I want to sing praises – even before any decision has been taken. In the past I have been involved making Arts Council grants and ticking all their boxes for equality, age range, audience growth and being advised the way to make a successful application is to use all the buzz words they use in their advice. My overarching feeling every time has been that the people who make the decision are not the people with the imagination but civil servants with targets to meet. Not so in New Zealand.
There the people who make the decision are practicing artists. You give them the idea and then get on with it and tell them how it went at the end of the lifetime of the grant. That is exactly how arts grants should be run and even if they say no, the process was liberating and correctly poised.
#cnz