Starving Artists Fund, P.O. Box 78297, Grey Lynn, Auckland, www.starvingartistsfund.com, FEEDING CREATIVITY

REST IN PEACE THE STARVING ARTISTS FUND

Established in 2005 the Starving Artist Fund has feed creativity and a sense of community in the art world until 2009.

At this point we (the board) have decided to discontinue our work as we feel that the project has come to fruition. The S.A.F. intended to highlight the supportive and positive aspects of the art world, with this accomplished we end our endeavor.

I would like to personally give thanks to everyone who helped to make my own artistic dream come true. Anyone who donated time, art, skills, effort, blood, sweat and/or tears made the project what it was. It is due to the generosity and support of everyone who was involved that the S.A.F was such a great success and for this I am truly grateful.

Sincerely
A.D.Schierning

ABOUT

I began the Starving Artists Fund (S.A.F) as a part of a broader conceptual art project. At the time of the S.A.F.'s conception I was making a series of work where I attempted to 'save the world'. The Starving Artist Fund was a continuation of this and was my attempt to 'save' the art world.

My goal was to devise a supportive creative community (completely independent from larger funding bodies, dealers, curators and all forms of art administration) and it generated so much support from other artists that it became an organization that surpassed my own imagination of it.

The S.A.F. board consisted of myself, Ann Shelton, Judy Darragh, Megan Hansen-Knarhoi, Richard Maloy, Saskia Leek, and Simon Cuming.

Together with help from the larger community of artists, the S.A.F. board raised funds to perpetuate a S.A.F. award. The Award gave one exceptionally talented non-established artist an opportunity to realize their full potential by giving them financial support and advice to achieve a valid artistic project. The Starving Artists Fund operated as a registered charitable trust.

The S.A.F. Award was the only award of it's kind in N.Z as it was designed, governed and judged by a group of artists.

2008 AWARD

The winner of the 2007 S.A.F Award was:

Jill Kennedy for the completion of her animated short film New Educational Series - Amusements In Mathematics.

Amusements In Mathematics will be the third in the series of three short animated films, which comprise the New Educational Series. This film will make reference to the forms and conventions of a School Science Fair Project, further exploring the subject matter and concerns of earlier work in the series by re-contextualizing material extracted from the forgotten and discarded media designed to introduce children to science and scientific concepts.

Although the finalists were all of an extremely high calibre, Jill Kennedy's animated films possessed a complexity and vigour quite unlike anything else I've seen. For sheer originality and tenacity, Kennedy had to be rewarded. That she has already received Screen Innovation Funding, and already exhausted that resource, proves that she is a motivated practitioner who will not stop until her outputs correspond with her vision. And what a marvelous vision it is! Here at last we have found our "Peter Madden" of time-based arts, someone who reanimates forgotten imagery with incredible sensitivity. Like a trip, worlds of information flash by in seconds, but this is not the slick and vacuous image-mongering of MTV; Kennedy's depth of detail is the product of astounding visual intelligence.
— Tessa Laird

Jill Kennedy

The runner up prize, a $300 voucher at Studio Art Supplies, was won by:

Matthew Akehurst for his GalleryGallery project.

GalleryGallery is a portable gallery, designed for short exhibitions (1-3 hours). It will hit the streets of Christchurch and maybe other locations in two forms - coinciding with other gallery openings on the usual Tuesday night gallery circuit, or it may work on a specific site that an artist is responding to. However, other possibilities may eventuate. Transported by trailer, flat packed, 10min construction time, lighting options-mains- battery and natural sunlight.

Your typical institutionalized white cube.
GalleryGallery: www.gallerygallery1.blogspot.com

Gallery Gallery plays on the idea of the artist-run space and both celebrates and mocks the idea of the "institutionalisation" of art viewing. Following on from the roving project collective Cuckoo, or Auckland's MGU (Mobile Gallery Unit - a caravan), Gallery Gallery promises to challenge viewers to examine the politics of galleries - who is in, who is out, etc... With any luck, this may lead to a wholesale reassessment of the very role of art in society!
— Tessa Laird

Gallery Gallery

For 2008 the S.A.F Award was judged by A.D.Schierning and Richard Maloy from the board and guest judges Peter Robinson and Tessa Laird.

