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Eight diverse NSW arts projects have been awarded more than $3m in funding under a new Creative Australia initiative.
Big winners in the inaugural round of the four-year project include Wollongong’s Merrigong Theatre Company ($750,000), The Cad Factory, based in Sandigo north-west of Wagga Wagga ($634,000), and Marrickville company Erth ($551,000).
The Creative Futures Fund has handed out nearly $8 million nationwide and will award a further $11 million over the next three years. It follows widespread criticism of the organisation from the arts sector after the sacking and reinstating of Khaled Sabsabi as Australia’s representative at the Venice Biennale next year.
Erth’s artistic director Scott Wright with his five-metre shark puppet.Credit: Wolter Peeters
Scott Wright, creative director of Erth, which specialises in immersive puppetry-based shows for children said the “pretty hefty” sum would make a huge difference in how they can present their project, Shark Dive.
“But one of the most amazing things was that it is really more about acknowledgement,” added Wright, who founded the company in 1990. “We know our peers were on the assessment panel, and it just feels nice to be acknowledged.”
Shark Dive was created for the Sydney Festival two years ago at the Australian Museum.
“We put people in a shark cage and swam a four-metre great white shark puppet around the cage,” said Wright. “It was sort of tongue in cheek because we were creating the work from a desire for conservation and for better understanding of sharks. We were actually not trying to create fear.”
The cash injection from the Creative Futures Fund will allow Erth to expand the scale of Shark Dive and reach a much larger audience.
“We want to show it to 500 people or a thousand people in an hour as opposed to trying to get 500 people through a day,” said Wright.
Fund director Wendy Martin said winnowing nearly 300 expressions of interest down to the final 19 recipients required a rigorous and structured selection process.
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“I’ve commissioned many works in my life, but I’ve never had to do it through such a process, and I found it really interesting,” she said.
Martin was struck by the diversity of the projects put forward, with practically every possible art form represented.
“It was an incredible snapshot of what’s going on out there,” she said.
Lismore-based Northern Rivers Performing Arts (NORPA) is another successful applicant. Its project, Dinner Party at the End of the World, is a multidisciplinary exploration of the town’s courage and resilience following the devastating 2022 floods.
“The project is now engaging with 21 artists and there will be over 150 participants engaging with workshops and creative developments around the subject,” said NORPA artistic director Julian Louis.
“The impact was both personal [NORPA’s own premises were destroyed] and widespread throughout the community. But there was a selflessness, there was community gathering, there was a different economy at work. We want to express that through this piece.”
Louis wants Dinner Party at the End of the World to be the first work presented at the company’s new 3000 sq m home in the centre of Lismore.
Applications for the next round of funding will open shortly.
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