The golden glow of arts funding

Wallace Heim writes:

Wooloo.org is the organisation in Copenhagen that came up with the idea of housing artists and activists in people's homes for the climate talks. Their website lists open calls for artist's awards, residencies and other opportunities.

This week's Special Call is for Passion to Perform - Art Competition 2012, for paintings, photography, sculptures and drawings, with prizes of Canadian $6,000, $2,500 and $1,000.

It's not exactly an 'open' call.

The sponsor is Yamana Gold, one of the world's leading gold and copper mining companies, with operations throughout the Americas, primarily Argentina and Brazil. They are asking for artworks that are inspired by the company's core principles: "sustainability, dependability, respect for the environment and our communities, safety of our colleagues."

"Passion to Perform is a competition which celebrates the success of Yamana Gold, and we are looking forward to engaging creatively in a way that reflects our company's diversity and core values."

Other views about Yamana Gold's principles are here and here.

Photo above of the Gualcamayo open pit, heap leach gold operation in the San Juan province of Argentina, courtesy of the Yamana Gold website. 

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State of the Arts gets the environment

Wallace Heim writes: 

This week’s State of the Arts (SOTA) conference hosted by Arts Council England in Salford had, for the first time, two sessions on ‘Artists and our future environment’, with speakers James Marriott from PLATFORM; the writer Jay Griffiths; Mojisola Adebayo, writer, performer, director; and Andy Field, co-director of Forest Fringe.

All of SOTA’s sessions - on the creative economy, changing society, imagination, fundraising - touch on environmental themes. But these two drew out specific questions of the relations between artists and environments, of the material effects of artistic practices on the Earth, and of the importance of artistic expression of environmental themes.

This interest by SOTA in the environment comes about, in part, from talks between ACE London and arts organisations with an environmental focus in the London region – organisations who had lost their Regularly Funded Organisation status, and questioned ACE’s policies on the environment and climate.

James Marriott's session, transcribed on the PLATFORM blog, sets out how this collaboration between disparate organisations has worked, and how substantial shifts in ACE's environmental directions are taking shape.

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