It’s a call to action few artists can afford to ignore: “There is hope on the horizon – a mass retraining, re-education and renewal will be undertaken” the website says.

In creative rhyming verse, the invitation continues:

“‘When?’ we hear you cry.
‘May the 26th’ is our reply.
‘And where?’ you excitedly scream.
‘Hackney Marshes’ we say, secretly pleased you’re so keen.
And then ‘London’, we add, remembering that some folk do live in the rest of the country.”

So what’s it all about?

The Arts Council’s Grants for the Arts scheme has had its funding cut by 35% because lottery money is being redirected to the Olympics. As a reaction to this, a new group has sprung up with an appropriate name: Grunts for the Arts, a play on the Arts Council's "Grants for the Arts". The mission statement says it all: “Grants not Grunts. You think we want to be doing this?”

They’re fighting for funding, but rather than take a purely traditional approach, they are attacking what they call the “shame and a disgrace” with a good dose of arts humour that draws on their roots in the live art scene. So what better place to start than by hosting a Sports Day?

Arts Hub spoke with Tim, from Grunts for the Arts, who said that the organising group has come together quite organically and spontaneously from their various arts corners to fight against the funding cuts. “It’s inevitable that artists won’t be getting as much money from grants as they used to, so we want to help them retrain as sports people to take advantage of the new funding streams,” he tells us.

Humour aside, he has a point. Since the idea went out three weeks ago, he’s been inundated with emails of support from photographers, musicians, dancers, fashion designers, students, and every other corner of the arts, so the original collective of artists has had to quickly start organising themselves so they can start to “grunt harmoniously” as Tim says.

While the group is not associated with the Arts Council of England, Tim says they have received several emails from ACE staff who have expressed concerns, and he believes the funding cuts are being felt acutely by ACE staff. But the group is predominantly motivated by the funding cuts for artists, many of whom rely on funding streams like this. “A lot of people are pissed off and if you’re not the head of the Barbican you’re going to be affected and you don’t have much ability to do anything except sign a petition or write to your MP”. Tim hopes the Sports Day is fun and raises awareness of the problem, uniting artists together.

Beyond highlighting the problems, their sports day gives artists a chance to show their talents in the sporting arena. As they say, all is not lost. There will be a Dadaist Decathlon, knitting sprints, invisible discus, gym mistakes, a modern dance dance-off, and 15 legged race, to name but a few, and a photographer and Video will record the event.

They are also promoting the online petition to the Prime Minister opposing the reallocation of resources to the Olympics of which the 35% reduction of grants for the arts is a part. And they’re calling for opinions and personal stories about your experiences with arts grants – good or bad – “spill the beans on the huge sums of money that you have been given, and remind us of the time that you waited 6 weeks to be told that you'd been awarded the bus fare home.”

Although their tongue in cheek suggestion of retraining artists might be the only viable way forward, the path of sports people is also fraught and could work as a uniting force. As Tim rightly points out the complex confusions within the current funding decisions mean that Sport England is also getting its funding cut as well, in order to fund sport, in England, in the form of the Olympics.

Editor’s note: the Grunts for the Arts Artist's Sports Day is on 26 May at Hackney Marshes. You can sign the petition at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/lotteryolympics or send your arts funding stories to gruntsforthearts@googlemail.com.