Tag: proposals

Ayuh, Merapat! Assemble, Now!: Proposal for a Collective Decision-making Model for the Visual Arts Community in Malaysia

snailproposal_outline_portrait

Proposal for a Collective Decision-making Model for the Visual Arts Community in Malaysia

< Draft 01, 17 May 2018 >

  • This proposal calls for visual artists and art practitioners to assemble in self-organized groups based on affiliation or locality, known as Sidang Lokal (Local Assemblies), to discuss issues directly affecting them.

  • It then calls for a Sidang Umum (General Assembly) to be held at a public space or institution, where delegates appointed by each Sidang Lokal present, coordinate and administer the viewpoints and decisions of their local assemblies.
  • Each Sidang Lokal appoints two members, 1 female and 1 male, to be delegates at the Sidang Umum.

———

SIDANG LOKAL

  • Sidang Lokal groups are self-formed and self-organized amongst artists and art practitioners.

  • Groups may be based on affinity, locality, or already existing associations.

  • The purpose of the Sidang Lokal is for artists and art practitioners to gather in groups of their choice, to discuss and make decisions on issues that impact them directly.

  • Membership can change, but each Sidang Lokal must consist of at least 11 members. There is no upper limit on membership.

  • Existing registered associations can only form one Sidang Lokal regardless of their membership size.

  • A person can only be a member of one Sidang Lokal.

  • Attendance and minutes should be recorded at every Sidang Lokal meeting. This duty rotates amongst the members.

  • Decisions are made by consensus and majority vote.

  • Each Sidang Lokal appoints two members, 1 female and 1 male, to be delegates at the Sidang Umum.

  • The delegates are strictly mandated, recallable, rotated frequently and responsible to their Sidang Lokal. Their function is purely administrative and practical.

  • The power of policymaking is the exclusive right of the Sidang Lokal. Delegates to the Sidang Umum are strictly responsible for the coordination and execution of the policies adopted by their Sidang Lokal.

———

SIDANG UMUM

  • Sidang Umum is a general assembly, held at regular intervals, where appointed delegates from the various Sidang Lokal present, coordinate and execute the viewpoints and decisions made by the local assemblies.

  • The purpose of the Sidang Umum is to form a network for information sharing and collective decision-making on issues that impact the entire visual arts community.

  • The role of the Sidang Umum is limited to coordination between the many Sidang Lokal.

  • The goal is always to maximize local power and autonomy while achieving a necessary degree of communication and coordination across the community.

  • All decisions made at the Sidang Umum must be formally adopted by the Sidang Lokal in order to be binding to their members. For example, if the Sidang Umum votes that a formal written request be made to the ruling government to establish a separate Ministry of Arts and Culture, and one or more Sidang Lokal do not agree, the members of those local assemblies are not required to be signatories to the request.

  • Sidang Umum should be held in a public space or institution in open session. If the assembly moves into closed session, this will be voted on by the delegates of the assembly.

  • Responsibility for chairing and recording minutes of the meeting rotates amongst the delegates of the Sidang Umum.

  • Decisions are made by consensus or majority vote.

———

GENERAL PRINCIPLES

  • This system is based on the principles of direct, face-to-face democracy and participatory administration.

  • The crucial elements are decentralization, localism, self-sufficiency and interdependence. This model democratizes community interdependence without surrendering the principle of local control.

  • Distinction between policymaking and administration must be emphasized. The power of policymaking rests in individual citizens at the Sidang Lokal level. The Sidang Umum or other regional councils have the responsibility of administering and coordinating those policies.

  • Appointed delegates or representatives are strictly mandated, recallable and rotated frequently.

  • Differences and diversity are welcomed. Minority opinions should be given space and hearing, but decisions can be made by majority vote.

  • Consensus should not override democracy in decision-making. It is the process of discussion and decision-making that drives innovation and adoption of new ideas.

  • Gender equality is paramount. Delegates to the Sidang Umum must consist of 1 female and 1 male from each Sidang Lokal. Assemblies at all levels must strive for at least 40% representation of either gender.

———

IMMEDIATE NEXT STEPS

  • Translate this proposal into various languages. Anyone!

  • Artists and art practitioners are encouraged to start forming their own Sidang Lokal, organizing meetings, recording minutes and sharing the outcomes publicly.

  • Prepare an updated draft of this proposal based on feedback.

