When we became a grant-giving organisation, we committed to giving £25,000 directly to artists.
We had over 50 applications for our 3 different awards, which meant that figuring out our recipients was no mean feat. We had a creative council of artists, producers and arts leaders who read the applications and ultimately determined who we were going to fund. So, without further ado, here are our 2024 unAwards recipients!
Starting Out (grants up to £2,500)
Part of the Main champion emerging artists & create new writing that is political, provocative, and accessible. They were a Pleasance London Associate Company 2022–2024, a Drayton Arms Resident Company 2018–2019, and winners of VAULT Festival’s Excellence in Accessibility Award 2023. Their work has been nominated for Off West End Awards three times, shortlisted for the Brighton Fringe Award for Excellence, & finalist for the LET Award.
Part of the Main are using their Starting Out fund to purchase their own audio description equipment to further the accessibility for their work for blind and visually impaired audiences.
Hidden Keileon is a multidisciplinary artist–led collective. As part of the community of migrant and queer people, they work with their community to imagine futures with justice and freedom for all, by dreaming up and leading multidisciplinary, life–affirming cultural projects.
Hidden Keileon are using their funding to buy technical equipment to develop their creative practice and make themselves more financially sustainable.
unLab (grants up to £5,000)
Mad Friday Productions is a vibrant arts collective born in the heart of Doncaster. Founded in 2021 by co–artistic directors Danielle Phillips & Lauren Townsend, childhood friends united by a passion for championing Yorkshire–based artists and narratives.
Polite Rebellion (formally The Grief Series) is a disabled–led company based in Leeds, led by Artistic Director Ellie Harrison, Matt Rogers, Bethany Wells and Jen Watts along with a wider team of regular collaborators.
Polite Rebellion is radically gentle. Playfully subversive. In an age of relentless noise it dares to be boldly quiet. It needs to be both beautiful and useful.
They create spaces to listen to untold stories and amplify people’s voices. They see creating beautiful spaces as being an emotional accessibility ramp into difficult conversations that bear witness to people’s lived experiences. They push back against the hurry sickness of contemporary culture to go slow, notice the detail and recognise that rest can be an act of protest.
unLock (Grant up to £10,000)
Ransack Theatre are an award–winning, Manchester–based company formed in 2014 by friends who graduated together. They make theatre that is story–led, physically dynamic, and curious about space. They work in close collaboration with a rotating team of creative professionals to originate artistically bold and technically inventive theatre, treading the line between art and entertainment. Our core team has always involved company founders Ali Michael (performer/producer), Piers Black (director/writer) and, since 2017, Chi–San Howard (movement director and Resident Associate Artist).
They started life by making site–responsive work in abandoned buildings in Manchester. Nearly ten years later, Ransack has devised, written, re–worked, and dramaturged numerous projects, and while they have left the abandoned buildings behind, some of that immersive spirit lives on in their desire to put the audience at the centre of an experience, and a continued commitment to bring non–traditional theatre audiences to their work.
Much inspires them, including the state of the nation, live music, our families and cinema – the last being a form we find ourselves frequently referencing in rehearsal and production. They’re motivated by the power of theatre’s collective live experience, but are also interested in cinematic language and genre tropes, which have the ability to engage non–traditional audiences in contemporary theatre in a familiar way.