Creative NZ Fights COVID-19 With “indigenised Hypno-soundscapes”
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is questioning the value of the Arts Continuity Grant, a COVID-19 response fund which has so far paid out $16 million in grants to a variety of questionable short-term arts projects.
Since March, Creative NZ has offered grants of up to $50,000 for ‘a short-term arts project, or the stage of a project, that can be delivered within a changed and evolving environment as a result of COVID-19.’
New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says, “Many of the descriptions of these projects are, frankly, incomprehensible. It’s hard to see how bureaucrats in Creative NZ can make an objective judgment on which art is worthy of funding, and which is not.”
“The resulting handouts speak for themselves. Creative NZ is fighting COVID-19 by spending taxpayer money on plays about menstrual cycles, Māori ‘healing theatre’, and ‘Indigenised Hypno-soundscapes’. That’s madness and it reflects terribly on the Minister of Arts Culture and Heritage – who happens to be Jacinda Ardern.”
“These grants are massively unfair to taxpayers, with the benefits skewed toward politically-connected Wellington weirdos. Handouts for fringe interest groups mean less money is available for tax relief that would reward productive work.”
637 projects have received taxpayer funding under the Arts Continuity Grant, including the following:
Eamonn Marra
To research and
write the first draft of a novel about male affection in
hypermasculine spaces.
AWARDED:
$13,000
Fireplace Arts & Media
Towards
the composition, recording and production of music inspired
by the psychogeography of the West
Coast.
AWARDED: $34,900
Julia
Gray
To support the personnel costs and post-production
editing for an art documentary based on Papua New Guinea
tattoo practice and revival.
AWARDED:
$27,500
Donovan Bixley
Towards one phase
of illustrating a biography of Leonardo da
Vinci.
AWARDED: $21,080
Alison
Foster, Catherine Cooper
Towards writing a children's
picture book (text only) about sustainable community
activist Helen Dew.
AWARDED:
$3,200
Glitter Garden
To create and
develop an online publication, arts learning resources and
musical content based on children's drag theatre show, The
Glitter Garden.
AWARDED:
$18,000
Jess Johnson
To create a new
series of collaborative quilts with my mother, textile
artist Cynthia Johnson.
AWARDED:
$17,850
Kate Newby
Towards intensive
artistic research and development.
AWARDED:
$49,368
Kath Bee
Towards the composition
and instrumental arrangement of 10 songs for children, from
ideas given by children.
AWARDED:
$24,600
Tamara Neilson-Tetzlaf
Towards a
live event watch party and livechat with fans
online.
AWARDED: $24,153
Tayi
Tibble
Towards writing poetry that explores indigeneity
and love in the time of climate change.
AWARDED:
$17,798
Duncan Sarkies
Towards writing a
novel about the collapse of democracy in an association of
alpaca breeders.
AWARDED:
$26,000
Kimberley Young
Towards a dance
concept video showcasing the impact Coronavirus has had on
the New Zealand Chinese community.
AWARDED:
$24,500
Rosemarie Kirkup
Towards the
development of a first draft of a play that explores the
menstrual cycle.
AWARDED:
$16,766
Nicole Duckworth
To record and
livestream a performance from Fat Freddy's
Drop.
AWARDED: $44,007
Khali
Philip-Barbara, Te Kahureremoa Taumata
Towards an
Indigenised Hypno-soundscape to take you to the imagined
worlds of our Kōrero Pūrākau.
AWARDED:
$49,999
Connor Masseurs
Towards
development of a movement technique that guides and empowers
the participants in becoming specialists in their own
body.
AWARDED: $4,530
Iain
Gordon
Towards 3 x hour-long live-streamed electronic
music performances with live visual animations, from a
kitchen in Paekakariki.
AWARDED:
$47,703
Mad Ave
Towards a wananga for
Maori healing theatre practitioners.
AWARDED:
$50,000
New Zealand Comedy Trust
To
examine what changes need to be made to better support a
more diverse and sustainable comedy industry in
Aotearoa.
AWARDED:
$49,780
Benedict Fernandez
Towards
composing and recording ten original compositions inspired
by emotions felt during the Covid-19
lockdown.
AWARDED: $8,885
Imogen
Taylor
Towards development of a new body of work
exploring modernism, feminism & queerness, with specific
reference to the Otago region.
AWARDED:
$30,089
Claire O'Loughlin
Towards revision
and editing of a sailing memoir.
AWARDED:
$7,200
Jared Kane
Towards a Māori, queer,
young adult novel adaptation of Hamlet based on my
innovative unproduced screenplay
‘Hamarete’.
AWARDED:
$21,000
Indigenous Design and Innovation
Aotearoa
Towards designing new Māori typefaces for print
and digital.
AWARDED:
$22,110
Peter Daubé
Towards the writing,
arranging and preproduction of music that forms a song-cycle
from the suburban labyrinth.
AWARDED:
$21,800