Culture Bank

Imagine Funding Creativity

Projects

What are the kinds of projects that Culture Bank members choose to support?

There have been so many projects funded by Culture Bank (too many to list here) but we started off with our first round that went out in August 2013. After a lot of lively discussion and debate, members opted to support art tours offered by Studio 19, SPATE 13 and a special project curated by the Austinmer Dance Theatre.

Culture Bank is not a large entity. We have the resources and funds to support small grants, often supporting “seedling” projects – which grow and develop into bigger things. Most of the projects funded sit around the $2000 – $3000 mark (and obviously $$$’s below). We like to spread our limited resources as far and wide as we possibly can.
Culture Bank members met to decide the successful funding applications for our March 2021 –
 
It was decided to fund Fault/Lines which is is a hybrid performance work created by In Transit Co. and members of the Wollongong community as a creative response to crisis. As a company they explore participatory processes to make large scale performance works. Their work focuses on how people interact with spaces, structures and systems that define human beings. The project asks a community to use art to respond to the idea of crisis (environmental, health, economic). It asks how we meet? How do we come to consensus? What is our collective responsibility?
 
Culture Bank members absolutely loved an idea called “Vaudevillawarra” which proposes using local artists to create a classic Vaudeville Variety show that includes Music, Comedy, Circus and Theatre. Taking the show to venues that Vaudeville and music hall shows were once performed in – community halls.
 
Members also decided to fund the project development of a 5 minute video of an “exuberant elder”. With a bigger vision of producing a feature length film documenting a range of creative, vibrant elders who demonstrate that getting older doesn’t mean you need to lose your spark. The applicant wrote “I am serious about developing the Exhuberant Elders concept into a disruptive philosophy on ageing, and I need a way to reach and impact as many people as possible to begin spreading the word. I want to tell stories of exhuberant elders – older people who make me unafraid to age”.
 
Culture Bank is providing funds to Screen Illawarra for a Festival of Film comprising a conference, networking, and screenings, designed to foster and promote the Illawarra and screen community. This financial contribution will effectively green light the project. Their aim is to make it an annual event.

 
Finally, Culture Bank also decided to fund The Short + Sweet Illawarra Theatre Festival, which will run over two performance weeks in July-August 2021. Short + Sweet Illawarra is open access and culturally inclusive, and with its ten-minute format in all genres, it seeks to return ownership of that vital story telling ability to the community.

Here are some other examples of projects Culture Bank had funded in the past:

The Dire Theatre Company, and the All Female Shakespeare project. Our members are therefore helped to establish a seed fund to ensure their project continued into the future. Their next project was based on a play “Anthony and Cleopatra” and was performed in two venues in Wollongong. Due to COVID -19 restrictions the project transitioned to on-line.

Misty Escarpment asked us to support her wish to perform jazz concerts in local nursing homes, for audiences who can’t get out to venues. Misty struck a cord with Culture Bank members when she wrote “I played a jazz concert recently and noticed a frail elderly woman sitting up front, curled up next to her middle-aged son. Her body looked contorted and pained, though she had the most beautiful, satisfied smile on her face. In defiance of her discomfort, she wore a slash of red lipstick which signalled, ”I’m going out for a good time regardless””. Culture Bank members proposed that this event could be “public” – so as to invite the broader community into the homes, to share the experience with residence, family and staff. Song programming for the two events, would consist of selective jazz standards that the audience would be familiar with, such as Girl from Ipanema, Take the A Train, Summertime.

Culture Bank received another application that said “Our vision is to get everyone across the Illawarra talking about enhancing their verges and gardens with beautiful local native plants!”. Urban Biodiversity Illawarra has been working for the last five years to develop an amazing website showcasing local native trees, shrubs and plants. They have a vision of a region where the local plants are grown absolutely everywhere for their beauty and their benefits for local wildlife. They wrote “We’re on the point of releasing the website but would LOVE to have a big public launch that gets it into everyone’s awareness. Imagine all our local streets populated with the stunning and hardy rainforest trees of the region! It’s ‘culture’ in a slightly unusual sense, in that the trees grow themselves, but we like to think that they will help create a more conducive environment for creativity of all sorts across the region”.

Lillian Pang got the thumbs up too, when she shared her vision for “Fabled Feasts” a bi-monthly storytelling event in Wollongong and surrounds. She wrote “Imagine an outdoor setting, tables, small stage area, sound system, food being prepared on the side. Strangers and friends arriving somewhere new – its never looked like this before. It probably wont again. Entrées served, music playing and an exchange between storyteller and musician begins. Words, song, sound dance as food is served. There is time between each story for talk. Time to change seats for the next course and the next story. Create community, a shared moment and then disappear into the night feeling full and warm”.

