Week 5 - Introduction to Funding and CIC

Today was a day I’ve been looking forward to ever since Damien sent out the plan earlier this week. The plan was to run through ways of accessing funding, an area of development that is not covered throughout my university course. Specifically, we’re going to be covering the ways in writing application forms and also the various government initiatives out there that support the arts.

Firstly, we started off the day studying the ways in which we can apply for funding via the Arts Council, I spent about an hour analysing the examples they had on their website and asking Damien any questions I had that weren’t covered on the website. Damien introduced me to multiple platforms where you can find smaller pots of funding and also borough-specific arts funding. He explained the different ways to target each level of funding body and the projects that they each sway towards.

He later explained a government initiative called ‘CIC’, this initiative allows cultural projects to exist in disused commercial sites rent-free. This grabbed both mine and Jose’s (Muse Resident) attention as we understand the challenge young artists have in finding space and representation to develop their practice. After a brief introduction to it, myself and Jose jumped to the conclusion of collaborating on this, whilst also mutually agreeing on the green light. Damien opened a new chapter of my professional career whilst also at the same time, finding a focus for this internship program we can get our teeth into. A week today I will be meeting the director of Harlesden High Street Gallery, a project that Muse supports, and also a project that uses this exact initiative.