STEIM needs support

The future for the STEIM institute is blurred as the government is planning to stop the structural funding for them, here is the official statement from STEIM:

Things are not well at STEIM. We are in the danger of losing our structural funding from the government, based on a review from the advisor board which called us “closed and only appealing to a niche audience”. The outlook isn’t exactly bleak, but at the moment our future is unclear.

They need your support with their official objection they are preparing. You may send support letters to them, but you need to make sure they receive it before May 27(tomorrow!)… From their site:

As we see you as an important friend and colleague of STEIM, we would like to ask you to help us present our case that we are connected to a diverse network of professionals and that our work has significant influence on both a Dutch and an international community. What you can do is to send a letter of support, and make sure we receive it by May 26. We hope that these letters will show the variety and depth of the effect STEIM has in the real world. The contents are up to you, a few good lines will suffice. You could tell how you or someone you know benefited from their contact with STEIM: making or refining an instrument or an idea for a performance or meeting fellow artists, or what you feel would be lost if STEIM ceased to exist, or waxing aphoristic, just 12 words about STEIM. To send an online support letter, go here: http://www.steim.org/steim_needs_your_support/

This is very bad news, but I think with the global support they are getting from the artists community, this will eventually be sorted out. Here is my support letter which I’ve sent for them, for the “Council for Culture” to see:

Keeping it simple:

STEIM really is a unique place, and a name well known all around the globe by those people that are working with the arts of “today” and “our future”. The people supporting this important center are defining the boundaries of, and bringing new perspectives to, our understanding and experience of arts in general. The output sometimes/somehow might be hard to swallow and look/sound “sour and harsh” for people that are programmed to try to find an appropriate point to “settle” to the “old and familiar” and have that natural tendency to ignore progression. It appears as a sad fact to me that the people that have the power to determine the future for STEIM, happen to be of those “settler” type of people that are at best missing the whole point of this important creativity plant.

STEIM is and has always been an “open” and inspirational place for people that reject to settle to the old, that believe in progression in all arts, in general, that create, that try to push and define the new; Amsterdam should be very proud to have such an unmatched meeting point in Europe for all those bright and talented people, and should respect the independent characteristics of this center, the characteristics that make all the magic happening in here. Those artists need this “home” on this little planet, to explore and create then share and eventually define, independently and without pressures.

To get the slightest idea about what this really means, one should trace the people that are passing through, from here, it is easy; STEIM has a bright past, and given the chance, will have a bright future.