Thank you for being here, thank you for walking with me!
I care deeply about this Travel Mate programme, because it lets me design and realise projects that live independent of the usual cultural-funding paths. In those paths, at least a year, sometimes several years in advance, ideas are forged into concepts, the concepts formulated in dossiers, budgets and financing plans drawn up, the whole submitted to public agencies and private foundations, and then one hopes. When at last everything has gone well and the project could be realised, the closing stretch is paved with reports, accounts and letters with kindest regards.
Many of my personal projects fit poorly into this cultural-funding scheme. Books, podcasts, writing retreats, travel narratives, work in depth and inquiry on specific themes, newsletters, letters, and so on, rarely find public funding (or via private foundations). Artistic experiments often spring from clear, quick ideas, and live by being made now now now,