In Mar 2014, the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth (MCCY) announced it was committing S$20 million over the next five years to raise the profile of Singapore artists overseas. By the end of this year, MCCY would have supported a total of nine projects. These include new projects that the National Arts Council (NAC) has embarked on with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA). One such project involves providing funding for local artistes to travel to and perform at the 2014 Incheon Asian Games. The MCCY said such strategic tie-ups with international partners will help build up Singapore artists and cultural institutions. It works with various agencies such as the MFA, the National Heritage Board and the NAC to identify such opportunities. The views of arts groups are also sought. Factors considered include appropriateness of the platform and readiness of the artist. Some artists said the fund is restrictive as it is not open for application, but Member of Parliament Baey Yam Keng said that it has to be looked at in perspective. When it comes to official channels, then the authorities would have to make a call to select which are the suitable acts and to consult with the local arts groups to see who can be available and interested to perform. At the same time, the NAC funding for overseas presentation is still available. Artists can still have access to those. So I think we should look at it as this is an additional pool of money and it should provide more opportunities for local artistes to be showcased overseas. I would look at it as what kind of opportunities have been generated for our local artists, and then from there, the spin-offs for them, in terms of their awareness, their profile in these international markets. Hopefully it would lead to more invitations, more commissions and more projects that these artists themselves could have beyond Singapore. The artists themselves would be able to assess it, the impact of this new scheme, but I would say that since it was just announced earlier this year, we would probably need a couple of years to see the results of it. Channelnewsasia Article / MediaCorp Video: channelnewsasia/news/singapore/nine-projects-supported/1533030.html
Posted on: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 10:00:00 +0000
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