After the exhibition planning is basically complete, I need to start to consider some objective conditions that will affect the exhibition, such as available funds. I plan to find available funds as much as possible, and then further refine the exhibition according to the combination of funds. With this as a starting point, I started a search for funding programs for exhibitions in China. Below are a few of the funding schemes eligible for my personal curatorial project.
Guangzhou special fund for the development of culture and tourism industry
link：http://wglj.gz.gov.cn/gkmlpt/content/9/9725/post_9725881.html#886 （This is last year’s rule announcement, this year’s funding application has not yet started, so there is no rule announcement.)
Since my exhibition is held in Guangzhou, I first thought of looking for resources on the websites of relevant government departments in Guangzhou. I think my personal curatorial project meets the requirements for the application of this fund. First of all, it is clearly mentioned in the relevant rules of this fund that the project to declare the fund must be “a cultural and artistic project with public benefit attributes and open to the public.” My personal curatorial project takes dreams and subconscious as the theme, and I plan to let the audience experience the journey of individual subconscious mind in dreams through art works, multimedia installations and other forms. Meanwhile, I will hold two artistic creation workshops in the exhibition hall during the exhibition period, which is highly consistent with the “cultural benefits for the people” emphasized in the policy. Secondly, my personal curatorial project has initially built an execution system: The venue will cooperate with Another Art Museum in Guangzhou. The Art museum team will provide part of the necessary technical equipment, and the venue will publicize the exhibition on various social media. The proposed budget plan of the exhibition strictly follows the “special funds for special purposes” in the fund application rules, and the core expenditure will be concentrated on the necessary links such as the transportation of works.
According to the funding criteria published on the website, the maximum amount of funding for a single project is no more than 1.5 million RMB (about £150k). According to the standards, my personal curatorial project belongs to the third category of municipal projects/innovative practice projects. The amount of money that similar emerging art exhibitions can get from this fund is 50,000-150,000 RMB (about £5K-15K), so I expect my exhibition to get about £5k from this fund.
