Celebrating the funding of creativity in the Illawarra !
Announcing the 5 successful grant applications from our recent March 4 Decision Dinner –and a BIG congratulations to everyone!! Even to those who were unsuccessful we wish the very best .We had an extraordinary 39 applications and many were heart-stirring. If we had more members – we could have funded them all. We think the following sounds like pretty good stuff.
POOTOPIA
KIM WILLIAMS & LUCAS IHLEIN
POOTOPIA is a functional toilet artwork for the Botanic Gardens ,showcasing the miraculous soil-building capacity of human manure compost .
“What if human excrement(humanure) was treated as a resource rather than a waste management problem? In our Pootopia project we are trying to reframe shit and wee as a good thing.When composted, humanure becomes a vital component of soil-one of the most valuable materials on our planet.
Inspire Music Australia :
A FIRST NATIONS CONCERT IN NAIDOC WEEK
Eric Avery in Concert with Emerging First Nation musicians NAIDOC WEEK SPECIAL at MUSIC AND TEA AT THE GALLERY
FELICITY WOODHILL
Eric Avery, Kabi Marrawuy Mumbull, is a violinist, vocalist, dancer and composer from Ngiyampaa, Yuin and Gumbangirr people of NSW. He works with his family‘s custodial songs, and his haunting compositions often feature him singing while playing the violin, predominantly in the Ngiyampaa language.
Eric has an international reputation, appearing alongside and in association with some of the greatest artists of our time, from Yo-Yo Ma to Tina Arena. He has commissions and performances booked with Camerata Queensland Ensemble Offspring, the Jack Quartet, Marrugeku and several of Australia’s major orchestras. He is a 2021 Myer Creative Fellow. We hope to create a concert that will make everyone, including First Nation people of the Illawarra, feel welcome and inspired by music and, of course, continue to generate progression paths for young musicians through the experience of performing with such an incredible musician.
SUSAN KENNEDY
To collaborate with local dance, theatre and circus artists to explore the transformative nature of engaging with art in a dementia setting.
The funding will allow development of this idea towards completing a one hour performance piece for the wider community.
This project excites me with its potential to:
raise community awareness of the value of creative engagement;
ease the fear associated with dementia;
remind our community of the value of art;
develop a section of a life affirming, one hour performance piece;
bring together dance, theatre and circus artists to collaborate and share skills and ways of seeing.I want to gather a group of about 10 artists from within the Illawarra area’s theatre, dance and circus community. This is exciting to me as while I work within each of these artistic communities, we are a little like floating islands, and I’m keen to see what happens when we devise together and cross fertilise our practice.
So I see a two pronged benefit to the community – a collaborative development between three very different artistic communities (dance, theatre & circus).
REAL MADE-UP STORIES PODCAST
Phillip Crawford
: Ear cinema stories and conversations from places a few blocks past the turn off to the Aussie “fair go”.
“Real Made Up Stories,” stems from over two decades of collaborative storytelling with individuals facing hardship and disadvantage in the Illawarra, mostly through Beyond Empathy Community Cultural Development projects. Using immersive audio storytelling, Real Made Up Stories revisits and reimagines fictional narratives co-created with individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Beats for the Blues
Yasmine Russell , James Spink , Maris Depers.
Hosting a Mental Health Music Festival to provide music and resources to uplift the community.
A safe, welcoming mini festival that will allow attendees to enjoy the link between music and their mental health. The aim is to bring together the community and provide them with the knowledge and resources needed to better support their wellbeing through Music, workshops and a Q&A panel, of which attendees can seek advice from local mental health professionals. The ripple effect of this type of event would begin to generate a more mentally healthy community and connected Culture.
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, 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, A Practical Guide to Self-Defence, Jacuzzi Workshop, Cortex Journal, Le Femme Fatales, Strawberry Boogie, Stella Prize, Wombarra Sculpture Workshop, Studio 19, SPATE 13, Village Variety Revue, Wollongong Writers Festival (WWF), Film-based street installations/Joshua Wiffen, Mel Wishart attending HONK! (activist street music) festivals in Somerville, Boston, Yours and Owls Music, and Arts Festival & Local record label launch,Beyond Empathy: Gammin at the Knockout,Oh My Goddess :Ali Jane Smith ,Dire Theatre Company: Radio Variety Hour , Circus WOW, True Story Festival ,Malika Reese “A Gentle Talk about Death for Little Ones” ,
What are the kinds of projects that Culture Bank members choose to support?
There have been many projects funded by Culture Bank, but we started with our first round in August 2013. After much lively discussion and debate, members opted to support art tours offered by Studio 19, SPATE 13, and a unique 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 possible.