  • Send this proposal to key government officials in charge of arts and culture, as well public art institutions in Malaysia, calling for their endorsement and for them to organize and call an inaugural Sidang Umum for the visual arts community.

———

 SCOPE & BASIS

  • This proposal is based on American social theorist and political philosopher Murray Bookchin’s (1921 – 2006) model of LIBERTARIAN MUNICIPALISM, in which citizens make decisions collectively through face-to-face democratic neighborhood assemblies. These decisions are implemented through a CONFEDERATION or network of administrative councils, whose delegates are elected directly by, and are responsible to, the popular assemblies.

  • It draws heavily from two essays in particular (linked below): ‘A Politics for the Twenty-first Century’ (1998) and ‘The Meaning of Confederalism’ (1990).

  • It was prepared by Sharon Chin, in consultation with Tan Hui Koon, Danny Lim, Zedeck Siew and Ooi Ying Nee.

  • It was prepared in the context of the Malaysian visual arts community, but the model and its principles can be adapted to communities exploring bottom-up, directly democratic ways of collective decision-making.

———

FURTHER READING & RESOURCES

Loomio is a simple, user-friendly online tool for collaborative decision-making. Loomio lets you host discussions online, invite the right people to participate, come to timely decisions and transform deliberation into real-world action.

Explore by joining the Sidang Lokal Test Group here: https://www.loomio.org/join/group/a1gxHEtWQNSkGQciwAPUjMj4/

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  • Murray Bookchin, ‘A Politics for the Twenty-first Century’ (1998) and ‘The Meaning of Confederalism’ (1990)

These two essays are from the book The Next Revolution: Popular Assemblies and the Promise of Direct Democracy, published by VERSO. They can be found in PDF format here, strictly for educational and non-profit purposes only: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LAxvUM9UG9c8Leo-3Vr2C4JHrhUEeqno/view?usp=sharing

—

From Athens to New York, recent mass movements around the world have challenged austerity and authoritarianism with expressions of real democracy. For more than forty years, Murray Bookchin developed these democratic aspirations into a new left politics based on popular assemblies, influencing a wide range of political thinkers and social movements.

With a foreword by the best-selling author of The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin, The Next Revolution brings together Bookchin’s essays on freedom and direct democracy for the first time, offering a bold political vision that can move us from protest to social transformation. A pioneering voice in the ecology and anarchist movements, he is the author of The Ecology of Freedom and Post-Scarcity Anarchism among many other books.

—

There’s a revolution going on in northern Syria, one that challenges everything we know about government and society and freedom. With centuries of ethnic oppression behind them, their backs against the embargo wall of Turkey, and the ruthless forces of the Islamic State laying siege to their cities, the people of Rojava are trying what might be the most ambitious social experiment of our times. Two-and-a-half million people are trying to live without a nationstate, using direct democracy to build a society ruled from the bottom up. As the Syrian civil war rages, the Kurds and other ethnic groups of Rojava fight for autonomy, feminism, ecological stewardship, cooperative economics, and ethnic, linguistic, and religious pluralism.

It behooves us to understand their struggle as best we can. This book, compiling the words of militia members and academics alike, lays out the Rojava Revolution in plain language.

The introduction and overview of the Rojava situation can be read in its entirety at: http://www.tangledwilderness.org/a-mountain-river-has-many-bends/

 —

A chronicle of one of the most dynamic experiments in radical social transformation in the United States. The book documents the ongoing organizing and institution building of the political forces concentrated in Jackson, Mississippi dedicated to advancing the “Jackson-Kush Plan”.

Jackson Rising documents the history of this movement, its contributions towards the radical transformation of the United States, and its political implications for social movements throughout the United States, the global South and the world.

 —

Building a solidarity economy in Jackson, Mississippi, anchored by a network of cooperatives and worker-owned, democratically self-managed enterprises.

——— END ———

PDF version of this document: AYUH MERAPAT_ ASSEMBLE NOW Draft01

Word version of this document: AYUH MERAPAT_ ASSEMBLE NOW Draft01

A Decade of Art Proposals – What I’ve learned (and a real example)

Art proposals are the secret key of the art world game. They are how, armed with nothing more than an idea on paper, you can unlock money and opportunities, like this (deadline: 1 Dec 2014 / 1 Jun 2015), and this (deadline: 31 Dec 2014).

