Philanthropists rally to support arts during crisis
Indonesia’s philanthropists are calling on their peers and businesspeople to support the arts financially, saying the pandemic – despite its adverse effects – presents a golden opportunity to develop the creative sector.
Indonesia Philanthropy Association (PFI) cochair Erna Witoelar said the COVID-19 pandemic provided a much-needed opportunity to develop the creative sector because cash-strapped artists were looking for creative ways to entertain a growing pool of frustrated people cooped up at home.
The South Australian Government will allocate an additional $10million to the state’s arts sector in a new funding package.
Announced today (September 24), the funding from the package will prioritise partnerships between artists and arts organisations, the reopening of theatres and festivals, the development and curation of new digital content, and mentorship. The new amount brings the state government’s funding for the arts to $20million.
The Israeli movie industry has been hit particularly hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Culture and Sport Ministry, in cooperation with Mifal Hapayis, announced Tuesday that it would allocate NIS 16 million to Israeli cinema.
The budget will enable Israeli filmmaking to continue and will provide jobs for an estimated 10,000 film industry professionals. It will also enable productions that were forced to shut down due to the coronavirus crisis to resume shooting.
The Federal Government has asked the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communications and the Arts to report on Australia’s creative and cultural industries and institutions and, specifically, to hear evidence on the benefits the arts bring to Australia, and the significant impacts that COVID-19 has had on this industry.
The Committee is currently accepting submissions including via an online survey or with longer submissions to the Inquiry.
The Federal Government has unveiled details around its $75 million RISE (Restart Investment to Sustain and Expand) Fund to help “reactivate” the arts and entertainment sector.
Federal Arts Minister Paul Fletcher yesterday announced guidelines around the package, which is part of the government’s larger $250 million arts recovery package for Australia’s creative economy, announced back in June.
Screen Australia will launch a new fund next week to cover additional costs associated with implementing COVID-Safe plans. Known as the COVID-19 Budget Support Fund, it will be specifically for projects that are: are green-lit, in late stage development or pre-production and intending and ready to go into production within six months of application and would be eligible for one of Screen Australia’s existing factual and scripted funding programs, including episodic scripted drama (including web series), feature films and feature documentaries.
SEOUL, July 8 (Yonhap) — South Korea on Wednesday pledged to support its arts sector hit by the new coronavirus with 156.9 billion won (US$131 million) during the second half of 2020, including grants to cash-strapped artists and discount coupons for shows and events.
The fund is part of the 35.1 trillion-won supplementary budget allocated by the government in response to the COVID-19 crisis. It is nearly half of the total 346.9-billion-won fund procured by the culture ministry from the government’s third extra budget passed last Friday.
The Australia Council has announced the latest resource in our Re-ignite suite – Re-activate: beyond step three.
This resource sets out industry standards and protocols for the arts and cultural industry to consider in preparation for moving into the next phase of Australia’s response to COVID-19
Following its announcement on Friday 3 July, Creative New Zealand can now provide more details about its COVID-19-driven investment plan for the next 12 months, ahead of August openings.
The programme is designed to be flexible in an uncertain environment, while offering support and funding across the arts community as it builds its resilience and adapts to new circumstances. A number of these opportunities – for individual artists, arts practitioners, arts groups and arts organisations – will open on Monday 3 August, with others to follow.
The Australia Council for the Arts has announced a new fund of approximately $500,000 to support and invest in First Nations arts and cultural groups experiencing disruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic. First Nations arts and cultural groups and organisations can apply for grants upwards of $25,000 through the Cherish Fund.
Film workers and artists who are affected by COVID-19 will be receiving social assistance, in the form of food packages from the government.
“These film workers have had no income for almost four months, as there are no film or soap opera productions, (they are) certainly very affected,” said Minister of Social Affairs Juliari P Batubara in Jakarta on Monday.
Creative New Zealand has dug deep to respond to the extraordinary volume of applications for its COVID-19 Emergency Response Package, investing an additional $13 million in its now closed first phase of arts funding.
Arts Council leadership on Friday (5 June) approved the organisation drawing on further reserves to increase its total Phase 1 investment from $16 million to $29 million.
