Provincial arts grants expanded through cultural policy
- Posted July 14th, 2008
The Alberta Foundation for the Arts (AFA) has expanded a number of its grant programs and added a new Aboriginal program using the additional funding received through Alberta’s cultural policy - The Spirit of Alberta.
The following grant programs are helping to achieve the policy’s goals and strategies:
Community Presenting Project Grant - deadline July 15
To provide increased access and opportunities for Albertans to experience culture, the Community Presenting Project Grant assists Alberta presenters that feature artists in the community. The grant now offers additional support to present Alberta or Western Canadian artists as well as has an added focus on dance and theatre. This program received an additional $250,000, raising its total budget to $1,800,000.
Community Support Organizations Project Grant - deadline September 1
To help ensure Alberta’s communities have the resources and the capacity to support culture, the Community Support Organizations Project Grant provides non-profit organizations with funding for specific arts projects. This grant has been expanded to provide assistance with leadership development and capacity building in culturally diverse groups. The program received an additional $90,000, raising its total budget to $250,000.
Individual Project Grants: Aboriginal Traditional Arts Projects -deadline September 15
To encourage excellence amongst our artists and enhance community capacity, the new Aboriginal Traditional Arts Projects Grant will provide funding to Aboriginal artists and help raise the profile of their work. Eligible applicants include Aboriginal artists who work primarily in traditional cultural arts media. This grant program will support the creation of traditional art that is passed from one generation to the next. The program will receive $93,000.
Arts Partnership Project Grant - ongoing deadline
The Arts Partnership Project Grant helps to provide increased access to Alberta culture. This grant provides financial support for innovative partnerships between Alberta arts organizations. To provide additional opportunities and encourage greater participation and understanding of the arts amongst Alberta’s youth; the grant now specifically includes funding for youth-focused projects. This program received an additional $100,000, raising its total budget to $250,000.
Cultural Relations Fund Project Grant - ongoing deadline
To help showcase Alberta culture to the rest of the world and encourage excellence amongst our artistic community, the Cultural Relations Fund Project Grant offers support to artists or organizations that will represent Alberta at a national or international level. The program now also includes a community residencies component, which supports communities in creative collaboration with established and professional artists throughout Western Canada. This program received an additional $183,000, raising its total budget to $383,000.
To download application forms for these or any other AFA grants, visit www.affta.ab.ca. Additional information is also available by calling 780-427-9968 (dial 310-0000 for toll-free access). For more information on The Spirit of Alberta - Alberta’s cultural policy, visit www.culturalpolicy.alberta.ca.
The AFA is the Government of Alberta’s principal arts funding agency.
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Media inquiries may be directed to:
Al Chapman, Arts Branch - Culture and Community Spirit
780-415-0307 To call toll free within Alberta dial 310-0000.
Cultural Policy is the area
Cultural Policy is the area of public policy-making that governs activities related to the arts and culture. Generally, this involves fostering processes, legal classifications and institutions which promote cultural diversity and accessibility, as well as enhancing and promulgating the artistic, ethnic, sociolinguistic, literary and other expressions of all people – especially those of indigenous or broadly-representative cultural heritage. Applications of cultural policy-making at the nation-state level could include anything from providing community dance classes at little-to-no cost, to hosting corporate-sponsored casino art exhibitions, to establishing legal codes (such as the U.S. Internal Revenue Service’s 501(c)(3) tax designation for not-for-profit enterprises) and political institutions (such as the various ministries of culture and the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts in the United States).
Throughout much of the twentieth century, many of the activities that now compose cultural policy were governed under the title of "arts policy." However, as Kevin Mulcahy - a leading cultural policy scholar - has observed, "cultural policy encompasses a much broader array of activities than were addressed under arts policy. Whereas arts policy was effectively limited to addressing aesthetic poker concerns, the significance of the transformation to cultural policy can be observed in its demonstrable emphases on cultural identity, valorization of indigineity and analyses of historical dynamics (such as hegemony and colonialism)."
Total cultural spending
Total cultural spending includes operating expenditures (eg, the costs of operating government cultural departments and agencies and facilities owned and operated by a government), capital expenditures, and grants and contributions. Grants and contributions actually grew by 4% in 1997-98. This fact and the recent resource allocations described below suggest that governments are beginning to restore funds to the Art Jobs and culture.
Broadcasting and libraries are by far the largest beneficiaries of government cultural spending. Expenditures for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation account for about half of federal cultural spending, while libraries take 40% and 80% respectively of provincial/territorial and municipal expenditures.