I’ve burned more hours than I can count putting together proposals for myself and friends in need. Do I wish I could’ve spent those hours making art? Yes, but this is the hustle I needed to learn to construct my dreams in reality. It’s changing – soon, knowing how to make a great Kickstarter video will be more important. But for now, Time + Sweat = I got good at art proposals, and I’m sharing what I’ve learned because I think it’s still useful.

I included an actual proposal at the end.

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1. Read the guidelines

Stick to the guidelines and word limits. Read about the organization. Find out what projects or people they’ve funded in the past. Is there a pattern? Do they have a preference for innovation, collaboration, networking or community engagement? Highlight the parts of your project that might appeal to them.

 2. People are gonna tell you to write your proposal early

Well, they’re right, and they’re not the ones who need to read this. For the rest of us human beings, a confession: every proposal I sent was worked on feverishly at and up to, the last possible moment.

Proposal writing is a dreadful, laborious chore. The best advice I have is to give yourself about 3 days to write the sucker, but for two weeks before, think about your project all the time – who it’s for, why you’re doing it, and how. Hopefully, when you finally sit your procrastinating ass down, your thoughts will have marinated enough, which is half the battle. This allows you to focus on writing clearly.

3. To start, write it out quickly, all at once

Seriously, set a timer for 25 minutes and vomit it on to the page. Don’t stop to edit or think too much until you fill all the sections of your application from beginning to end, once. Then go back and refine. Refine again. And again. Until it’s good.

4. Write it in the language you know best

Everything depends on clear articulation of your idea, plan and intentions. You can’t be thinking clearly in a language you don’t know well. Translate it yourself or ask a friend do it afterwards. But write it in your first language.

Note to funders: You can drastically level the playing field by allowing people to submit proposals in their own language, in addition to English. Proposal writing is real labour – the time required can deter many deserving applicants, especially if it eats into income generating work. In my opinion, the costs of translation should be borne by the funding organization, not the applicant.

 5. Write it like a human being

Don’t use jargon. Don’t use big words or complicated sentences. Don’t be vague. Focus. Sharpen your mind and then sharpen your words to reflect your thoughts. Think of the human being reading it on the other end. They don’t need to be impressed. They just need to know what your project is.

Note to funders: Make your application simple to fulfill. Treat the person writing it like a human being. Don’t make it harder than it has to be. See above note about labour.

6. Order your information

Keep the conceptual (your motivation, ideology, objectives) and the practical (logistics, process, timeline) separate. Create sections with headings. Don’t repeat yourself. Make sure every section and sentence conveys new and vital information.

7. Make smart use of bullet points and tables

This breaks up the page and is easier to read than paragraphs of text.

8. Don’t turn your project into something you don’t want to do just to get the grant

It will create inconsistencies and weaken your proposal. Also, what’s the point?

9. Budget

Decide the total budget first and break it down from there – this lets you (and your funder) immediately sense the overall scale of your project. The expectations of a RM20,000 project will be very different to a RM100,000 one.

If the grant amount offered is less than what you need for the entire project, break it down into parts and state which parts you’re applying to get funded (see example proposal below). Do not attempt to fit your project into a vastly smaller budget than you actually need. It will show on paper like a sore thumb.

The budget is not set in stone. If you get funded, it can and probably will change. The point is to demonstrate that you have thought through what you’ll need and what it will cost. Basic research is too easy not to do. E.g. if one of the items is accommodation, find out what the real prices are.

10. Specific details win over arty idealism

Think of the latter as sugar and spice. The details of your project, and how you’re going to get it done is the meat and rice.

11. Treat this as reality bootcamp for your idea

It’s a merciless exercise in getting down on paper exactly what you want to do and what it’s going to take to do it. Write proposals even if (especially if) there aren’t any grants available right now. Give birth to your dreams in ink, so that when opportunity approaches, they can leap off the page like electricity to become something solid in the world.

12. You can do it. I believe in you.

—-

This is the proposal for ‘In The Land That Never Was Dry’, my comics journalism project about water. It was recently awarded a grant from the Krishen Jit ASTRO Fund. This is for educational purposes only, please ask permission before you copy or reproduce any part of it. If you can’t see the reader below, go here.

Art proposals: Why they’re Difficult, and Important

I’ve spent the last few days trying to finish a proposal for my epic art/multimedia/videogame/genre-busting/enterprise project.

As usual, it’s eating up more time and sweat than I thought it would. First steps always do. They’re the litmus test. If you can’t get past this stage, how are you going to hold up to the rest of the journey?

