UPDATE:

The July Round of UNLOCKED is now allocated. Applicants will be notified of the outcome of their application in early July. 

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UNLOCKED JULY 2020- CLOSED

Murray Arts in partnership with the Cultural Round Table of the Border North East are very excited to announce our second round of UNLOCKED, open. UNLOCKED is a micro-funding round designed to acknowledge, support and encourage the independent creative industry practitioners, who live work and connect with the Murray Arts footprint during the age of COVID-19; AlburyCity, Greater Hume & Federation shires in NSW and City of Wodonga, Indigo & Towong shires in Victoria.

For the month of July 2020, we will pay one independent creative practitioner, per day, a fee of $333. That means 30 individual artists, across the month of July 2020 will be a part of this program.

Why $333 per day? Well if you divide $10,000 by the 30 days, you get $333. Murray Arts, Flying Fruit Fly Circus & HotHouse Theatre have reworked our 2020 budgets, shifted things around, had some wins qualifying for government COVID-19 support, cut back where we could and want to inject the funds we can, directly into our region’s creative economy. We researched many different quick response micro-funding programs, analysed your responses from the recent Border North East Independent artist survey and the UNLOCKED program is how we feel we can best support a cross-section of our creative community immediately.

Recipients might use the funds/time to:

• Work on their skills
• Create new work
• Develop existing work
• Develop/refine their creative business
• Work on a grant application
• Work on an Upstream 2021 EOI submission
• Purchase material or equipment
• Collaborate
• Think, breath, pay some rent or purchase some food.

Outcomes are welcomed but by no means mandatory. We will ask you to submit an image and/or 10-20seconds max of video or audio, from what you do during your day of funded creativity. This is also not compulsory. The images, audio and video will be edited together to develop a short clip to highlight those who were a part of UNLOCKED 2020. The video may then be circulated via our social media, newsletter subscriber base and featured in our annual reporting. You will get a reminder to follow up from someone from the Murray Arts team, requesting the image of 10-20 seconds of video or audio.

We also are hosting non-compulsory ZOOM networking gatherings for recipients of UNLOCKED July 2020 and as the program grows the UNLOCKED 2020 Alumni will be invited to connect via ZOOM network gatherings also. It is our aim to keep everyone connected, foster support and encourage collaboration amongst our local creative community.

If you have requested additional support, for example, some space to work in, a member from the Murray Arts team will also be in touch about setting this up for you.

Eligibility:

• Must be an independent professional creative artist who lives, works and or connects with the Murray Arts footprint: AlburyCity, Greater Hume & Federation shires in NSW and City of Wodonga, Indigo & Towong shires in Victoria.
• Our definition of an independent professional creative artist is someone who earns an income, whether that be your main income and or supplementary income, from your creative practice annually.
• Murray Arts works with all artforms that come under the creative industries umbrella and therefore we welcome applications from all the various creative practices. These include but are not limited to: visual, performing, circus, dance, and physical theatre artists, as well as designers, musicians, filmmakers, sculptors, arts administrators, producers, creative educators, writers, and technicians.
• Priority will be given to those who have experienced loss and/or disruption to their practice because of COVID-19 restrictions.
• If successful you will need to invoice Murray Arts for the fee of $333. If you do not have an active/current ABN, you will be required to complete a Statement by Supplier form.
• If you treat your creative practice as a hobby, then you are not eligible.
• No insurance, superannuation and or workers compensation is offered as part of the UNLOCKED program, it is the responsibility of the successful applicants to ensure they are meeting their own personal/business requirements for these elements.
• If you are a recipient of UNLOCKED June 2020 then you are not eligible to apply for the July 2020 round.
• If you applied for the June 2020 round of UNLOCKED and were unsuccessful then you do not to re-submit your application, it will automatically carry over to the JULY 2020 UNLOCKED round.

Assessments:

Every application will be assessed as swiftly as possible. A panel will be formed from the members of the Cultural Round Table of the Border North East. Every applicant will be informed of the outcome of their application and those who are not successful will be given feedback, support and encouraged to submit their application to possible future UNLOCKED rounds.

The future of UNLOCKED

We are committed to exploring opportunities for UNLOCKED to continue into August & September 2020 and we are also open to UNLOCKED evolving to better suit the needs of our creative community. We will be seeking donations from other organisations and investigating philanthropic avenues to keep UNLOCKED going. If you are not successful in being an UNLOCKED recipient in the first or second round, then rest assured that we will be doing our best to keep offering the micro-grant program.

For more information and to apply contact:

Alyce Fisher

Executive Director

Murray Arts Inc

director@murrayarts.org.au

0407 213 034

Please note that the Murray Arts office & burraja gallery, on Gateway Island, remains closed and the best way to reach out to our team is via phone and email.

You can read the report about UNLOCKED June & July here