CULTIVATE – Grants for artists with a disability

Lorcan Hopper, 2011 Cultivate Recepient.

The Cultivate professional development grants for Australian artists with disability are closing soon.

Now in its second year, Cultivate provides seed funding to artists who want to further develop their professional artistic practice. Grants of up to $8,000 will be available for skills or professional development opportunities, mentoring, training, travel and more.

Arts Access Australia also uses Cultivate to model best practice in terms of accessible arts funding processes. Applications can be received in any format (written, emailed, Auslan, audio, video or dictated). Last year, over 60% of artists were first-time arts funding applicants that had never felt able to apply for mainstream funding opportunities before.

“Getting the Cultivate grant was the best thing ever,” said 2011 Cultivate recipient, Lorcan Hopper (South Australia).

“We have been overwhelmed by the response to Cultivate,” said Arts Access Australia CEO, Kate Larsen. “The grant program has given us the opportunity to address some of the problems artists with disability face accessing mainstream arts funding, while providing real career support for some incredibly talented artists.”

A total of $50,000 of grant money will be available in 2012 for artists with disability in any area of Australia.

The second round of Cultivate is supported by the the Australian Government through the Department of Regional Australia, Local Government, Arts and Sport. It was launched in 2011 as a joint initiative with the Australia Council for the Arts.

To find out more, visit the Arts Access Australia webpage or contact them directly:

Email info@artsaccessaustralia.org
Phone 03 8640 6014 (voice) or 0419 201 338 (text)

Applications for Cultivate must be received or postmarked no later than Friday the 31st of August 2012.