Yesterday afternoon I received an email letting me know that my funding application has been approved – I am going to receive project funding from Uppsala City. I am very excited and more than a little surprised by the news! Just a few weeks ago something cropped up in conversation with another artist (other artists? … I can’t quite remember) about funding and I re-read my application – which had been submitted at least a month prior – I remember feeling a little disappointed in myself that the application wasn’t more concise … expansive … focused … professional … thorough … At the Christmas dinner last week P, who works for the city council’s culture department, mentioned that they had read my application … I felt a little awkward and embarrassed … had I revealed how ill equipped I am to write such applications? I had written in Swedish hadn’t I … ? … and I didn’t have anyone proofread it … Well it seems that my passion for the project must have shone through!
I am very excited because I wrote ’from the heart’ … I was honest about my interests and intentions while being clear that I didn’t know know what the outcome would be – perhaps an exhibition, perhaps a performance, perhaps a website.
I am very excited because it really is a process and research driven project … the outcome(s) will be what they need to be.
I am very excited because receiving the funding will focus my attention and time … I have to do the project now – and that is fantastic … because it is a project that needs doing – not only for my own sake but also for the city’s since it illuminates aspects of the city’s cultural and lgbti+ history that are currently unacknowledged to say the least.
… so 2024 will see me re-engage with Following Eugène – the new chapter (for which I have received the funding) takes as it’s starting point the painting(s) that Eugène Jansson exhibited in the 1907 Uppsala Spring Exhibition – the first of his ’naked athletes’.
I am going to get on with the project just as soon as I have delivered by work to the 2024 Stockholm Spring Exhibition!
