Delighted to be able to support the Immersive Arts fund thanks to The National Lottery - good luck to all who applied and see you for round 2 in 2025 🔔
Reflections on Immersive Arts deadline - round one Earlier this month, Immersive Arts closed its first round of open calls for artists looking to engage with immersive technologies. We were offering three levels of grant funding: Explore - £5,000 Experiment - £20,000 Expand - £50,000 These funds have been designed to support artists at different stages of their development, aiming to meet them where they are, giving them access to the resources they may need to extend their practice, and to develop immersive artworks that use technology to actively engage an audience. Immersive Arts is made up of a consortium of ten partners and five funders who have been deeply embedded within the arts and culture, and the immersive tech sector for many years. We had a few ‘educated hunches’ about what might be useful and what the demand might be. However, until the application deadline, we had no real way of knowing what level of interest there would be from the UK creative community. The result out-paced almost all of our estimates. Overall, we received 2517 applications from artists around the UK, spread across the three levels of grant funding. What does this mean? We are now beginning the process of carefully reviewing each of the applications, working with assessors who bring a broad range of experiences and expertise to the process. We will share some of our key learnings at the conclusion of this process. In the meantime, the volume of applications tells us two important things: 1. There is a huge community of artists based in the UK who are keen to work with immersive technology as a creative toolset. This interest seems to exist within all four nations of the UK and across a wide range of artforms and experiences. 2. There is significantly more need than a programme at the scale of Immersive Arts can meet. This means that a lot of people will have put time, thought, care and effort into developing proposals that will not be funded in this round. We take this seriously and are working closely with others in the sector and with policymakers to think about how this level of unmet need might be addressed in the future. Thank you to all of you who have submitted proposals and trusted us with your ideas. Although we endeavour to make our systems as accessible as possible, we fully understand that the process of putting together a funding application can be rough. Whether you are successful in this round or not, we deeply appreciate that you engaged with this new programme, and we are delighted that you have come forward as part of a trail-blazing new generation of UK artists working in the immersive arts. Immersive Arts will be opening our second round of funding in Spring 2025, and artists will be eligible to apply, regardless of whether or not they applied in the first round. We also have a year-round programme of events, training and research activity. Join the mailing list to stay in touch. https://lnkd.in/ef5yxSmd