Please note: This call out is now closed.

In partnership with Jerwood Arts, FACT is pleased to invite emerging artists, curators, technologists, and cultural activists, in particular those from underrepresented backgrounds, to apply for a new paid remote residency and artistic development opportunity this Autumn.

DEADLINE: Monday 14 September 2020, midnight BST

Information about this opportunity is available in 3 different formats:

• Download TEXT DOCUMENT

• Scroll down to read TEXT ON A WEB PAGE

• Listen to RECORDED AUDIO below

If you have a question or need help, please email residency@fact.co.uk or call 0151 707 4444

FACT’s 2020 programme The Living Planet has dealt with themes such as climate change, ecology, and community building. This leads us directly into our 2021 programme, which will focus on questions around migration, and its significance to us both as a species and more personal understandings of identity.

During this programme, and the research for next year, the importance of exploring different ways of seeing and communicating have been central: how we might change and challenge the way we understand the world around us, and our place within it. Fixed perspectives restrict us, but there is an opportunity to use art, digital culture and readily available tools to overcome these barriers: to disrupt the norm, establishing stronger forms of empathy and updated notions of community.

In the present moment, it is vital that we open ourselves up to different voices and understandings. It is also more urgent than ever to question those systems of which we are all a part, and how our actions affect not only our immediate environment, but our entire ecosystem. Digital platforms have been a vital tool for all of us during this time, and as such many of us are rethinking how we engage with the technologies all around us: of the power that they hold, and the systems of power they can be used to either reinforce or expose.

Within this context, to invite new voices into the organisation and bring new perspectives to what the future holds for digital culture, Jerwood Arts and FACT announce three residency opportunities through a new Fellowship programme.

The Jerwood / FACT Fellowship will appoint 3 emerging artists, curators, creative technologists, critical thinkers, or cultural activists, from any background, to support their potential as producers of the future. FACT’s current and future programme has intersectionality at its heart, and so we particularly invite proposals which take a similar approach, and which see the unique, transformative power that technology can provide within this discourse.

Residencies will be mostly digital, with outcomes presented online and/or at FACT in early 2021. We invite candidates to experiment with, and extend what is possible through, online arts programming, but there are also opportunities to travel to and stay in Liverpool if it suits the successful candidate's way of working and proposal development. Each Fellow will receive a fee and production budget, as well as travel, accommodation and per diems for the final presentations, as well as any other agreed upon visits. Alongside this there will be professional mentoring from the FACT team and our network of collaborators, to assist in the development of not only your idea but also your practice.

Fellows will be encouraged to experiment with different online platforms, as well as test out elements of their research with the public or invited audiences in January and February 2021. In addition, we will invite all Fellows to participate in FACT’s Transformer Summit 2021, a gathering of leading artists and thinkers to help shape the questions examined in our wider future programme.

Fellows will take part in a remote residency to research and develop their initial proposal. During this time, using digital tools, they will receive bespoke training, mentoring, crits, and production/research input from the team at FACT, the other Fellows, and an invited selection of our wider collaborators consisting of artists, curators and researchers. They will then deliver a final version of their work online and/or return for approx. 1 week in January/February 2021 to deliver or present some of their outcomes. They will also be contacted at the end of the residency for an evaluation.

Please note

We are flexible around if, and how, time is spent at FACT. We would ask that if successful participants’ proposals include a final physical presentation, they ensure they can be present at FACT to share their work in January/February 2021. The residency is conducted remotely in consideration of the other commitments the Fellows may have, however, the opportunity has been designed to give Fellows enough space to be focused mostly on the development of their proposals, giving priority as far as possible to the residency during this period.

