Felicity O’Connor at work
The Australia Council has delivered $5.2 million in grants to 166 individual artists, groups and small to medium arts organisations, providing a boost for creativity at a critical time.
“Creativity will be crucial to Australia’s recovery from the impact of COVID-19, and this is a timely investment in creative activity that connects all Australians during and beyond the current crisis,” said the Council’s Executive Director, Arts Investment, Alice Nash.
“It is wonderful to be able to deliver this good news to successful artists and organisations to support the continued development of new work and artistic practice at this challenging time,” Ms Nash said.
She noted the strong success of First Nations artists and the diverse range of projects and activity supported saying that among the 166 diverse projects funded, the grants would support:
* Backbone Youth Arts Association toward its 2020 program, Lingua;
* Vitalstatistix Inc toward its Bodies of Work (2020-2023): creative development lab;
* Rhyan Clapham aka DOBBY toward the development of his first full album, Marshmallow; and
* Kill Your Darlings literary journal to support payments for emerging and established contributing writers.
Ms Nash said the Australia Council had received 1,183 applications for this grant round, which were peer assessed by more than 100 industry experts nationally.
The Council had worked with applicants to assess the viability of projects in the context of COVID-19 and would continue to assist artists to vary and extend timelines as needed, she said.
Ms Nash said the Australia Council Resilience Fund, which opened in April, had already delivered a further $1.8 million to 485 artists and organisations.
The Fund would provide more than $5 million to give artists immediate relief to support livelihoods and practice during COVID-19, she said.
Applications for the Resilience Fund will remain open until 28 May with the Australia Council to announce further details of its direct investment programs and opportunities in the second half of June.
