Stories

16.11.2016

To you who are reading this

I am writing in the middle of the Kone Foundation grant application assessment process.

This cliché is true. There are many good applications.

Many that are as good as those that get accepted get left behind.

While reading the applications, I have been inspired and touched; I have admired, smiled and raised my eyebrows.

I have read carefully.

I have felt appropriately and eternally conflicted about choosing.

I have looked at the overall picture from a bird’s eye view, then closer and at close range.

I have examined the applications in relation to the application criteria of Kone Foundation as well as my many interpretations of them.

I have set boundaries for and definitions of my own criteria and my knowledge.

I have noticed shortcomings in my criteria and added more.

I have organised and compared.

I have screened out applications, again and again.

I have re-read.

I have thought about how there is a long story behind each application.

 

Someone, and some others, are reading your application.

I care about what happens to it and what happens to your project, your piece and your research.

What happens to your team, your life and your work.

That is why the task of screening is always an impossible task.

There is no result that is just right.

Most of all, this is because the amounts granted do not match the amounts applied for in good applications.

Because there are too many things to consider.

Because it is always also a matter of choice, and there is no way to ever take everything into account in that choice.

 

I have asked, for example:

What is the communication method of this creator or entity?

What way of doing things, attitude, awareness of the industry and its potential come across in the application?

How is the application situated in its context(s), and what kinds of things does it contribute to its context(s)?

What kind of a relationship with the world does the application indicate?

Does the application offer something concrete to engage in, or do I have only my imagination to rely on to understand the form, process or way of doing things? If I do have to rely on my imagination, does the still abstract proposal bring up an image in my mind?

What is the relationship between the earlier background of the creators/operators and the proposal they have submitted?

If the application includes an international dimension, what kind of internationality is that?

If the application has a local or location-specific dimension, what kind?

 

It is important that the application roughly meets the formal requirements. Even if they have been interpreted in an eccentric way, they have to have been considered.

It is important that the definition of boldness called for by Kone Foundation has been taken into the applicant’s own hands.

A good application also shows something else.

Something more than the ability to write applications.

Something more than the ability to do what you know how to do.

 

Good applications show:

Sometimes distinctiveness, sometimes clarity and brightness, sometimes indisputable expertise, sometimes real risk-taking, sometimes fragility and sensitivity, sometimes the perseverance to go your own way, sometimes the sharpest moment of sharp thinking, sometimes a difficult theme, sometimes a good tactic, sometimes honesty, sometimes small details, sometimes good timing, sometimes the ability to develop, sometimes a counterproposal, a manifesto, written in the form of an application. Sometimes something that I have not encountered before on paper (that is, on the screen).

 

In sleeting rain, I continue my work with a warm heart.

Yours faithfully,

Screen name OneAssessor16