Sculpture By The Sea Facing Possible Cancellation After Budget Deficit

Set to take place in less than a month, Sculpture by the Sea is dodging cancellation after the organisers failed to receive the necessary funding to run the event.

The iconic annual show transforms the Bondi to Tamarama coastal walk into a 2km sculpture park, attracting nearly half a million visitors, and had a planned 94 works from artists across 14 countries ready to display this year.

Founder David Handley said he was told last week at the event had failed to secure funding from two government agencies after applying in an emergency bid for financial support.

“Almost everyone thinks Sculpture by the Sea is well funded from government sources. It is not,” Handley told the Sydney Morning Herald.

“We had to cancel this year’s Perth exhibition and did not expect that the people we were speaking with in the government for the last six months or more would not be able to secure the funds required, and we only found out late last week. We are hoping the NSW public and corporate donors will get behind us and the artists.”

The event needs to raise $200,000 in order to continue as usual, and has already managed to acquire $120,000, which will enable a scaled-back event at the South Bondi headland.

Sculpture by the Sea has relied on funding from government and sponsorships to transport and install the works, run the exhibit, and pay the artists, with Hadley saying they’ve cut hundreds of thousands of dollars from their usual $3 million exhibition costs.

Creative Australia shrugs off blame

Handley has said the government’s peak arts body, Creative Australia, is to blame for the lack of funding, but a spokesperson from Creative Australia said it had not received any formal funding applications from Sculpture by the Sea for two years.