Bizarre grants from Creative NZ
Creative NZ funds some pretty odd art projects. But in response to COVID-19 they’ve taken taxpayer-funded weirdness to new heights, with a new $16 million ‘Arts Continuity’ fund.
The Taxpayers’ Union has put together a list of highlights from the grants announced so far:
To research and write the first draft of a novel about male affection in hypermasculine spaces.
AWARDED: $13,000Towards the composition, recording and production of music inspired by the psychogeography of the West Coast.
AWARDED: $34,900To support the personnel costs and post-production editing for an art documentary based on Papua New Guinea tattoo practice and revival.
AWARDED: $27,500Towards writing a children’s picture book (text only) about sustainable community activist Helen Dew.
AWARDED: $3,200To create and develop an online publication, arts learning resources and musical content based on children’s drag theatre show, The Glitter Garden.
AWARDED: $18,000Towards intensive artistic research and development.
AWARDED: $49,368Towards the composition and instrumental arrangement of 10 songs for children, from ideas given by children.
AWARDED: $24,600Towards writing poetry that explores indigeneity and love in the time of climate change.
AWARDED: $17,798Towards writing a novel about the collapse of democracy in an association of alpaca breeders.
AWARDED: $26,000Towards a dance concept video showcasing the impact Coronavirus has had on the New Zealand Chinese community.
AWARDED: $24,500Towards the development of a first draft of a play that explores the menstrual cycle.
AWARDED: $16,766Towards an Indigenised Hypno-soundscape to take you to the imagined worlds of our Kōrero Pūrākau.
AWARDED: $49,999Towards development of a movement technique that guides and empowers the participants in becoming specialists in their own body.
AWARDED: $4,530Towards 3 x hour-long live-streamed electronic music performances with live visual animations, from a kitchen in Paekakariki.
AWARDED: $47,703Towards a wananga for Maori healing theatre practitioners.
AWARDED: $50,000Towards composing and recording ten original compositions inspired by emotions felt during the Covid-19 lockdown.
AWARDED: $8,885Towards development of a new body of work exploring modernism, feminism & queerness, with specific reference to the Otago region.
AWARDED: $30,089Towards revision and editing of a sailing memoir.
AWARDED: $7,200Towards a Māori, queer, young adult novel adaptation of Hamlet based on my innovative unproduced screenplay ‘Hamarete’.
AWARDED: $21,000Towards designing new Māori typefaces for print and digital.
AWARDED: $22,110Towards the writing, arranging and preproduction of music that forms a song-cycle from the suburban labyrinth.
AWARDED: $21,800
Someone ought to ask the Minister of Arts, Culture, and Heritage what she thinks.