We’re delighted to announce the 4 artists who have been selected for FACT Together 2022. Each awarded artist will receive a £1500 production budget, a grant of £2500 and 3 months of mentorship to produce a new digital artwork.

Now in its third year, FACT Together is responsible for having supported the production of 18 digital artworks and has distributed over £30,000 in support to artists based in the North of England. The digital commissioning scheme was originally set up to support early-career artists during the COVID-19 pandemic. The artist residency continues to support creatives across a wide representation of Northern cities and towns, including Liverpool, Bolton, Manchester, Salford, Leeds, South Shields, Newcastle Upon Tyne, and Gateshead.

Supporting the development of talent at the intersection of art and technology is a key aspect of what we do. Since its first iteration, the residency has helped to enhance the digital practice of 14 diverse artists. After participating in FACT Together, many of our artist residents have made significant progressions within their own careers and continue to work with the digital mediums explored during their residencies. 2020 artist residents nil00, Jessica El Mal and Gregory Herbert have gone on to present works at various national galleries; 2021 artist resident Hope Strickland’s film I’ll be back! was selected for BFI’s Open City Documentary Festival; and 2020 alumni Uma Breakdown is currently touring their solo exhibition Earth A.D. around the UK.

For 2022, we have partnered with SODA (School of Digital Arts) at Manchester Metropolitan University to build on the support that the residency offers. SODA houses a digital innovation lab, green screens, edit suites, screening space, a media gallery and studios for sound, music and production. SODA will work alongside FACT to provide expertise and state-of-the-art spaces for artist residents to create and play. Each of the 2022 awarded artists will create a digital artwork that will be shared online from February - April 2023, with live presentations at FACT and at SODA’s Modal gallery as the works develop.

Dongni Liang

Dongni Liang’s work investigates the relationship between nature, technology, and humans through 3D, film and virtual/augmented reality. Known online as post.liang, her work merges computer-generated content with the surrounding world, creating a dialogue between the two. Her work draws on her experiences of growing up in a rapidly modernising China and the ecological and social impacts of this. Incorporating video, 3D scanning and animation, her work transports the viewer to an unworldly environment.

Nicole Prior

Nicole Prior is a visual artist exploring themes of surveillance and digital influence in the places we live and the electronic devices we use. Her experiments study the effects of surveillance and data collection on human behaviour. The audience and their behavioural responses are integral to the work. Her interactive installations explore how cognitive behaviour patterns can be engaged and interacted with within digital environments.

Ellie Towers

Situating itself within various semi-fictional landscapes, Ellie Tower’s practice considers interaction or experiences within an environment by unpacking and re-imagining content within it. This is often done through reflections, memories, storytelling and anecdote - producing something which digests & merges visual and contextual elements into their own independent form. Using a mixture of handmade-drawings, paintings, miniature clay-sculptures, and 3D renderings that are collaged together - Ellie produces an outcome that exists between a physical and digital output which transcends and transforms the location.

Charlotte Southall

Charlotte Southall works across textiles, video, sculpture, gimmicks, and memes. Her practice exists in the spaces that human bodies inhabit between the IRL (physical life) and URL (digital life), using the sense of touch to ground us in both realms. Employing mediums, colour palettes and subject matter that challenges the harsh perfection of the white cube, she questions the hierarchies that govern the art world and seeks to reunite art with life.

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FACT is funded by Arts Council England and Liverpool City Council with support from Culture Liverpool. FACT Together 2022 is presented in collaboration with Modal at SODA, supported by The Fenton Arts Trust and Idlewild Trust.