Keep It Complex

We start conversations between people who disagree with each other. We use art to make politics.
#keepitcomplex #makeitclear
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[Migrants Organise @migrantsorg]

The #SolidarityKnowsNoBorders weekend of action starts tomorrow! Share, support, and join an action near you (or online!). #brighton #bristol #hastings #manchester #sheffield #london #cambridge #liverpool https://t.co/9F6MOTDHXY

[xavi @xavinisms]

Video just released from our @MigrantsCulture event with the incredible @keep_it_complex and partners such as @LIFTfestival @UnisNotBorders @CounterArts @ShubbakFestival, Raven Row, the brilliant @krisanthenum @season_butler and over 100 migrant culture workers. Check it out!!

[Keep It Complex @keep_it_complex]

Are you interested in creating a solidarity syndicate but need more members? Tag @keepitcomplex in your Instagram posts or stories and we’ll share it with other creatives looking to syndicate. Easy. #solsyn

[Keep It Complex @keep_it_complex]

Today applications open for the Arts Council England’s “emergency fund”. Are you ready to make a solidarity syndicate but still have questions how to make it happen? FAQs are now on our website: https://t.co/SkRP4uBVRH

#solsyn #acegrams

[Keep It Complex @keep_it_complex]

Adapt the #solsyn to your context & needs, share, share, share!

[Keep It Complex @keep_it_complex]

Not everyone is going to be able to apply for this @acegrams ‘emergency’ funding. Let’s join up and play the lottery together. Why? To support your peers! Refuse competition! It’s all of us or none of us! Take back the economy! Full instructions: https://t.co/l9URaH9yes

[Keep It Complex @keep_it_complex]

Darren Henley gets £178,000 a year. Think he could manage on a one off grant of £2,500 for the foreseeable future?

[Keep It Complex @keep_it_complex]

We are unable to pay bills, meet rent or maintain our expenses; within weeks incomes have vanished. @aceagrams responds by reducing our funding and making us compete in an impossible lottery. We need support and care and access, not competition and austerity.

[Keep It Complex @keep_it_complex]

This is not an emergency response. This is Business as usual. Playing the Art Gods with our projects. https://t.co/l9URaH9yes

[Keep It Complex @keep_it_complex]

... leaving creatives and small organisations to fight for the scraps. This is not an emergency response. This is Business as usual. Supporting some creatives, but never all creatives.

[Keep It Complex @keep_it_complex]

@aceagrams scrapped all the funds normally available for creative individuals and small organisations in order to provide this “emergency fund”. Those grants used to provide a whole ecosystem with work, but now £90K of that money has been re-allocated to the big bois,...

[Keep It Complex @keep_it_complex]

This doesn’t just affect those that put the applications in, but an ecology of creatives that would have been paid as part of their projects. This is not an emergency response. This is Business as usual. Playing the Art Gods with our projects.

[Keep It Complex @keep_it_complex]

Applications in process were terminated by @aceagrams for this “emergency fund”. @aceagrams wants to silo us off from one another; letting the individual rise to the top or fall to the bottom.

[Keep It Complex @keep_it_complex]

With no consultation, nor the chance to come up with creative alternatives, these projects have all been cancelled, backdating the stress and financial debt of the crisis.

[Keep It Complex @keep_it_complex]

This is not an emergency response. This is Business as usual. Pitting creatives against each other to compete for a limited funding.

[Keep It Complex @keep_it_complex]

@artistsunionengland tells us there are 60,000 artists working in the UK. If every artist applied for £2500 only 6,400 would get it… that’s 10%. But we’re not just artists; we’re writers, translators, producers, editors, educators, directors, designers, choreographers...

[Keep It Complex @keep_it_complex]

...composers, craft makers, curators and more. So @aceagrams have created an emergency fund that only 1% of the creative community can access. @aceagrams this is not a “small proportion”, this is the absolute minority.

[Keep It Complex @keep_it_complex]

That’s not an emergency response, that’s cuts. Austerity in a time of crisis - how is that an emergency response @aceagrams ? https://t.co/l9URaH9yes

[Keep It Complex @keep_it_complex]

Of the £97.3 Million usually available for individuals, organisations, museums and libraries, £90 million is now for the NPOs that already have existing funding from @aceagrams . Individuals used to have access to £30.4 million funding, now it’s just £20 million…

[Keep It Complex @keep_it_complex]

Last year @aceagrams spent £30.4 million on individual creatives, but the emergency fund that replaces all other 2020/21 grants is just £20 million. @aceagrams you are competing for an even smaller pot of £16 million