Earlier funding rounds have also supported local film screenings, a local record label launch and the major expansion of a writer’s festival – Including:

 
Anne-Louise Rentell to complete a draft script of The Siren Project in preparation for development process and public showing of work in progress in July 2018. The Siren Project is the working title of a new performance work which draws narrative inspiration from Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid and the local Aboriginal myth of the Story of the Five Islands. While quite different stories, both the indigenous and the western tale involve 6 sisters and 6 monologues which underpin this new work.

These stories have been collated through the Where Lies Beauty oral history project. Our members also decided to fund Cortex Journal a digital publication that hosts articles on science, philosophy, and culture, complimenting Wollongong’s emergence as a cultural hub. The vision is to blend thought from science, philosophy and art, especially promoting local content, writers and artists. They are inspired by the diversity of visions present across the arts and believe such an approach can be usefully applied to address political and social issues. Hoping to foster creative approaches to collaboration, especially across disciplines and schools of thought, and will publish creative and critical writings, as well as illustration, photography, and video. Funding was provided to support the creation of original artworks to celebrate the Omnibus poetry project and to gain more publicity for Culture Bank.

There was a public launch with poetry readings and a Culture Bank sign-up event. Funding saw a limited edition of art posters designed and printed, that include an Omnibus poem by Ali Jane Smith with original artwork by local artist Tania Maria Mastroianni. An animation was also produced by Tania Maria Mastroianni in response to Ali Jane Smith’s poem. A poster and launch was a powerful way to collaboratively develop and extend the life of the project; while also acknowledging our current Culture Bank members contributions, while looking to gain more (much needed) support from our community.

Culture Bank funded a theatre project called Elsie and the Bird. This performance was a character-driven circus show that explored mental health, sexuality and gender. The individuals involved work professionally in both circus and mental health in the region, and are making a circus work which invites local audiences into this discussion. As artists, they used their experience and expertise in circus to create a profoundly physical language – through aerial choreography and contemporary clown – which explores the overwhelming feelings of isolation and anxiety of a brilliant young person called ‘Elsie’.

Culture Bank members were also passionate about funding Lexicon Innovations for Parallel Lives, an experimental contemporary play that challenged the construction of meaning between spectator, performance and text. The work was new and it attempted to use one dramatic text to produce two very different stories, that will were understood at the end of the performance night.

Culture Bank members decided to financially back Baby Teeth Journal in it’s creation of a print anthology of emerging and previously unpublished local writers. The ‘Never Heard of Them’ Anthology engaged directly with the local arts community through a series of workshops and a launch event. While teaching valuable editing skills that will benefit participants in the future. Also while showcasing previously unheard voices, the anthology engaged with the wider community and shared life experiences, between people who would otherwise never have meet.

So far we’ve given away over $100,000 to these and many more innovative projects and we’re eager to do more! You can make that happen by joining us today or getting others to sign up!

Some of the projects Culture Bank has made possible:

Northern Illawarra Residents Action, Aboriginal Tent Embassy Concert, Exposure Arts and Media
Austinmer Dance Theatre, Night Eats Day Wollongong Writers Festival, Solidarity Illawarra Aboriginal, Illawarra Folk Festival, Jobs for Women, South Coast Writers Centre Inc., Jam n Bread, Rentell, Anne-Louise, Warrawong Residents Forum Inc, Jennifer Macey Podcast Producer Journal, Queer & Now, N.R, Ozolins & A.J Pike, Love: Art, Ideas, M & P, The Story Line Pty Ltd, Short + Sweet Illawarra, Exuberant Elders, Vaudevillawarra Illawarra, Screen Illawarra for a Festival of Film, Magic Mountains, “Where Did You Sleep Last Night?”, Iso-Liloquize, The Purple Turtle, The Sketchy Sisters, Tasmin Witkamp, Enough Said Poetry Slam, Dumadjirii Arts Mogo, Pecha Kucha/MAP, Enough Said, Tender Cloth Project, Lexicon Innovations, Notes From Home, Podcast, Welcome to the A to Z of Wollongong Podcast, Fault/Lines
HONK! Oz Festival of Street Music (twice), A Mile in My Shoes, The OmniBus Poetry Project, Ali Jane Smith
Pride Tide, We Are Conjola, Where Lies Beauty Project, Fabled Feasts, Woman of Steel, All-Female Shakespeare, Misty Escarpment, Urban Biodiversity Illawarra, Elsie and the Bird, Parallel Lives, Never Heard of Them Anthology, Enough Said Poetry Slams, A Practical Guide to Self-Defence, Jacuzzi Workshop, Cortex Journal, Le Femme Fatales, Strawberry Boogie, Stella Prize, Wombarra Sculpture Workshop, Studio 19, SPATE 13, Austinmer Dance Theatre, Village Variety Revue, Jam and Bread, Wollongong Writers Festival (WWF), Film-based street installations/Joshua Wiffen, Queer & Now, Mel Wishart attending HONK! (activist street music) festivals in Somerville, Boston, Yours and Owls Music and Arts Festival
Local record label launch