When soundpocket was founded in 2008, we self-funded our programmes that aimed at profiling listening and sound as integral elements of artistic creations. In 2009, we received our first grant from the Hong Kong Arts Development Council. The one-year grant became a two-year grant in two years, and currently, our organizational expenses are so funded. For medium-sized programmes, including Around sound art festival and publications, we have to apply for multi-project grants. In addition to the support of HKADC, we have also benefited from the Arts Capacity Development Fund of HAB, and support from The Japan Foundation. These are all one-off, project-based funding. We have performed hired services with such organizations as OXFAM and MaD. As a charitable organization, soundpocket has also applied to the Social Welfare Department to raise funds by flag-selling, though all the attempts failed. We will keep trying, and explore other channels of funding. We need your support for independence and flexibility in programming, which is urgent in the current environment of public funding for art.

This Benefit relies solely on ticket sales and artists’ headphone direct sales. We believe in citizens funding (sometimes known as crowd funding) – we have always worked with public money, which has kept us alert of questions of accountability and responsibility.

Donation from the Benefit goes primarily to two ongoing initiatives:
1. Artists Support Programme – a direct channel to offer financial and curatorial support for young artists. We have been putting aside a stipend for two young artists each year for the past three years, selected through, currently, an open application and interview process. An expansion of this program means more concrete and direct support to young artists who may not be economically viable in the first few years after their graduation from art school, or in the beginning of their careers.
2. The Library by soundpocket – our HAB grant period for the project will end in January 2014. With the support of ACDF, we have built a network of a hundred or so concerned and active listeners, commissioned ten artists and sound collectors for original presentation of their recordings, created feature stories on local cultures of listening, engaged with high schools with listening workshops, presented outings to promote knowing where and who we are through listening, and above all, built an online and offline structure for the development of a learning culture in which artists and non-artists come together.

Our motto is to nurture individuals who are committed to art and sound and listening in art. They may be artists, designers, administrators, writers, curators, many more. Whenever we find the interest, we create learning cultures together – to keep up our curiosity in each other, acknowledge our mutual influences, and make room for inspiration to happen.

We ask your kind understanding to not regard the Benefit with a consumerist mindset – that the ticket price is too high for a program, but rather, a citizen who believes without care to listening, and the specific contributions from artists and others to this care, the world is less well lived.

Yeung Yang, October 20, 2013