2007 AWARD

The winner of the 2007 S.A.F Award was:

Sam Hamilton

The S.A.F Award will assist Sam with his Amazon Resounding Project. Funding will help to pay for his travel to the central Amazon Basin of Brazil and then to Southern Peru. For four months he will extensively investigate and record this immense world of sound.

"The Amazon jungle is so dense with diverse life that you could walk the same 5 minute patch of jungle every day and discover a new plant, insect, fungus, worm, parasite, fruit, seed, animal, natural phenomenon or behavior every single day for a decade or more.
With each of these living things making its own individual sound The Amazon jungle is an incredibly dense and complex naturally occurring acoustic system.
A system that not only changes dramatically over each 24 hours and seasonal shift, but also goes through multiple variations dependant on height (from the river bottom to the canopy 60 feet above). Every meter that it changes new elements and combinations occur. In a jungle that stretches for millions of square kilometers from the Pacific to the Atlantic sound is the final frontier for exploration into the unknown."

Sam Hamilton

As usual the board chose a short list of applicants, which was then judged by two board members and two guest judges. This year the final judging panel consisted of Saskia Leek and A.D. Schierning from the board with Dane Mitchell and Racheal Shearer as our guests.

"The winning proposed project of this year's award hit a chord with us for its ambition, openness and lively sense of exploration. Although the shortlist of projects from which the winner was selected were all interesting and worthy of support we felt that Sam Hamilton's project stood out for its scope - including outcomes both here and elsewhere, ongoing research and a prodigious sense of wanderlust."
— Dane Mitchell

"All the shortlist proposals considered in this year's had points of merit but Sam Hamilton's proposal was finally agreed upon, for me standing out because of the huge effort and commitment he had already showed in making the journey possible, the range of outcomes planned from his sojourn and the possibilities afforded by his experience, including networking with international practitioners in the arena of field-recording sound art at the workshop he is to attend there. Sam's solid track record in generating and participating in sound events within the Auckland and NZ sound art/music community also worked in his favour, giving me confidence that in the spirit of the award - he would bring back and share outcomes from this experience in inventive ways."
— Rachael Shearer

The runner up prize of a $300 Studio Art Supplies voucher went to:

The OK Gallery Proposal

OK Gallery comprises of: Harriet Wild, Holly Willson, Selina Foote, Sarah Rose, Imogen Taylor, Ben McManus, and Sam Rountree-Williams. The collective aim to create a space to exhibit work from their own developing practices also hosting work from invited artists for collaborative projects, curated group shows, and projects chosen through a proposal submission process. OK gallery will take on a programme of solo and group shows with the possibility of smaller events running alongside all documented and made accessible on comprehensive web site. The gallery is planned to open in the New Year so watch this space…

Sarah Rose

Ben McManus

Selina Foote

2006 AWARD

The number and caliber of entries this year was impressive, making yet another tough decision. So hard in fact that our judges: Megan Hansen-Knarhoi and Simon Cuming (from the S.A.F. board) and P. Mule and David Hatcher (this years guest judges) decided to split the first prize into two awards of $1000 each.

The two winners of $1000 funding were:

Susie Thomas
and
Erica Van Zon

The winner of the runner up prize of the $300 Studio Art Supplies voucher was:

Amit Cheran

Susie Thomas was awarded $1000 towards her conceptually based practice, specifically the pertinent project hereafter outlined.

"I am interested in exploring ownership through performance. This performance will investigate ideas of copyright and intellectual property as they evolve, almost independently of people, via the medium of thought. Using performance-based installation as a method to map out or interface with the abstract, this project will explore the territory that exists between thought and matter.
A performance is currently underway, in which twenty-five sections of void within 25 different hydrogen atoms belonging to a Cauliflower Mosaic Virus' molecular structure, are being purchased from Arcadia Biosciences Ltd. On completion of the sale an installation will be constructed in a gallery context, to act as an interface using light boxes and digital projections. For the duration of the show, the sections of void or spaces within the virus will be for sale in sets of five. The virus' activities, including multiplication and mutation rates, will be accessible via a web based monitoring system, comparatively charting the growth rate of each prospective investment."

