Placemakers* Gold Coast, the city’s leading independent arts organisation, were recently selected as a key delivery partner for the Queensland Government’s exciting new stART Grant Program. This vital initiative has provided crucial support to the arts industry with over $500,000 worth of funding to be provided to 160 selected applicants across Queensland.

Today the 15 successful applicants from the Gold Coast have been announced!

The stART Grant Program was established by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland to support the state’s independent creative practitioners including artists, artist collaborators, producers, designers, technicians, freelance and other arts workers impacted by the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Placemakers*Gold Coast CEO and Artistic Director, Rosie Dennis, together with Tristian Schultz, a co-director and founder of Relative Creative and Jo-Anne Driessens from City of Gold Coast were part of a panel that reviewed more than 50 applications from Gold Coast artists.

The grant called for all eligible Gold Coast creative practitioners to apply for the stART Grant Program in mid- June and today the successful applicants have been announced.  The 15 local artists will receive $3,000 each to support their practice.

GOLD COAST WINNERS OF stART GRANT PROGRAM FUNDING:

Mint Art House: Planning and development of a semester-long program of summer workshops and artist-talks in Burleigh Heads.

Mayella Dewis: A First Nations podcast where creatives and artists can discuss their experiences, successes and failures within a western framework.

Thomas E.S. Kelly: Proud Bundjalung-Yugambeh, Wiradjuri and Ni-Vanuatu man who uses mostly dance, film, theatre, music, puppetry and teaching. He will be upgrading equipment to aid his video and music productions for ‘Shake A Leg’, a series of dance classes made for everyone and other works in development stages.

Eduardo Knox: Development of a specific sculpture titled ‘Umbrella Effect’ for the Swell Sculpture Festival 2020.

Jayne Fenton Keane:  Develop writing on a site-specific work for Binna Burra and Lamington National Park with local artists.

Shannen Jones: Creation of an aluminium handstand and contortion table and creation of a new circus contortion act marketed towards corporate entertainment and events.

Marcel Lim: Exploring and learning artistic photography and learning to produce editorial images.

Guy Cooper: Capturing the artistic sounds of the Gold Coast in 3D Ambisonic surround sound and 360 Video delivered in a digital website-based project.

CJ Anderson: Is a designer focusing on furniture and objects based on the Gold Coast and will purchase equipment to continue ongoing creative developments in scale and scope.

Rebecca Ross: Continued creative development supported by technology upgrades to sustain artistic activities.

Thea Skelsey: Creation of tapestries to materialize a current story of time and place.

Aaron Dexter:  Continued development in being a stunt performer for film and television.

Dat Ly: A qualified dancer who is purchasing equipment to develop portfolio’s for other artists.

Sally Wright: Purchase of new materials to development new artwork for a SE QLD Arts space.

Josie Feingold: Circus workshops and shows in schools.

“The announcement today that these 15 talented artists have been selected to receive a stART Grant is simply fantastic news and will support these talented creatives in pursuing their goals.  The funding provided by Arts Queensland has truly assisted in injecting some life back into our industry that has been crippled since March.  Congratulations to all the successful applicants, and all the artists who applied for the grant.  The talent pool on the Gold Coast is astounding!”  said Placemakers*Gold Coast CEO and Artistic Director, Rosie Dennis.

In April, Placemakers* Gold Coast also announced further support for the Gold Coast arts community when they revealed their new project ‘Behind The Golden Doors’ in response to the challenges faced by the industry due to COVID-19.  Gold Coast artists working in performance, dance, music, visual art, screen and sound were called to submit a concept of work to Placemakers* Gold Coast with 12 artists receiving $3,000 each to produce and present their work at a new salon series later in 2020.  The selected artists will present their work in September.

For more information visit:  http://placemakers.org.au/current-projects/