Photofusion launch funded participatory artist in residence programme
Photofusion press release.
Photofusion has been awarded funding from Arts Council England for a Participatory Artist In Residence programme: Taking Part. In 2016/17 Photofusion will host four 90-day residencies for emerging participatory lens-based artists.
The selection panel includes internationally celebrated participatory photographic artist Wendy Ewald, who has been a figurehead of participatory arts practice since the 1970s. Ewald has worked across the world including projects in Saudi Arabia, Israel, Canada, North and South America and in the UK with Artangle. Further panel support comes from Gina Glover, Scarlett Crawford and Photomonitor editor Christiane Monarchi.
The Taking Part programme will be supported throughout by artist Anthony Luvera. Luvera is Principal Lecturer and Course Director of Photography at Coventry University, and has lectured for institutions such as Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London College of Communication, University for the Creative Arts Farnham, and Falmouth University. He facilitates workshops and gives lectures for the public programmes of the Royal Academy of Arts, National Portrait Gallery, The Photographers’ Gallery, Barbican Art Gallery, and community photography projects across the UK. Luvera has completed numerous participatory residencies himself including his work Residency with Belfast Exposed and Not Going Shopping, a year long residency withQueer in Brighton.
Each resident will receive a bursary of £2,400 and have access to Photofusion’s residents’ studio space; access to photographic facilities; mentoring and support from Anthony Luvera; practical support from our Community Programmes department and a small materials budget. At the end of the residencies, all four Artists will have a group exhibition at Photofusion and contribute to a series of public talks.
This is a pilot programme, so is experimental in tone. Photofusion have purposefully left the brief and aims of the programme broad to attract diverse candidates with distinct views and approaches to participatory practice.
Anthony Luvera says of this project: “Taking Part is an exciting and unique programme for emerging artists to further develop their participatory practice supported by the extensive expertise and high calibre resource based at Photofusion. Testing out new methodologies of collaboration and exploring the ethics of socially engaged practice while engaging with a community of people to create new work is an important way to develop within this dynamic and ever growing field of contemporary art. I am very exciting to be involved in this programme and to take part in a dialogue with the next generation of participatory artists”.