Three creators receive grants
September 7, 2017
What do a taxidermist, an Indigenous writer and a poet have in common? They are the three creators who have just received funding from the Copyright Agency’s Create Career Fund.
The Create Career Fund supports mid-to-late career artists and authors by providing grants that allow the time to develop new work. Grants are allocated in $10,000, $15,000 or $20,000 amounts.
Three creators were selected from more than 60 applicants to the latest round of the Create Career Fund, a stream of the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund.
Judge, poet Jill Jones, says “There was a wonderful diversity in the scope of the applicants’ projects and we’ve selected three that show great potential to be the career-defining work for these creators.”
The Create Career Fund grants go to:
- Jeweller, taxidermist and visual artist, Julia deVille, $15,000;
- Indigenous writer and historian, Sally Morgan, $20,000; and
- Poet, Margie (MTC) Cronin, $20,000.
Each of the creators have demonstrated a clear sense of their projects, and the significance which these new works will bring to their career, Jones observed.
Author Sally Morgan says “I’ve been collecting stories that examine the effects of colonisation on Aboriginal people for many years. To be able to dedicate time to present them as a comprehensive collection of linked stories in verse and prose is very special.”
Julia deVille is mid-way into preparing a major solo exhibition: Faunaphilia, which will be held at the Linden New Art Gallery in Melbourne in 2018. The show will include an infant giraffe preserved using taxidermy techniques and encrusted with jewels and beading. “This funding provides a wonderful support to my research in the realms of holographic art and augmented-reality,” she says. “By combining physical sculptures and holograms, I hope to engage viewers in an entirely new way.”
For poet Margie Cronin, professionally known as MTC, the focus will be more aligned with the everyday. In her new work:‘The Dictionary of Rescued Ideas, MTC is re-defining “things and concepts” that have been consigned to the ordinary. “My intention is to take readers ‘by surprise’ into new territories of meaning,” she says.
Cultural Fund and Reading Australia Officer Nicola Evans says, “We are thrilled to be offering financial support to these creators, each of whom is so unique in their practice, so that they can really commit time and focus to their projects. The Create grant ensures projects with potential to offer ground-breaking and new insights to the creative community will be completed to a high standard.”
Create grants are now open for application. For more information and to apply, click here.