Grant For The Arts


Musical (ongoing)

Based on the Grant For The Arts application form, the musical details Grant's adventures as he negotiates the funding process. Including the massive hits You and Your Work, Mr Engagement (How Do The Public Engage With Your Work), Self Evaluation & Making It Happen, Grant comes to regret submitting an Arts Council application for a tattoo of the ACE logo as the Olympic rings.  


Music by Genevieve Murphy



Mr Engagement


What is the demand for my activity?

Huge, given the Cultural Olympiad I will enthuse.

And the people I will reach?

Thousands, millions if I make the news.

Any marketing activities?

I am a walking talking logo.

Do I represent good value for money?

Tattoo aside, I just need to buy a pogo.

And my audience? All those groups less likely to participate than normal,

Those with lack of time? I'll do it at rush hour.

And poor health? I'll visit hospitals and hospices hoping to empower. I'll visit rough housing estates and people with no formal education, Because, this is going to be the perfect application.

It supports the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad,

And fits its themes and values.

I am Mr Engagement.

This is my destiny and fate.

I will bring them culture on a massive scale.

I am here to help the masses.

I will use art and sport to unite the classes.

I am Mr Engagement,

And this is the perfect application,

To promote the unity of art and sport.

Send me the money now!



Another Rejection


My name is Grant, and I have never had a grant. 

My middle name is dejection.

I spend so long writing applications,

And all I get is another rejection.

I've heard about the fat A4 envelope that says yes,

We want you out there in the public space.

But am I successful at writing applications?

No I always receive a thin A7 envelope instead.

But I'm certain my ideas were real creations:

Rejection number seven: prostitutes reading Mills and Boon. 

Rejection number twenty-one: carving Bourriaud with a spoon. 

Rejection number thirty-five: plans to graffiti a model village. 

Rejection number forty-two: on the white cliffs of Dover a paint spillage.

They said I was disaffected.

They claimed I left Joe Public all neglected.

My name is Grant, and I have never had a grant. 

My middle name is dejection.

I spend so long writing applications,

And all I get is another rejection.



Self-Evaluation (The Self-Dermabrasion Song)


Have I contributed to the collective practice wisdom of the sector? 

What is my history and achievement?

Have I made the reflective practice of my work explicit and conscious?

And what about quality assurance?

Grant Grant a Grant?

I'm just a joke, a three-letter acronym and pun,

I need to remove the evidence of everything I've done. 

Cheap vodka for numbing solution,

And an economy range Homebase electric sander.

I'm no longer interested in self-evaluation,

For it is time for self-dermabrasion.

There is nothing ace,

About having a logo on your face,

And chest, and legs, and arms, and head.

I'm going to remove all these things.

Why did I use those words to get these rings?






Using Format