Conditions for funding of contemporary art have changed rapidly, but we are rarely aware of exactly how. Lack of knowledge and misconceptions about these issues abound, making constructive discussions difficult.Where lies the land in terms of public and private funding for contemporary art, mainly within a European context, and what repercussions this has on art production itself?

download

ALMOSTREAL, A FIVE-YEAR PROJECT IN INITIATED AND financed by the European Cultural Foundation, comes to an end in 2009. The debate on changing funding conditions for contemporary arts is a good opportunity to return to some of the issues which have been at the core of this experimental, challenging, learning initiative. Envisioned at the very beginning by the Foundation as an articulated set of calls for proposals inviting artists to collaborate across cultural geographies and disciplines and around specific issues, ALMOSTREAL has become an experimentation and a reflection on different fonns of collaboration, among others the 'collaboration' between independent foundations and artists. Various forms of partnership between ECF and artists emerged through ALMOSTREAL, raising many questions about the dynamic between funding and funded. Some of these are:

• Can (or even may?) an independent funding body form a collaboration with artists that is not a traditional arm's-length 'funder-funded' relation - an alliance that creates a context for a greater awareness on the issues addressed? In other words, how can a foundation better define its relation (and responsibility) to artists and vice versa?
• Can a funding body work without curatorial mediation? And if yes. how? Is there any form or space for direct negotiation and dialogue with artists to be considered?
• A private foundation is flexible and relatively autonomous. It does not meet the sanctions of the market or of electoral ballot yet it has a public (and internal) accountability. How does this responsibility frame its relation to artists? And to what extend do/should artists take it into account?

THE BLUE HOUSE, IJBURG, BEGAN IN 2005, when the artist Jeanne van Heeswijk arranged for a large villa in housing 'Block3S' to be taken off the private market and redesignated as a space for community research, artistic production, residencies and cultural activities. In cooperation with Dennis Kaspori and Herve Paraponaris, The Blue House has acted as a centre for artistic and cultural production and research into what happens when such a radical approach to urban planning and community development is employed. When asked to develop a program forthe ALMOSTREAL stage 4 on Hospitality, van Heeswijk proposed to the E(Fto become a member of the Blue House and as such insert their thematic into the Blue House. This resulted in the development of the radio station M2M (migrant to migrant), dealing with the migration politics of the Netherlands as well as Europe.

The Frida program, a residency for undocumented migrant artists, the insertion of a friend of the house and to Almost You. Igor Dobricic, a program officer of the EFC, became a member of the Blue House and Blue House member, Jeanne van Heeswijk took Dobricic's position. AlmostYou questions the relationship between funder and funded for a period of 6 months by swapping places and each trying to function in the other's context.