Guest Blog: Kathryn Bilyard On New Fund ARTCRY

Imagine you're an artist. You're reading an article on the bus declaring that the Government is very proud of its response to Covid-19. You're reading about refugees "invading" our shores, or that Parliament has been prorogued, or your local MP has just voted against pay rises for nurses and key workers. The head of the Government legal service has just resigned, Community Infrastructure Levy money is not being released into your community, your studio is being evicted to make way for a hotel.

You have an idea for a piece of work. It's urgent. You need £100, £500, £2k to create an exhibition in that building's window next week and tour it to other at-risk buildings. Or you need money to stage an evening of poetry and exhibit artwork from the refugee group you work with, or hire battery-powered lights so that in two weeks' time you could light up every building in your community which has benefitted from investment from CIL funding to celebrate the impact.

Or you need to pay for rehearsal space to develop the piece of theatre that you're creating that responds to a recent Government announcement. Or you need funding in order to pay yourself to make and edit a film about key workers in your community and send it to your MP before they vote again. To make costume artworks with the laws that are under threat of being disregarded, and pay dancers who create a moving human exhibition between Westminster station, Parliament and 70 Whitehall to raise awareness and add pressure to those conversations.

But but but it'll take a couple of weeks to get some partners together and write a funding application and six weeks at least from there to get a decision. The moment passes.

There is a gap in our funding structures and it is a barrier, a huge and often insurmountable barrier, to artists making work responsively. So here's the idea: a new fund. It's a rolling fund. It has as simple an application process as possible while still asking what the project is. It's run by artists, creatives, and activists. It actively supports taking risks. It will give answers on applications in seven days. It's funded by us. Because if there was ever a time for artists to be part of our national conversations it is now, and the conversation moves incredibly quickly.

There are two very important backdrops to this idea. The first is where the seed of this idea found its roots and that is that, no matter where you sit on the many different political lines you could draw, we don't often carve out a space and actually listen to a different opinion. Our opinions are re-enforced back to us again and again and everyone digs down into their trenches. I do fundamentally believe that creative responses can have a chance at carving out a space, helping to open people's minds to consider an opinion other than their own. Because art creates a distinct and different space to enter into as an audience member, and the more we can get artistic responses into the public realm the better.

The second is that the Covid crisis has made it very clear that we need to rethink how funding works. There is a clear and immediate need - for freelance artists especially - to be able to access funding directly, because with funding comes autonomy and agency. I am a producer, and I don't want to do myself out of a job here, but there is a fundamental problem when it is so difficult and complicated to access funding that many brilliant artists don't even apply. It's a problem when it's as hard to try to get £500 as £5,000. We need means to put funding straight into the hands of the artists and to create ways to be more responsive to the world around us.

So, today we launch ARTCRY - a new fund specifically supporting urgent artistic responses to current social and political events. We aim to raise and distribute £50,000 in the first year of operations, and all artists from any discipline at any stage in their career are welcome to apply. Work must be free for audiences and presented in the public realm and be time critical. The fund will encourage and support artists to create responsive work with fast-turnaround funding which enables fast action. ARTCTRY will fund small grants (up to £5k), and decisions on which applications get funded are made within a week of applying, so that artists know within seven days whether they have received funding so they can start work.

We have a host of fundraising initiatives and events running for the month from today (5 October) up to 5 November. After that, artists can visit www.artcry.co.uk to find out about how to apply for funding. And if you're reading this and able to donate, then please consider visiting our crowdfunding page at www.crowdfunder.co.uk/artcry - it's a really good cause, partly because artists really need the support right now, and partly because political messages communicated well can change the world

No matter where you sit along the many political lines you could draw, we are no doubt facing vital and complex questions about the future of the country, the way our democracy functions and how we relate to each other face to face and digitally.

Personally, I always find my mind opens when I am faced with a creative response. Whether I agree or disagree, it makes me consider a question and pushes me to think more deeply. Art can offer a glimpse into a story far beyond our own lived experience, which can change perspectives. I think we need this now. We need artists who can shine a light and startle some sense into the world with radical, inspiring ideas. And we need to encourage and support each other to do it.

Let's work together to create new streams of funding with what we have now. Let's live our values, let's encourage creative thinking, listening and active creative citizenship. Let's take back control because it's time for real change.

Find out more at www.artcry.co.uk

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