Media Arts organisation dLux to restructure as funding dries up
After 35 years Sydney digital and media arts organisation dLux Media Arts is shrinking as it looks to find new funding sources following the departure of its long term manager, Tara Morelos last week.
Chair of dLux, Bec Dean, told Mumbrella the organisation is refocusing its programs and seeking a new home for its Scanlines archive as it deals with a tighter funding environment.
“It doesn’t mean our projects have entirely stopped, we are continuing to deliver programs as planned for 2017 and we’ve moving offices from Lilyfield to shared office with 107 Projects in Redfern,” Dean said. “We’re working with them being our venue partner and collaborating with them on a project.”
Beginning as the Sydney Super 8 Group in 1982, the organisation became the Sydney Intermedia Network in 1990 before taking up its current name as dLux MediaArts in 1998. The organisation has been struggling as government funding has been tightened in recent years.
“The organisation hasn’t been in receipt of program funding from the Australia Council for quite a long time and last year we were among a number of organisations that didn’t get their funding renewed,” said Dean.
“Since then the organisation has been looking at how it can continue to operate without guarantees of fundings. We still have funding from Create NSW but that’s always been an annual program support.”
“We’re making ourselves smaller so we can be more nimble in this challenging time and to produce projects that are based on ideas rather than high material output so they will be less expensive to run.”
Dean said the organisation is looking for a new home for the Scanlines archive that features work dating back to the 1960s, “we’re looking at working with the Art Gallery of NSW to take on our archives as it is a really significant archive, they are really interested in it and we’re just in the process of negotiating with them.”
While shrinking, the organisation is looking at new projects with FBi Radio and with scientists on new media in coming months along with finding new revenue streams through events as well as being more focused on ‘grass roots artists’.
