Unlike VARC’s residencies, the fund did not provide accommodation or studio space, instead offering artists the freedom and resources to explore innovative ideas, experiment with materials, and engage creatively with the landscape, communities, or specific themes.
In its first year, the fund was open only to artists based in Northumberland. The inaugural award supported a collaboration between poet Linda France and illustrator Kim Lewis, resulting in a reinterpretation of the Song of Solomon celebrating the North Tyne Valley. Their work combined poetry and a series of drawings, culminating in an exhibition at Bellingham Heritage Centre in September 2010.
In 2011, artist Kelly Richardson received VARC’s was awarded the fund to develop The Last Frontier, the first of a planned series of five videos. This work depicts a fictitious future landscape in which frontier forests have disappeared, exploring a sublime, mountainous environment dominated by a stormy, electrified dome.
Also in 2011, Mike Collier used his award to organise guided walks from the mouth of the Tyne to Thorneyburn in Tarset, led by an ornithologist and a botanist. These walks informed a new body of work for an exhibition and publication, with Collier using Unison Colour pastels exclusively in the resulting pieces.
Other projects funded through the scheme include:
- Laura Harrington, who collaborated with Deborah Bower, Sarah Boutell, and Lee Patterson on Layerscape (peat bogs), a 16mm film and soundtrack exploring the ecology and behaviours of peatland communities.
- Robbie Wild Hudson, who undertook the physical challenge of swimming the 7.5-mile length of Lake Ullswater, generating large-scale drawings on canvas that respond to the landscape and the experience of movement within it.
- Marek Gabrysch and Lindsay Duncanson, who created Sodium Orange to Red Shift, working with community groups in Tarset and Newcastle to produce an interactive artwork that bridges collaborative practice and landscape-based inspiration.
