Building membership of arts groups, employing local artists, upskilling artists to take their work to the next step, and supporting new art spaces with activity are strong themes in the list of activities funded in 2024 by the Country Arts Support Program.
Nine arts activities across the NSW Central West will share $17,000 in funding from the NSW Government’s annual Country Arts Support Program (CASP). Regional arts development organisation Arts OutWest, who deliver CASP locally, have announced the Central West recipients of this long-running small grants program.
“The selected projects had to offer exciting arts activities, development of new work, public outcomes, or future sustainability for an arts group,” Arts OutWest Executive Director Kylie Shead said.
Local projects to receive funding include:
The Artists of Cowra East collective will send three artists to the CORRIDOR Project & ERTHWRX residency and industry mentorship program for National Science Week in 2024, with collaborative work being developed for exhibition in the new ‘Cowra Micro Gallery’.
The employment of a vocal coach to support the professional cast recording of the music from Intertwined, a new work of Australian theatre which will be performed at the Cowra Civic Centre in July 2024. The themes of the work are reconciliation, peace and reflection.
“This funding often seeds the first steps of potentially bigger arts projects or collaborations – the Artists of Cowra East is a great example: the new collective of artists received 2023 CASP funding to test the Cowra Railway Station as an arts space. This led to the establishment of the Cowra Micro Gallery at the station and now in 2024 further development of contemporary art work for this space,” Ms Shead said.