Louise McKay performs at the Arts Initiative Australia launch held at Studio StartUp
Artists, composer and publisher Andrew Batt-Rawden doesn’t pull any punches.
“We live in a world being destroyed socially, environmentally and artistically by myopia and greed,” he says. “Yet paradoxically... it is being positively recreated by visionaries who take risks and those who are generous.”
On Friday night, following a riveting performance of Prokofiev’s searing Sonata for solo cello by WASO’s Louise McKay in Studio Startup’s basement, below Toastface Grillah just off Barrack Street, Batt-Rawden launched Arts Initiative Australia.
The organisation was established “to support the arts in ways that are needed yet not currently serviced,” Batt-Rawden continues.
“One area that has been difficult to fund through currently available channels has been the structures that build capacities of artists, or of the arts as a whole,” he says.
“We want to encourage risk-taking arts visionaries and entrepreneurs who want to support their sector in ways that respond to the times in which we live, as much as we’re supportive of artists who want to build their own capacities to have sustainability in their practice.” READ MORE
