister had not directed the Council on the matter, nor was media coverage a factor in the decision.
