Open Call: Future Proofing bursary

To mark the end of our 20th anniversary, we want to look forward and invest in the next 20 years and the next generation by offering a bursary of £2,000 to an artist aged 25 or under to imagine the future they’d like to see, how their practice could shape it, and what they need to do that.

This may be thinking about the climate emergency, the future of identity politics, technological threats to civil rights and personal safety, countering the rise of the far-right, populist politics and the hostile environment, or any other critical issues we are facing in these difficult times.

Please note we are not seeking proposals for new works and this is not a production grant, but rather a bursary to buy time and space to think about your/our future.

If you think this could be for you, please read on.

Eligibility

The Future Proofing bursary is aimed at any UK based artist aged 25 or under who is working in Live Art. See LADA’s What is Live Art? webpage for more information.

Applicants should be committed to the possibilities of ‘live’ practices and to creating new contexts for work or discourse. Applicants’ potential to undertake self-determined professional development and research, and the timeliness and appropriateness of this bursary to their practice and to Live Art in general will be critical.

Full time students at MA and PhD levels are eligible for this award, but must clearly demonstrate that they are able to undertake their study at the same time as completing their proposed bursary programme and that there is no duplication between the two proposed programmes.

The bursary process will commence from March 2020.

Proposals

We are seeking, and will prioritise, applications which are bold, creative and propose new ways of thinking and working, and therefore encourage applicants to think in creative, provocative and timely ways when developing their proposals.

Deadline for applications: Noon, Friday 7 February 2020

Proposals should include the following information:

• Name and contact details.
• 100 word summary of your proposal
• Brief background information including details of recent and current activities, and a brief description of the nature of your artistic/working practice and relationship to Live Art.
• A statement on the future you’d like to see – for you and/or for others – and how your practice could shape it.
• A description of what you think you’d need to do to help realise your vision for the future, including both practical and conceptual research and development.
• A sense of where you would like to see yourself and your practice at the end of this process, and how you might share your research and findings.
• An indication of how you will allocate the £2,000 bursary, including fees for yourself and others (mentors, advisors, participants), travel etc., and how long your bursary programme would last.

Assessment and Selection

Applications will be assessed by the LADA team.

The selection of the bursary recipient will be based on the relevance of the proposal to the aims of the bursary, the applicants’ potential to realise their ideas, the timeliness of the proposal (to the applicant and to the issues), and the boldness of the proposal.

Notification

Announcement of bursary awards will be made by mid February 2020.

The bursary process will commence from March 2020.

We will write to all applicants about the outcomes of their applications and where possible provide feedback to unsuccessful applicants.

LADA at 20

LADA celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2019 with a series of initiatives throughout the year, including, the new publication, Agency, A Partial History of Live Art edited by Theron Schmidt and co-published with Intellect Books, looking back at the last 20 years of Live Art through the lens of LADA; Tiny Live Art (Development Agency) – 20 works for 20 years, 20 limited editions by Robert Daniels using miniature figures and dioramas to create sculptures of iconic performance works; LADA at 20 Postcards box set representing key LADA projects and initiatives 1999-2019; 20 x 20: Artists reflect on 20 years of LADA in a radio series on Live Art histories and futures for Resonance FM; and a Live Art Gala, a star-studded Live Art fundraising event.

Our anniversary has been an opportunity to look back at the shifts and developments in Live Art, and in LADA’s work, over the last 20 years.

LADA has ensured that over the last two decades Live Art, which has often been ignored by the mainstream, has had the strongest possible advocacy. Lyn Gardner, Run Riot, February 2010

LADA is a Centre for Live Art: a knowledge and research centre, a production centre for programmes and publications, and an online centre for digital experimentation, representation and dissemination.

LADA supports everyone who makes, watches, researches, studies, teaches, produces, presents and writes about Live Art in the UK and internationally.

Through a portfolio of Projects, Opportunities, Resources and Publishing, we create new artistic frameworks, legitimise unclassifiable art forms, and support the agency of underrepresented artists. Our work sets artists and ideas in motion, serves as a research lab for mass culture, and contributes to mainstream culture in the long-term in ways which can’t be foreseen.