Erica Van Zon will use her $1000 prize to continue her diverse practice, and to continue her work within the arts community

"I've been making plywood furniture, ceramic Dutch Delft tiles, a DVD, as well as soft satin pizzas and other soft sculptures. My research has led me to look further into my obsessions.
Dep_art_ment is a small window space I co-ordinate on Ponsonby Rd, adjacent to Miss Crabb's window. It runs on a fortnightly basis. I orchestrate this space as a platform for the work of other artists.

Amit Charan won the $300 Studio Art Supplies voucher, which will assist him somehow in his project.

"The leitmotif of this project is the concept of time travel. Time is an abstract notion, which is assimilated through representation. I regard time as a key (im)material, which will be structured to unfold on itself. I plan to construct a scenario materialized in the form of an installation, which remains in a transitory state. The installation will be a meditation of the event, the image and the commentary."

This years guest judges P. Mule (artist and lecturer at Elam school of fine arts) and David Hatcher (American based artist) said this of their decision:

"We were impressed by a strong range of fascinating, thoughtful, well-prepared applications this year. In the end we couldn't decide between two proposals that were closest to the spirit of the award, so have decided there will be two winners. We liked the generosity and community-minded approach of Erica Van Zon's work and wanted to support a commitment to process evident in her practice. We also wanted to support her activities at dep_art_ment on Ponsonby Road in Auckland, which is the kind of project we'd like to see more of. Susie Thomas' idea to purchase space within 10 hydrogen atoms struck us as the most far out of the proposals. We liked this imaginative gesture and the questions regarding the production and distribution of contemporary art that it raises. Amit Anuj Charan's proposal to work with a choreographer in a kind of lost architectural space in Wellington intrigued us too. We hope an award of material support will aid this young artist's development."

2005 AWARD

For our first award we had many applications, all of which were of a very high standard. The S.A.F. board got together and painstakingly chose four finalists from these. The finalists were as follows:

Andy Kingston from Kaeo Northland
Jacquelyn Greenbank of Christchurch
Sarah Hopkinson and Imogen Kerr of "the Slow Club" for their application to start an artist run space in Auckland
Loren Clements an Auckland based sound artist

Track 3 from Loren Clements' CD "Pig Exam: Calculust IV".

Loren Clements

Then two elected members of the S.A.F. board: A.D. Schierning and Ann Shelton along with two invited judges met to decide the winner and runner up from the four finalists.

Andy Kingston was the winner of the 2005 Starving Artists Fund Award of $2000 The S.A.F. will support Andy to continue his work for the next year, resulting in an exhibition of his achievements. Of his work Andy says: "Pottery is often viewed as 'low' art, an amateur hobby or cheap tourist commodity. Also, pots are a common and familiar objects which we use everyday, often with little regard for. In this context, pottery provides a good standpoint from which to celebrate naivety and amateurism. These traits appeal to me, as they have a certain honesty and gentle humour."

Andy Kingston

"A strong, rich and sophisticated body of work that seemed primed for bigger things. There was an intelligence, humour and bravado in the pieces, but also a sense of relevance - tackling ideas and issues that are important in NZ art and design right now. And it was refreshing that this was coming from an artist working in the Far North - I'm looking forward to seeing a lot more of this guy's work."
Guest Judge Nicholas Spratt: artist, co-director of the project space rm103, and a lecturer at Unitec's School of Design.

"A very fitting and apt inaugural winner of the "Starving Artists Fund" award...although all of the four finalists were deserving, we felt that his work and practice responded at source to the ethos of the fund and feel confident that this opportunity will help him further his practice. Broadening what he has achieved to date."
Guest Judge Denise Kum: a New Zealand artist currently based in London.

Jacquelyn Greenbank won the runner up prize of a $300 materials voucher at Studio Art Supplies Auckland. "The idea of crochet and knit covering objects (particularly ironic materials) make my works fairy-tale-like and wool is a material that is common to the audience. All my works have a 1950's sensibility and humour about them."