Benefits
About the Bursary
Each year, the artist who is awarded the Bursary will receive:
- £5,000. This is intended to provide time, space and support for the successful applicant to work in an open-ended way. It could be used for anything from paying for living expenses during the residency to buying or hiring equipment.
- A residency.
- Additional support and advice from Shape.
Support & facilities at Spike Island
- All artists whether residency or studio have access to wood and metal workshops and for a monthly membership of around £20 they can join Spike Print an internal print workshop and membership – they don’t have digital print but all kinds of screen and etching etc.
- The artist would be given an induction and can then work independently, they just need to buy their own materials – screens & beds etc are supplied.
- We have lots of accounts with wood suppliers and other practical outlets – we are happy for the artist to order materials through us and we deduct the cost from their budget. We claim back VAT so that makes it cheaper.
- Studios don’t have sinks but they are all near a communal sink.
- We don’t have a darkroom – it’s possible we could ask either Newport or UWE if we can use theirs but we’d have to broker that (entirely possible) and there may be a small charge. Few places I know have dark rooms these days which is a shame.
- We are well connected to many designers and people working with digital print through Spike Design our design incubator and often broker relationships. Everyone in Spike Design runs a business so again there is a cost but very low.
- There is a communal reference library with an A4 printer and two Macs that have Final Cut Pro in the Associate Space – a room on the upper floor used by studio artists, residency artists and artists, writers and curators from Bristol who pay to access the room 24 hours on a monthly basis rather than rent a studio aka The Associates. Use of this space is part of the residency.
- We have a four day a week technician who works primarily on exhibitions but can offer occasional support and advice. He can also give access to a digital camera (stills) and digital camera (video) and DVD players and a range of projectors if the artist works with new media.
- If specialist support is needed in terms of editing or building ambitious structures we broker support with the artists we know – this has a cost but is usually very modest. We also try and source interns too.
- It helps us if we can establish at the start of the residency how much help is needed and how we can provide this so that everyone is clear what is possible on a day to day basis. There isn’t therefore a dedicated technician but support that can be brokered through a variety of means.
- The artist would meet with the Curator and Director regularly for critical feedback and visiting artists and curators would also be invited on occasion.
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