{"id":178126,"date":"2025-09-24T08:05:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T08:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/178126\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T08:05:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T08:05:13","slug":"sculpture-by-the-sea-in-doubt-amid-budget-shortfall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/178126\/","title":{"rendered":"Sculpture by the Sea in doubt amid budget shortfall"},"content":{"rendered":"

Organisers of Australia\u2019s largest annual outdoor sculpture walk have made an urgent public plea for public and corporate donations, warning the event faces cancellation if it is unable to meet a $200,000 budget shortfall.<\/p>\n

Sculpture by the Sea\u2019s<\/a> founder David Handley said he was informed last week the iconic Bondi to Tamarama cliff walk had been unsuccessful in securing two potential avenues of government funding after an eleventh-hour bid for support.<\/p>\n

\"Clayton<\/p>\n

Clayton Blake\u2019s Odyssey from Sculpture by the Sea Bondi, 2024. Credit: Charlotte Curd<\/p>\n

\u201cAlmost everyone thinks Sculpture by the Sea is well funded from government sources. It is not,\u201d Handley said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had to cancel this year\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

The shortfall comes a year shy of the exhibition\u2019s 30th anniversary, and in the same week as a key arts tax summit is to be held at the Sydney Opera House to find ways to extend a lifeline to the bleeding arts sector.<\/p>\n

The iconic coastal walk draws around 450,000 visitors over 18 days, with some 94 works from artists from 14 countries to be installed for this year\u2019s October 17 opening. Some international works have already arrived in Australia ahead of the show.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe artists have been doing their last finishing touches while we have been operating on the basis that the show would go ahead, and we would get the money we needed, and then last week the news came through that these two sources were unable to come up with the funds,\u201d Handley told the Herald. \u201cWe\u2019ve been telling all the relevant government departments we were headed for a financial cliff and here we are.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Sculpture<\/p>\n

Sculpture by the Sea founder David Handley at Tamarama.Credit: Louise Kennerley<\/p>\n

Handley has two weeks to raise $200,000 for the sculptural exhibition to take place. Should $100,000 be raised, a scaled-back exhibition can go ahead on the South Bondi headland, he said. However, it\u2019s too late for Sculpture by the Sea\u2019s long-running school education program, held since 2002. Separate to school excursions, the program was unable to proceed this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Organisers of Australia\u2019s largest annual outdoor sculpture walk have made an urgent public plea for public and corporate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178127,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88],"class_list":{"0":"post-178126","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178126\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}