• Fee of £4,000 paid directly to the Fellow, to cover approximately 40 working days across 10 weeks.
• Production budget (covering both residency and final outcome) of £2,875
• Additional travel expenses available up to £375 (for research visits and final presentation)
• If Fellows invite other practitioners to develop a work or project, their fees should be paid from the above totals
• Accommodation provided when on site, with an additional £25 per diem
• We will invite Fellows to join us in Liverpool to participate in a conference during Summer 2021: a fee, travel and accommodation will be available for this additional visit
• Additionally, we have a discretionary budget to address any specific access requirements, to ensure the residency is flexible and it’s outcomes are as inclusive as possible

To be considered, candidates should submit the following to residency@fact.co.uk by midnight on Monday 14 September 2020:

1. A proposal of no more than 750 words in writing, or 4 minutes recording (audio or video will both be accepted). You can also include up to 10 images, links and digital content. The proposal should:
   • Include a brief artist’s statement, giving an overview of your work and how this Fellowship would benefit the development of your practice in relation to digital technologies and platforms.
   • Outline a project you would like to develop during the residency that responds to FACT’s programme themes (detailed below), indicating how you may use the production budget. Project proposals should be for new works rather than completing existing or ongoing projects
2. CV or portfolio, if available. If you have a website, or your social media contains all this information, please just include a link.
3. A completed Monitoring Form. Download here.

Eligibility

As an emerging artist’s development opportunity, applicants must have been working on their practice for at least three years (not including any formal undergraduate study), but for no more than ten years. We will not accept proposals from applicants currently in formal education, including postgraduate study. Applicants must be based in the UK.

Selection

• We encourage applications from people with backgrounds that are currently under-represented or under-supported within the arts sector and practitioners whose work is intersectional in approach, but the selection process itself is anonymised.
• An internal selection panel will be responsible for shortlisting a maximum of 15 applications which will be then invited to interview (w/c 14 September)
• The final Fellows will be selected from this shortlist by an external panel consisting of curators, producers, artists and researchers from the North. Members to be announced.

If you require more information to submit a proposal, either about the theme of The Living Planet, or if you need to discuss access and flexibility, please do get in touch.

You can contact us at residency@fact.co.uk or by phone on 0151 707 4444

The Jerwood / FACT Fellowship initiative emerged from FACT’s ongoing commitment to nurturing a diverse new generation of artists, film-makers, creative technologists and critical thinkers. We aim to champion artistic, cultural and disruptive uses of new media and technology, and further art’s engagement with scientific knowledge. As a cultural organisation in the process of transforming the way it works, this initiative responds to three key institutional aims:

• To expand FACT’s thinking by developing new ideas and perspectives, broadening the scope of our programme and audiences.
• To provide opportunities for artists, curators and cultural activists from backgrounds which are currently underrepresented or under-supported within the arts sector (including, but not limited to under-represented Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds, LGBTQ+ identities, gender identities, socioeconomic backgrounds, those with disabilities and/or caring responsibilities).
• To ground our programme in contemporary arts research and practice, reflecting current discourses and experimenting with new models of working with artists.

For 2020 to 2021, FACT’s programme is thematically focused on The Living Planet with five key areas of research:

1. The importance of non-human perspectives (i.e. those of other animals or taking an ecological view) and how different ways of seeing, and communicating, change and challenge the way we see the world around us and our place within it. How does the way we see the world, and the way we communicate restrict us? How might we use art and digital culture to overcome these barriers or disrupt the norm?
2. The systems we are all part of, and how actions affect not only one area, but everything. How can understanding the planet in this way alter our behaviours, as well as our relationships with those who may not be able to affect the system itself?
3. The significance of place and how our understandings of where we come from, geographically, historically and biologically, shape our sense of self and the communities we associate with. Unlike other species that migrate with changing conditions, are our identities rooted to a location? How might the digital space allow for new understandings of belonging?
4. How do we define a community? How do we create trust between, and care for, those within our community? What possibilities are there for humans and other species to be better aligned once we start to see broader connections?
5. The importance of rituals to human life, and how non-humans (plants and animals) feature heavily within rituals in many cultures. How do our rituals - including everything from daily digital rituals to those more spiritual ones reinforce alienation, and how can they instead help us move towards understanding, compassion and representation?