Visual Arts: A Flourishing Field (VAFF) is a project of AMQF’s Culture and Arts Programme (CAP). Funded by Sweden, it is a US$4 million sub-granting project being implemented over a period of six years (2017–22) that aspires to achieve a more sustainable, vibrant and innovative visual arts field in Palestine. VAFF has been developed through a participatory approach involving several visual arts institutions and individual artists in Palestine in order to better identify and address the needs of the visual arts scene through the project.
The VAFF Project’s Outcomes:
VAFF aims to achieve the following outcomes:
- The enhanced organisational capacity and sustainability of the visual arts organisations that have contributed significantly to the vibrancy of the visual arts field in Palestine.
- The further development of art education programmes and other learning and research opportunities, and making these available to artists, art students and professionals.
- Art organisations that are active in extending support to artists and art professionals for the production of innovative works and community-based art projects and building a wider audience base.
By accomplishing the above outcomes, we hope to Achieve a vibrant, innovative and more sustainable visual arts field in Palestine, aiming in the long-term to Contribute to the development of a Palestinian society that embraces freedom of expression and produces knowledge, art and culture.
The target groups include active and already established visual arts organisations in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza. Art collectives and emerging, innovative art organisations that show promise will also benefit from the project, should they prove their capability to achieve the project’s outcomes. Target groups directly benefiting from the project also include art students, researchers, art professionals and artists. Indirectly, the project targets general Palestinian, regional as well as international audiences, who will be exposed to the different art works through encounters inside and outside Palestine, whether first-hand or through media coverage, reviews and debates around these encounters.
The project provides its support to the visual art scene through the following two mechanisms:
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Grants
Throughout the time period of the VAFF project (six years), two rounds of funding will be announced and implemented through open calls for the submission of applications by visual arts and culture organisations and collectives. The evaluation of grant applications and the selection process takes around four months, while the grant implementation period is eighteen months.
Organisations that prove efficient and effective in the implementation of their projects in the first round of grant funding, which was announced in year one of the project (2017), are eligible to apply again for a grant under the second round. The amount of the grant awarded per organisation ranges between $100,000–$300,000 in each round.
Through the first round of funding, eight organisations have received grants totalling US$1,590,500. The call for the second round will be announced in the first quarter of 2019.
VAFF provides both core and programme funding to organisations. Grants cover the following expenditures:
- Administrative and operational expenditures, including core staff salaries, rent, etc.
- Expenditure related to enhancing the organisation’s technical capacities, developing financial and administrative systems, and strengthening managerial capacities.
- Expenditure on programmes that ensure the significant role of the applicant organisation in the culture and arts scene and its sustained engagement with artists and wider audiences.
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Needs-based Interventions
In addition to grants, the VAFF project allocates funds for capacity building interventions and mentorship / advisory consultants, as needed by each partner organisation. Interventions are tailored to address either the collective needs of all organisations (joint sessions) or the specific needs of each. These may include audience development, resource mobilisation, financial management, monitoring and evaluation, etc. Advisory consultants / mentors will work with beneficiaries throughout the project implementation period to provide consultancy, advice and training in areas such as promotion and archiving etc and which will be determined according to the needs of each organisation.