The next hurdle was funding. Being that we are in a crippling financial downturn and public funding for arts activities ranks somewhere beneath making tourist trinkets for the Olympics, it was clear from the outset that I might be better off self-funding the project with painful office jobs throughout the year. But when even these dried up and I began to feel the pinch acutely on my own food and rent bills, I decided to apply for the support that I deemed necessary and justified, for a project that would have almost limitless potential for both me and the Island. Key players for arts activities in Scotland (for anyone who isn't aware) are:
Scottish Arts Council
Hope Scott Trust
(and in Glasgow) Glasgow Visual Arts Grants Scheme
All of these are hard fought over. The Scottish Arts Council who gives out the most grants to artists, awards only 10 percent of the money they receive requests for, gulp. So I applied optimistically to all of them, but also I started to look elsewhere. One of the artworks that I wanted to create was an alternative audio walking guide. I imagined hikers listening to recordings of the locals talking about the island, the audio having been altered to draw attention to the subtleties and personal myths used by the islanders to describe their home. This wasn't just art, this wasn't just art about tourism, it was tourism itself! And there are bodies who create funds to encourage the growth of tourism on the islands. What better way to explore the impact of tourism than to create a safe little bubble of the stuff? Eigg is in Invernesshire and the council have just such a bursary. I applied as part of a complicated part funded proposal alongside the arts council etc.
I have also realised over the past five years, that when self-generating projects publicity is the most difficult matter to deal with succinctly. You want coverage, and media interest in order to generate an audience, but you don't want your work to only appear in local papers and on drive-time radio, though both of these are great places to start. You can aim for art journals, but it might also be fun to aim for general interest magazines and television. Or does publicising the event remove much of the mythos of art taking place there? Do newspaper articles simplify the nuances of work for only mildly interested audiences? Is artwork actually more successful if more people know about? I would hope not, but I have a chance here to reach a very large number or people with a good set of artworks in the making.
Anyway, the next challenge I am going to face is publicising an event that will not fit into any clear boxes…
