Culture Bank grants to Queer & Now, Ali Smith

Queer & Now will receive a $2000 grant from the arts program to assist them in running regular inclusive and safe events in the music community.

Ali Jane Smith will receive $3000 for a series of poems, titled “Omni”, written about various Illawarra bus routes.

“My primary aim would be to see as many of these poems as possible appear in literary journals ... with national and international readership,” Ms Smith wrote in her proposal.

Culture Bank was setup in 2012 to help individuals and groups with fantastic creative projects but didn’t have the cash to finance them.

Members provide regular donations (some as little as $10 a month) through crowdfunding. Once a significant amount has been raised, artists are invited to apply for funding.

“We are about supporting creativity and culture in Wollongong and the surrounding suburbs,” spokeswoman Tania Maria Mastroianni said.

“We have given away in excess of $40,000 since we started … if we had more members we could easily double or triple that - which means more cultural activities in our community.”

www.culturebankwollongong.org.au