Practice & production
Making the work.
Focus — Culture, Arts & Language — Expressive and performing arts
EXPRESSIVE AND PERFORMING ARTS
IDEAS WE SUPPORT.
World Seed Fund supports people whose ideas improve the conditions for making and showing artistic work for the artists, performers, and audiences involved.
Why this area
EXPRESSIVE AND PERFORMING ARTS
IN CONTEXT.
Art needs space, audience, and pay. Ideas qualify when at least one of those is meaningfully improved for named artists.
Scope of the area
WHAT THIS AREA
INCLUDES.
Illustrations of scope, not a fixed list. If your idea belongs here but is not described below, introduce it anyway.
Spaces
Venues, studios, and places to gather.
Audiences
Reaching people, locally and beyond.
Livelihood
Artists earning from their work.
Criteria to qualify
WHAT A EXPRESSIVE AND PERFORMING ARTS
IDEA MUST SHOW.
All five criteria apply. An idea does not need to be complete or proven — it needs to be specific enough that we can judge it, and grounded enough that a next step is possible.
A defined problem, in a defined place
We need to understand exactly who is affected, where, and how they cope today. General statements about a global challenge are not enough to qualify.
- Names the place, community, or system where the conditions for making and showing artistic work fall short.
- States the situation today in plain terms — work produced, audience, artist earnings, or space secured.
- Explains what the artists, performers, and audiences involved do now, and what it costs them.
Human insight behind the idea
The idea should come from knowledge of the situation — technical, scientific, operational, cultural, or lived — rather than from an assumption about it.
- Draws on direct knowledge of the conditions for making and showing artistic work in that place.
- Accounts for why earlier arts funding and festival programmes did not hold here.
- Was shaped with the artists, performers, and audiences involved, not only for them.
A credible next step
There must be a specific thing that can be attempted next, at a scale that can be observed honestly, with a stated way of judging whether it worked.
- A defined pilot with a stated size — artists supported, performances, or audience reached.
- A stated measure of success — work produced, audience, artist earnings, or space secured.
- A timeframe within which the result can be judged honestly.
Value for people and place
The benefit should be meaningful to the community or system the idea serves, and describable in terms they would recognise.
- Improves cultural life, income, and expression for the artists, performers, and audiences involved.
- The benefit is described in words the community itself would use.
- Does not shift cost, risk, or harm onto neighbouring people or systems.
A path to keep working
Ideas qualify when someone can plausibly own, operate, fund, and repair the result after the first phase of support ends.
- A named arts organisation, collective, or venue able to carry the work after the first phase.
- Running costs, materials, and skills obtainable near the work.
- Ownership, permission, or agreement that lets the work continue.
Evidence & boundaries
WHAT HELPS,
AND WHAT DOES NOT.
Evidence can be modest. A careful account of a small trial is worth more than a projection.
Evidence we look for
- Any observation, record, or measurement of the conditions for making and showing artistic work in that place.
- Costs, materials, or time recorded from a small trial, however modest.
- Notes, letters, or agreements from the artists, performers, and audiences involved or the arts organisation, collective, or venue.
Usually outside this area
- Broad proposals about expressive and performing arts with no named place and no named people.
- Equipment or funding requests with no operator and no running cost.
- Work that transfers cost, risk, or harm to neighbouring people or systems.
Submit an idea
INTRODUCE YOUR
EXPRESSIVE AND PERFORMING ARTS IDEA.
There is no application window and no required format. Answer these four questions in your own words and we will read them.
Who is affected, where, and how do they manage today?
What do you know about the conditions for making and showing artistic work that others working on it may not?
What could you attempt next, and how would you judge whether it worked?
Who continues the work afterwards, and what keeps it running?
Human potential is everywhere. Opportunity should be too.