unLab – Round 2

up to £5,000

(a maximum of 3 awards in Round 2)

For many years, a major part of our process in making new work was to ‘retreat’ – to find somewhere remote where we could escape from the daily pressures of our lives and other projects and just be together. Mostly this would be a week together where we would cook for each other, eat together, walk and talk, share films and books and articles and essays. It was time for us as artists to dream, to share and interrogate ideas at the earliest stage of their infancy, to begin the process of imagining what we might make next. We actively refused to set any outcomes in advance. Which annoys funders. Because they want to know “WTAF are you ‘artists’ actually going to do with this money?”. But a lot of the time we couldn’t answer that question. Because we didn’t know yet. Because we hadn’t had any time together to imagine that. So we earned cash from other projects to create this time to spend together. We came away from that time refreshed, excited and closer to each other as friends and artists and with exciting plans for what we would do next. This was our ‘laboratory’. We called it unLab.

This award is for artists at any stage of their career working within an arts producing organisation to retreat and begin to imagine their next project.

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Please do not apply for support for projects that are already in progress or have been through any development process. Successful awards must be spent and accounted for by the end of July 2025.

Applications open on Monday 2 September. The deadline to submit an application is midnight Monday 30 September 2024.

Please read our Applicant Guidance before submitting your application. This includes our eligibility criteria and a copy of the application questions.

Download the guidance here: Applicant Guidance

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If you have a question, please check our FAQs (last updated 9 September 2024). If you’d still like to contact us, you’ll find details at the bottom of the document.

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