Halfway through, in a one of those fits of despair-clarity (desclarity? clarpairity?) I tweeted: Proposal writing is like pushing a dream through the sieve of reality.

No matter what project you’re trying to birth, this is one of the most difficult things to do. It’s also one of the most important.

I’ve written probably more than a dozen proposals – for myself and others. Hanim used to call me ulat proposal or the proposal worm. I like that. A worm is the right thing emulate. You’re in the darkness, turning the soil, working hard, trying to prepare the ground where (hopefully) your 250ft Tualang tree is going to grow.

Be a worm, my comrades!

I’ve realized that the ones closest to your heart are the hardest to write. This year is the first time in a long, long while that I’ve written proposals for myself, not as an application for a grant, residency or external opportunity of some kind. There’s no deadline, except the passing of the days, the realization that… FUCK, is it October already?… the end of the year is coming.

I’ve talked a lot about this epic project to friends – how it’s going to be a total shift, what it’s going to take, the outfit I plan to wear at the launch. But writing it down sets it in stone. No turning back. It becomes real, to you.

So real that, as I was scheduling the work plan and budget, my heart started pounding uncontrollably. ‘Chill the fuck out’, I ordered my brain. ‘It’s art, not saving lives.’

The enormity of the task felt overwhelming, and also slightly ridiculous. Was it right to dedicate so much effort to realizing a personal vision? Did it not smell a little of hubris? Selfishness? I saw a wave coming towards me, completely swallowing up my life for months, perhaps even years. Shouldn’t I use this life towards a greater good? Art… pffft.

These are the kind of powerfully stupid thoughts that kill worthy dreams before they even start. Where do they come from? I cringe as I write them down. Do you get them?

I can’t really answer whether art is more important than say, education or saving the environment or bringing down a corrupt government. But I do know this: many best efforts go awry, and many good intentions do harm. So how? I don’t know. I’ve chosen the Taoist/anarchist route: do what only you can do. What no one else can do. Keep to that, and maybe I’ll do less wrong. Who knows, perhaps I’ll even do some good in the bargain.

Incidentally, that last paragraph is basically what the Epic Project (that what I’ll call it from now on, until I’m prepared to reveal the proper title) is all about.

Fucking hell. I figured it out. I was dead stuck at the ‘Project Context and Significance’ part of the proposal. That’s it. Taoism. Anarchism. Doing only what you can do.

God, I love blogging. Thank you, imaginary readers. You help me in unimaginable ways.

Now back to proposal writing.

Why is it difficult? Because it’s a start.

Why is it important? So that you can see what you need to finish.

I started to calm down as I plowed through the business plan and working schedule. I broke it down into parts, and then into smaller parts. I cut out anything that wasn’t absolutely essential, then thought hard about what I could realistically accomplish, and gave myself more time. I took a deep breath and I thought…

I can do this. I think.

Pics: I was in Sabah recently and went on a canopy walk amongst Tualang trees that were as hard as rock, and hundreds of years old. I felt like a little seed invited to a party by living ancients. It was cool. 

~

A very long P.S. –

From a professional artist point of view, writing clear and effective proposals is a skill well worth developing. It takes practice, but it can be done. The question is, do you want to do it, and do you need to?

Many artists have difficulty describing their work in words. It feels unnatural, something of a ‘mistranslation’ when you want your art to speak for itself. If you want to pursue the path of getting gallery exhibitions, grants, funding or residencies, you need to write good proposals. This is because the intersections of art, commerce and social-economic development are getting more complicated and sophisticated. It’s a bureaucratic jungle. If artists want to grow there, they have to justify their work in terms of objectives, goals and wider social significance.

There are choices, other paths to take. That’s not the only way to be an artist. You can focus on engaging your audience the way YOU want to, by talking about your art the way YOU want to, and so gain more autonomy through self-representation. That’s what I’m trying to do with this blog.

However! Whether it’s for a selection committee or for personal use, writing a proposal is a helpful tool (whatever the ‘project’, e.g. running a marathon, writing a cookbook, starting a recycling campaign, planning an urban garden, etc). It kicks the logical, analytical, left-brain part of yourself into gear. It sends a clear signal to your central system: no kidding around. I. AM. Doing. This. Because this is how I’m going to do it.

So, try it out. There are some good tips out there on the interweb.

I’m thinking of doing a practical guide on How To Write a Project Proposal. I mean, a proper one, with templates and real instructions. Drop me an email or a comment if you think that’s a good idea.