Canberrans can look forward to more street art popping up across the Territory with 25 Canberra artists receiving grant funding, as well as more artists being commissioned to undertake additional street art projects.
"Street art plays an important role to the aesthetic of a modern city and helps to rejuvenate our public spaces and discourage tagging," Minister for City Services Chris Steel said.
"This funding will support our creative community at a time when many artists are losing income as a result of projects being cancelled and events being postponed.
"Local artists will be eligible for grants of up to $10,000 under the Creative Endeavour Grants program funded through our stimulus program. This will provide much needed help for our local artists to support them as they pursue a new project or by simply reducing the burden of ongoing fees and expenses," Minister Steel said.
A further $311,287 will go towards local street artists who will be commissioned to undertake a range of street art projects across the ACT.
Projects, identified through community feedback, will refresh public and private facilities and amenities including two large scale city projects. They will be commissioned by the end of 2020-21 and will run in collaboration with community groups and other others of ACT Government.
"Public spaces such as amenity blocks can often be the target of illegal graffiti, so it is important that we're constantly refreshing these places with new art to reduce illegal activity and to keep our professional artists engaged and involved with the artistic presentation of the ACT," Minister Steel said.
Minister for the Arts, Creative Industries and Cultural Events Gordon Ramsay said that the ACT Government had committed more than $5 million in economic stimulus to support Canberra's creatives through the COVID-19 pandemic.
"I welcome today's announcement as another innovative way the Government is able to support Canberra artists whilst providing new and exciting amenities the entire community can enjoy," Minister Ramsay said.
Proposed street art projects will include artwork at:
- Cooleman Court, Weston Creek
- Woden squash courts
- Tuggeranong Seniors Centre
- Civic (two yet to be determined locations)
- PCYC building, Turner
- City Walk ground art
- Narrabundah public toilets
- Yerrabi Pond, Gungahlin