With the Australian performing arts ecology entering its 12th week of shutdown due to Coronavirus restrictions, Live Performance Australia (LPA) has released a two-year, $345 million plan to revitalise and rebuild the sector.
The package includes a six-month extension of JobKeeper for freelancers and casuals who can demonstrate they are unemployed because of loss of industry work due to COVID-19; capital investment in performing arts companies and productions to help them re-start and re-open; and incentives to encourage Australians to return to live performance events.
GEORGE TOWN — Penang government has released a set of guidelines to reopen arts and cultural spaces, emphasising on social distancing and other public health requirements mandated by the federal and state governments.
In a statement today, Penang Tourism, Arts, Culture and Heritage Committee chairman Yeoh Soon Hin said the Public Health Safety Operations Guidelines for Arts and Culture Spaces comprise key considerations to help arts and culture organisations make decisions on operations and programming during the COVID- 19 pandemic.
WUHAN－Since mid-March, Gao Wan’e has been busy collecting items demonstrating China’s collective efforts in the fight against the novel coronavirus pandemic with her colleagues in Wuhan, Hubei province, previously the nation’s hardest-hit city.
“Middle Australia” regards arts and culture as essential to its way of life, according to a new report out today, as cinemas, theatres and institutions grapple with the challenge of getting people back into their buildings with the future easing of COVID-19 restrictions.
Western Australian artists will share in a $1.5 million coronavirus support package which includes an acquisition program and the creation of an archive featuring prominent living WA creatives.
Through funding from the Art Gallery of WA Foundation, the new initiative will provide support for living West Australian artists represented in the State Art Collection and Aboriginal art centres across the State.
The creative industries have a critical role in a modern economy. Creative industries include the traditional arts, but also broader sections of the economy that have been hit hard by COVID-19.
Victoria has major strengths across the creative industries. Our small to medium and independent sector is described in the Victorian Government’s strategy as a creative powerhouse, globally-connected, innovative and a source of local pride and enjoyment. Victoria is the national focus of visual and performing arts, music and design. We account for about half of Australia’s television drama production and half of Australia’s digital games sector, but much is at risk.
SINGAPORE: The National Arts Council (NAC) has committed to sustained levels of funding for arts organisations, said Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Culture, Community and Youth Baey Yam Keng in Parliament on Tuesday (May 26), as he acknowledged the sector had been significantly affected by COVID-19.
SINGAPORE – A digital presentation grant for the arts in the time of Covid-19 has supported more than 60 projects so far, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Culture, Community and Youth Baey Yam Keng told Parliament on Tuesday (May 26).
It was a suicide attempt by a middle-aged harmonium player Suhas Das (name changed) in Howrah late last month that sent shock waves in the performing artistes community across India. There was no food at his home and no resource to get any. In a conversation with Kolkata-based sarod player Tejendra Narayan Majumdar, the musician somehow managed to mention how he was depressed since the lockdown began. There was no work, no stipend and the savings were already gone. Then there was the matter of dignity. “How does an artiste, who has so much to give to the world by way of his art, put out his hands and beg for money to get food on the table? Even the poorest of them would want money in return for a concert or a music class. They are wealthy in terms of their art. The pandemic drove him towards attempting suicide, and it was difficult and painful to come to terms with,” says Majumdar, who was so shaken by the conversation that he called his friend, Kolkata-based flautist and additional superintendent of police in Baruipur, Indrajit Basu, and requested that this artiste be reached and provided financial assistance.
Tehran, May 19 (efe-epa).- Doctors depicted as soldiers on the battlefront alongside more intimate images of them missing their families or caring for the sick are some of the tributes to medics by Iranian artist Alireza Pakdel.
Pakdel has produced around 80 illustrations since the Covid-19 crisis erupted in Iran in late February.
His work, which is shared on his Instagram account @alirezapakdel_artist, has reached a worldwide audience and has earned him countless thanks.
Artists, arts workers, and art museums and galleries in Australia are some of the most severely impacted in the current COVID-19 crisis. While our arts sector is known for its vibrancy, its ecology is fragile at the best of times. It doesn’t receive the level of government funding that the arts do in many Western countries, or the level of philanthropic support.
