Applications for the Jerwood/FVU Awards 2022 have now closed.
What are the Jerwood/FVU Awards 2022?
The Jerwood/FVU Awards 2022 are a major opportunity for UK-based moving-image artists in the first five years of developing their professional practice. Jerwood Arts and Film and Video Umbrella invite early-career artists to make proposals for ambitious new works in any form of the moving-image. Two proposals are selected each year by a panel consisting of practicing artists and arts programmers/curators, for commission, production, exhibition and tour throughout 2022. This edition of the awards launches a new partnership with Leeds Art Gallery who will host a presentation of the new commissions in late 2022. Previous awardees include Guy Oliver, Reman Sadani, Ed Atkins, Maeve Brennan, Lawrence Lek, Imran Perretta and Marianna Simnett.
What will the two awarded artists receive?
- – £25,000 each comprising a £6,000 artist fee and £19,000 production budget to create the proposed moving-image artwork.
- – Full production support from FVU across fourteen months including a dedicated Producer.
- – A premiere exhibition at Leeds Art Gallery in January 2022.
- – An exhibition at Jerwood Arts, London in April 2022.
What are we looking for?
We are looking for original and achievable proposals for a new moving-image work that will represent a step-change in your practice.
We aim for the period of development enabled by this award to be of significant benefit to the artists selected, and support them to experiment with new and ambitious ways of working.
Proposals must be realisable for the £6,000 fee and within the £19,000 production budget and the 14-month production period. Proposals must also demonstrate clear thinking about how the project may need to be adapted due to circumstances and restrictions to activities in relation to COVID-19.
Who are we looking for?
We welcome applications from individual artists or collaborative groups working with moving-image who are within the first five years of beginning their professional artistic practice.
We recognise that in the nine-year history of the awards some groups have not been represented within the awardees. We are committed to facilitating an increase in applications from artists whose background and/or identity is under-represented in the awards’ history. This includes but is not limited to artists from Black, Asian and ethnically diverse backgrounds, artists based outside of London, artists from lower socio-economic backgrounds, d/Deaf artists, neurodiverse artists, artists with disabilities or long-term health difficulties and artists with LGBTQIA+ identities.
Who is eligible?
There are no educational requirements and no age limit to apply.
We welcome applications from individual artists and collaborative groups who are:
- – Early-career artists working with the moving-image. For this award we define early-career as those who are within five years of beginning their professional artistic practice at the time of applying. This means they consider the beginning of their professional artistic practice to have started after June 2015 (though if you have taken career breaks, for example, as a result of illness or caring responsibilities, your practice may have begun earlier). For some artists this will mean being within five years of graduating an educational course, others might have changed their direction or career and mark their beginning differently. We provide space to explain your own circumstances in the application form and further details in the FAQ, and are happy to discuss your situation with you to help you work out if you are eligible, though we do encourage you to make your case in your own words.
- – Those who have applied in previous years, as well as those who have not.
- – Artists who have the legal right to work in the UK, are resident in the UK, and with the intention to continue residence within the UK until June 2022. You do not need to be a British National.
- – We cannot accept applications from:
- – Anyone who is undertaking full or part-time formal education at any point between November 2020 and June 2022. (including dissertation writing)
- – Projects for which additional funding is secured, or will need to be secured.
How to Apply and Access Support
The application form can be found here.
There is no fee to apply.
Only one application will be accepted per individual artist or collaborative group.
We are committed to making our opportunities accessible and easy to apply to and to make the process as user-friendly as we can. This is part of our ongoing work to welcome and encourage applicants facing barriers to apply. With the awards targeted at those within the first five years of beginning their professional artistic practice, we're particularly keen to support first time applicants and those under-represented in the history of the awards.
We can contribute up to £200 towards a fee for an Access Support Worker for applicants who need one. Please email info@jerwoodarts.org or call us on 07944 903991 at least 1 working week before the deadline to discuss how we can help.
If you would prefer to submit your application as an audio or video recording, the online application portal provides the opportunity for you to do this. You can upload one audio or video file containing your length of practice, key career moments, artist statement and proposal. We will ask you to complete contact details and a 50 word summary of your proposal in written form to assist the processing of your application. No assessment of the production quality of audio or video recordings will be made.
We are happy to receive emails to info@jerwoodarts.org with questions. We will acknowledge your email within three working days and aim to answer your question within five working days.
We also offer the opportunity to speak with a member of the internal panel for a 10-minute advice session in advance of applying. In these sessions we are unable to read draft applications or texts, but we are able to discuss your specific ideas for applications, and guide you as to how you might strengthen these in the application. Please email info@jerwoodarts.org to book an advice session.
Please note that the advice we give on making an application is on the eligibility and suitability of your proposal and will have no bearing on its assessment. You do not need to have spoken to a Jerwood Arts or FVU member of staff before making an application.
In the application form, you will be asked to supply:
- – Name and contact details, including pronoun preference
- – Website link (optional)
- – 100 word statement on how you define the start of your professional artistic practice
- – 200 word statement detailing your key career moments
- – 300 word artist’s statement
- – 50 word proposal summary
- – 500 word proposal
- – Five-minute showreel or sample of your work via Vimeo or YouTube
- – Up to four still images in a single PDF (optional)
- – Answers to a set of questions to help us monitor Equal Opportunities
To review all of the wording and questions contained in the application form you can download a Google Doc here. We recommend you draft your responses using this, and then paste them into the online form when you are ready.
Before applying, we recommend you read the FAQ page. This covers the most common questions arising and is updated regularly.
An audio recording of the application guidance and FAQ is available on SoundCloud here.
Responding to COVID-19
Acknowledging the uncertainty around film production and gallery exhibitions, we are asking applicants to be flexible with their proposals as follows:
As we cannot predict how, when and for how long restrictions due to COVID-19 may be imposed, we require proposals to be flexible to changing circumstances, and to always adhere to changing government guidelines. (see FAQ for more information)
We require that your work can be presented online, as well as in a physical gallery.
We will not commission works that require presentation technologies such as VR headsets to be shared between audience members unless it can be explained how this will be safely done under COVID-19 guidelines.
We will not commission works that rely on components needing to be shot abroad unless they can be shot by contributors abroad without the need for people to travel in and out of the UK. You can include components of your proposal that would benefit from being shot abroad, but only if the proposal does not collapse if travel restrictions subsequently come into place.