DONATIONS / SUPPORT OUR CAPACITY IN BUILDING
In order to continue our projects, a support for capacity building in terms of space, staff permanent salary and services, will help the project Arab media lab to continue its vision and bring its activities into another level. Our vision is to create a space where art constitutes an integral and visible part of everyday life. A vital means that contributes to the mobility of people by inciting them to act, create and participate towards creativity and cultural production. Our work is aimed at building a society in which culture and arts can motivate individuals and communities to open up to other cultures and societies. Every donation, whether large or small, will help us to continue develop this very unique, independent and fragile project. In fact, your support is more than a donation, it will save this project.
Capacity Building Plan
Establishment a workspace for events, training, exhibitions and screenings
Since establishing the online platform and creating events and training programs to enhance media arts development, we feel that a permanent space is necessary to maintain and build on our work. Having to obtain rent-free spaces through in-kind and other support for our training programs and annual events is not a sustainable model. The flexibility that our own space would provide would allow us to not only fix our events calendar well in advance, but also to organise events spontaneously if needed, in the case where a lecture, workshop, screening or presentation would be beneficial to respond to events as they unfold in the region. Moreover, no such space exists in Marrakech and as the success of our previous events have shown, we do have the capacity and experience to carry out events and training programs for media arts practice, and such a space is much needed to respond to the growing interest in media arts.
The capacity building plan includes the spaces, facilities and resources needed to carry out each phase of the aforementioned activities of Arab Media Lab. For example, the training classes and workshops we facilitate require a space for the training, the equipment for participants to practice with and the editing rooms and relevant software to complete the postproduction phases of their projects. The equipment requested in the financial plan includes the basic gear needed for audio/visual creation, including camera, lighting, microphones, etc. This set-up would allow participants to explore the audio-visual skills they will be learning in the training sessions. The next phase is to maintain the work and distribute the completed projects in the relevant platforms as well as preserve the work in our growing archive. These activities require basic office spaces and supplies, telecommunications facilities, space/capacity to maintain our growing database of work, etc.
The ability to carry out our training projects and other events has been dependant on the in-kind and other contributions that provide the equipment and facilities needed. For the same reasons referred to above, having our own equipment and facilities provides the freedom to carry out our events with or without support from other organisations.
Staff and services
As well as having a permanent space, our work would be greatly boosted if we were able to hire permanent staff. We have established a small and committed team that has been working mostly on a volunteer basis, or paid small amounts when we have had the means with the budget at hand for a given project. Our work would benefit greatly if we could maintain the same team over periods of time and for the life of a project. Due to funding constraints, we have at times been forced to hand over a position mid-project, which has meant the given project has suffered. We have overcome these problems when they have arisen, however, the freedom and strength that is added to a project with the capacity to pay all of the team members, would add much value to our projects.
Qualitative Results expected:
The qualitative results that we would see with the development of a space, equipment and staff would be that we could follow through with our work to its very end to ensure that artists have the space, support and facilities needed at all stages of their artistic development. More than be able to provide artists with training and exhibiting their work (whether in exhibitions, screenings or on our online platform), we believe that creating a sustainable media arts environment that encourages open, brave, bold, innovative and expressive work, can benefit the media arts community (which is a burgeoning one) as a whole. Having the space and resources needed to establish such an environment, we believe, would raise the level of the work being produced and would provide more sustainable support for artists, which currently does not exist anywhere in Morocco.
Quantitative results expected:
We believe that the space and resources to maintain and expand our work would result in the production of more work and at a higher level. Our work seeks to encourage media arts practice in the region and the space, resources and staff needed to provide that would enable us to take continue and expand our online activities, research and production of works and spread the results to more and more communities, including those normally excluded for economic, social or political reasons.
For further inquiry, communicate with us: support@arabmedialab.org
