Monday, July 01, 2013

Fund and games

Stuck on a plane with all the Dr Who episodes done and dusted, what better way to while away the time than shuffle through Creative NZ's application forms and criteria for who's eligible for funding.

There are pages and pages of them but weirdly one significant part of the art world is specifically highlighted as not eligible for funding: the "employees of tertiary or other educational institutions.”
Given that the university PBRF system has transformed all art making, exhibiting and promoting (via catalogues) by their staff into research, and given that research is the key job of all senior university teaching staff this all starts to feel a bit Alice in Wonderland. After all, how can activities that are crucial to an artist's academic success be at the same time not part of their job?

In a masterpiece of butt covering CNZ deal to this problem insisting that applications for funding by tertiary staff (the same staff that aren’t eligible for funding in the first place) “will need to include a written statement from your Head of Department, or the equivalent position, confirming that the activity is not part of your job"

The fact is CNZ should only fund people who struggle to get funding elsewhere, and this is what this particular regulation suggests. Looks as though, like the rest of us the staff of CNZ have also had trouble wading through the pages and pages of instructions and understanding what they mean.