At Element Pictures’ Storyhouse screenwriting festival last week panellist Jack Rooke, creator of Channel 4’s excellent Big Boys, mused rhetorically on the state of arts funding in Ireland.
He was greeted by a rumble of discontent in the packed main auditorium of the Lighthouse Cinema. I wondered how many of those in attendance are, like me, planning to apply for the Basic Income for the Arts Scheme (BIA).
My mother, who probably hasn’t had a peaceful night’s sleep since I gave up PAYE work to pursue full-time writing, beseeched me to apply for the pilot BIA scheme in 2022. I demurred, feeling that because I was at least making some income from my art practice, I shouldn’t get in the way of someone who might need it more.
Four years later, I’m 100 per cent less noble as I dream of the difference €325 a week could make. Making art is creating something out of nothing, which is expensive in terms of time and brain power. It’s extremely difficult to get paid for the potential of a blank page or an empty stage. The vicious cycle of needing money to create art but needing art to sell to generate income is what keeps so many people out.
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The BIA scheme is welcome, don’t get me wrong, but looking at the application I am left to wonder how the money could ever make its way to those who really need it. Like many Arts Council grants, the scheme is only available to those who already have a demonstrable career in the arts. The pieces of evidence are ranked in the BIA guidelines in order of suitability, and number one on the list is proof of previous funding from the Arts Council: “If you have 3 x Arts Council Bursaries or Project Awards from the last three years, proofs of these are all that you will need to upload”.
In fact, the first five most desirable pieces of proof are various forms of government funding. Allocation of this funding is usually on a meritocratic basis – the BIA is ultimately randomly awarded – and applications are hugely time consuming. The barriers to access even to those with privilege can be huge. Petty as it may be, it’s a little galling to read that those who’ve been funded three times by the Arts Council also have the most straightforward path to BIA application.
“Gee Emer, it sounds like maybe you’ve been turned down for funding?” Yes, several times.
For example, I applied for the Arts Council Literature Bursary last year. The criteria stipulate that the project should be at a subjectively “crucial stage”. The application process is lengthy and fiddly. I begged letters of recommendation from peers and mentors.
I grappled with the daunting budget section, wondering how to make the meagre maths that indicate “I need to sit at a computer in my house for X hours a day for X months to get this done” look more impressive. I painstakingly counted the words of my various answers to the application questions, themselves a test in comprehension.
Months later my brief rejection just read, “proposal not developed enough”. I was more crushed than I expected. The competition is fierce, so I was realistic but on rejection I was immediately frustrated at all the wasted, unpaid labour that had gone into the application. Those beautiful letters I’d submitted now felt like a waste of everyone’s time.
I was embarrassed at the deeply personal nature of parts of my application. All that soul-baring for nothing. I was angry at the vicious cycle of not being able to afford to work on a project to develop it to a point where it’s sufficient to apply for funding to continue working on it.
Those who’ve been successful in their grant applications offer sage words of consolation and insider-knowledge like “you might have to apply a few times to pay your dues” or “there’s a skill to submitting your proposal”, as if there’s a “right” way to do it and unless you crack the code you’ll never prevail.
How can access to the arts ever be democratic if there are so many unwritten rules and whisper networks?
Would I be writing this if I had been successful? I’d like to think I would, because my bafflement at how the process works would still be there. Will writing this affect any future applications I make? How will I ever know? Writer friends will probably be horrified that I’m committing these thoughts to print in the national press, but at least I get paid for them.
