Testbed Bursary

Class Room, with support from Arts Council England, is creating a programme of bursaries to support creative practitioners to experiment with ideas to aid in the creation of new work.

The bursaries of £1000 will be offered to selected artists to support them to make new work (or to explore new avenues of enquiry via research or experimentation). The bursary is not a residency and all activities associated with the programme will be remote and documented online. A physical workspace space will not be provided.

The selected artists will be invited to engage in a dialogue with our audience online. This will likely take the form of an informal crit and an artist talk (over Zoom) and limited social media engagement. Therefore, rather than looking for artists that work in a particular medium, we are looking for artists who can demonstrate an interest in this opportunity for public engagement and who see it bringing a potential benefit to their practice.

Participants will be selected by an advisory panel that will include:

Jeffrey Cortland Jones - Painter, curator and professor of Art at University of Daytona, USA
Bruce Asbestos - Artist, Curator and Founder of Trade Gallery, Nottingham
Tara Rutledge - Photographer, Digital manager and Visual Artist
John Yeadon - Artist and director of the Coventry/Dresden Arts Exchange
Lilit Stepanyan - Artist, Founder of Today Art Initiative, Founder and curator of Rural art residency Armenia and Eco art AiR
Dr Silvie Jacobi - Co-Founder of the London School of Mosaics

The deadline for applications is the end of 10th May 2022. Applicants will be informed of the outcome of their application once the applications have been assessed by the panel and the bursary periods are intended to be staggered between May and December 2022.

HOW TO APPLY

Applications should be sent to applications@wearepluspace.com by the end of 10th of May. Please send one PDF or word document that includes:
- Your contact details including name, postal address, telephone number and email.
- A short description of the work that you would like to develop during the bursary period. Please include details of your existing practice (Max 500 words). - Up to 5 images of previous work.
- A link to a website/blog/social media where further images/information can be found.

We value and actively promote equality and diversity within the visual arts and encourage everyone to engage with art. We are happy to answer questions and offer support to assist anyone needing help with their application. Please contact Matthew Macaulay at applications@wearepluspace.com.