Visual Arts Award and Artists’ Projects Fund: Deadline 31 October 2011

Passing Places

Visual Arts in Rural Communities (VARC) funds and manages an artists’ residency programme at Highgreen, Tarset in a remote part of rural Northumberland.

Separate from the residency programme, VARC is this year providing a single Visual Arts Award of £5000 and an Artists’ Projects Fund of £5,000 (open to applications for a maximum of £2,500 each).  Both the Arts Award and the Artists’ Projects Fund support new work by artists who live in and/or are based in Northumberland, Cumbria, Tyne and Wear and the Scottish Borders.

The Award and Fund are intended to provide artists with the freedom to develop new projects or pieces of work that they may not otherwise be able to make with the proviso that they in some way explore the nature of ‘rurality’.  The project would need to be completed within a year of the grant being made.  The completed work must be exhibited and VARC could help promote progress on the project and an exhibition through its newsletter and website.  Any artist in receipt of an award or funding would be required to log regular updates on the project directly onto the VARC website.

To apply, artists should send a C.V, along with a short proposal with between 5 and 15 images on CD with titles, dates, dimensions and descriptions on a separate sheet AND/OR, if more appropriate, clips on DVD totalling no more than 10 minutes duration. A written statement should also be provided, and should consist of no more than one page describing the work, why it is important and reasons for applying for this fund.   The artist should also provide a statement on how they intend to exhibit the finished work.

Artists may apply for both the VARC Visual Arts Award and for funding from the VARC Artists’ Project Fund but should make it clear which they are applying for.  A budget should be included that shows amounts to cover the artist’s time developing and creating the work, materials and presentation costs.

The deadline is 31st October 2011.

Please send all proposals to:

Janet Ross
VARC
Dovecote office
Highgreen
Tarset
Hexham
Northumberland
NE48 1RP

Tel  01434 240822, E-mail janet@varc.org.uk

For further information/background about Highgreen, please visit www.varc.org.ukor see www.highgreen-arts.co.uk