Does BORG give art grants for interactive CAMPS vs. just art

[HughMungus]

Thinking about what I'm going to do in '06. In '05 we did Black Rock Necklace Camp where we let people come in, sit down, and make their own necklaces from the rocks we'd collected and polished from the previous year. I'm thinking that if I did do it again this year that I'd want to get an art grant to help offset the materials costs (wire, beads, crimps, etc.). Such a camp would certainly meet many of the guidelines specified for art grants but there's no real "art" produced except what the participants make. Anyone have any idea if BORG would give a grant to such a camp or are the art grants only for big, static *art* that you just look at and maybe touch?

[Neutrality]

Guess it's my turn to be the bad guy.

I like the camp concept and hope that you go ahead and have fun with it, but I also hope that you don't get funding. Not everybody is 100% on board even with the concept of giving grants to the makers of those large art projects, but at least for those, one can say that the creators are helping to contruct the kind of surreal public space that is an integral part of the experience, in the eyes of many burners. Without grants from the LLC, possibly such things wouldn't even exist.

In the case of your camp, though, we just have another camp where participants produce small handicrafts, and these have grown and thrived before without handouts from BMORG. The question becomes "why your camp and not the others". Do we want to get BMORG into the business of taking money from some burners (the rest of us) in the form of increased ticket prices, so that they can give it to some of the camps (like yours) to underwrite things that people can well afford to do on their own, and which don't help create that surreal environment that so many burners enjoy being immersed in?

Didn't there used to be something said about "radical self-reliance" in the description of this event? Maybe there's some give and take on that concept (ie. the med tent), but if your request is granted, that concept is dead, dead, dead, dead, dead.

[HughMungus]

Guess it's my turn to be the bad guy.

I like the camp concept and hope that you go ahead and have fun with it, but I also hope that you don't get funding. Not everybody is 100% on board even with the concept of giving grants to the makers of those large art projects, but at least for those, one can say that the creators are helping to contruct the kind of surreal public space that is an integral part of the experience, in the eyes of many burners. Without grants from the LLC, possibly such things wouldn't even exist.

In the case of your camp, though, we just have another camp where participants produce small handicrafts, and these have grown and thrived before without handouts from BMORG. The question becomes "why your camp and not the others". Do we want to get BMORG into the business of taking money from some burners (the rest of us) in the form of increased ticket prices, so that they can give it to some of the camps (like yours) to underwrite things that people can well afford to do on their own, and which don't help create that surreal environment that so many burners enjoy being immersed in?

Didn't there used to be something said about "radical self-reliance" in the description of this event? Maybe there's some give and take on that concept (ie. the med tent), but if your request is granted, that concept is dead, dead, dead, dead, dead.

Oh you're not the bad guy. I wouldn't have asked if I didn't want some constructive criticism. So thanks!

I just re-read the guidelines...

"We look for work that stands on its own as sculptural installation independent of performances or activities, although these may accompany the installation. We don’t usually fund domes, tents, or stages and ask that if your project must be contained in a structure, it be handmade and related to its contents. We do not fund theme camps."

I think I missed that part the first time around. DOH! Not sure how I feel, though, since our camp met all the other criteria...oh well, I guess their idea of "art" is "static art" in the more traditional sense (edit: and on third thought, big art that no single person could or would realistically want to take on). I'll still do a camp of some type, just not sure what yet...the necklace thing took a LOT of time to manage last year so probably not that again this year...