Image courtesy of the Arts Council for Long Beach.
The Arts Council for Long Beach announced Thursday that its 2017 Risk and Innovation Grant application and guidelines are now available on the council’s website. A total of $4,000 in grant funding is available, and will be distributed as four awards of $1,000.
Last year’s grantee was local filmmaker Donovan Vim Crony, who was able to complete his narrative short film about young punk rockers of color, Anarchy Nowadays, with the $5,000 award.
Marco Schindelmann, president of the Arts Council at the time, said last year that the grant offers the council a method to fund projects outside of mainstream culture, and offers artists an opportunity to take risks with their work.
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The Arts Council made the decision to split the grant, which is entirely funded by individual donors, four ways this year to inspire more engagement with the community, specifically regarding the current political climate, said Lisa Desmidt, marketing and grants manager for the council.
“It could be any kind of project in the community with any of the types of art that we have in the application, so visual art, performing art, literary, media, multi disciplinary, folk or traditional,” Desmidt said. “So we’re really looking for more community engagement with this particular project.”
The grant has also changed in that only individual artists, collectives and groups can apply, compared to last year’s allowance for larger organizations such as nonprofits.
“The Arts Council believes in the transformative power of the arts,” stated the announcement. “Through the Risk and Innovation Grant, we invite our creative community to explore problems in our city, nation and world.”
Local artists, performers, collectives and groups, can approach their projects three ways, by either using an issue they care about to create a work of art that communicates their perspective, by learning about an issue that does not impact their daily life and making a work of art that generates awareness around that issue or using social practice to bring people together for a collaborative, creative effort, according to the Arts Council.
Applications are due by Sunday, April 30. Applicants must select a date between June 1 and September 30 to present their project to the community, if selected.
For more information and/or to apply, visit the website here.