The model is somewhere between public and private, and the sector survives on support pieced together from many different sources – institutional support, government grants, donations, sponsorship, earned income and ticket sales, along with a lot of good will and volunteerism.
India’s prominent folk artists have released a series of paintings to spread the message of social distancing and hygiene to prevent the spreading of coronavirus, writes Sudha G Tilak.
Working during the lockdown, which has now lasted more than a month, a group of folk artists and craftspeople across India have produced these illustrations and paintings in traditional styles.
The Copyright Agency has announced it will be releasing $375,000 in grants and bringing forward to the first quarter of the next financial year (July – September 2020) $1.8 million worth of grants under the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.
The move to support writers, visual artists and publishers will provide relief to individual artists in the nation’s arts industry, particularly amid recent national and state government funding announcements largely geared towards supporting small to medium arts enterprises. The Copyright Agency will aim its funding toward moving arts events and festivals online, supporting emerging literary and artistic works focused on early 2020 Australian crises and supporting artists and writers affected by the global pandemic.
A group of artists trying to raise awareness of the COVID-19 pandemic have been charged with blasphemy and subjected to online vitriol from Buddhist hardliners after posting photos of their work to Facebook.
Artist Zayar Hnaung apologized online last night, saying he was a Buddhist with no intention to of insulting Buddhism with the mural in Myitkyina, Kachine state, which shows health workers trying to rescue the world from a robed representation of the disease as death.
The National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) is set to give out P4-million cash assistance to artists and cultural workers displaced by the coronavirus pandemic.
Under the “NCCA’s Assistance Program for Cultural Workers Under the State of Calamity,” around 800 beneficiaries will receive P5,000 each net of tax to help them during the extended quarantine period.
SINGAPORE – An $8 million fund launched by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) will create more production opportunities in the coming months and, in turn, protect the jobs of media professionals.
The Public Service Content Fund is part of a series of initiatives introduced by the authority to help Singapore’s media sector tide over the Covid-19 pandemic.
Exhibitors will be exempted from paying the usual 3 percent cinema development fund fee on all ticket sales, and studios will be able to recoup some funds lost due to canceled shoots or delayed releases.
Read our blog about Coronavirus effects on music industry and streaming. While Live concerts are being cancelled, streaming is forecasted to take over.
“In the last weeks we have seen our cultural and creative sectors suffer enormous damage as a result of the unfolding COVID-19 crisis that has seen public gatherings, performances and exhibitions cancelled in the interests of public health,” said the Australia Council’s CEO Adrian Collette. “We must do all we can to support the arts community, for whom the impact of COVID-19 is catastrophic. Venues have shut their doors with little or no notice, organisations have been forced to cancel their programs and activities, and hundreds of thousands of arts workers have had significant negative impacts to their immediate and future livelihoods.”
The Cultural Affairs Bureau (IC) and Cultural Industry Fund (FIC) held a meeting last week to discuss various measures to support the cultural and creative industries hit hard by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemic, according to a statement by the two government entities on Saturday.
SINGAPORE: About S$1.6 million will be set aside for the arts and culture sector as part of support for the community amid the COVID-19 outbreak, and to prepare the sector for “post-disease recovery”, announced Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Culture, Community and Youth Baey Yam Keng on Friday (Mar 6).
China, South Korea and Japan are beginning to reopen some of their museums now that their aggressive lockdowns, quarantines and testing regimes have curtailed the spread of coronavirus (Covid-19). Shanghai’s public contemporary art museum Power Station of Art (PSA), best known for hosting the Shanghai Biennale, reopened today—as did the Shanghai Museum, also state-backed. Both have been closed since late January, when all of mainland China was put under lockdown to contain Covid-19.
Hong Kong proves its resilience with major players in the arts ecosystem coming together to launch an online activation of events in the city this May. Announced in March 2020, ART Power HK is an organically grown, collaborative campaign from the Hong Kong art community with a desire to maintain momentum for the Hong Kong art scene.
The New Zealand screen industry has formed an action group and a screen-specific online information hub in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Screen Sector Covid-19 Action Group will address the immediate effects of the pandemic on the industry following the hiatus of a number of large international line productions, although many “essential” productions in New Zealand remain operational.