Celebrating the vibrancy and diversity of Scotland’s visual arts sector, Creative Scotland and Engage Scotland are delighted to announce the 12 recipients of the Stephen Palmer Travel Bursary Fund 2024.
Josie KO at Scottish Sculpture Workshop (SSW), courtesy of SSW and Felicity Crawshaw.
The Stephen Palmer Travel Bursary Fund 2024 aims to transform individual’s visual arts practice with a sustainable travel bursary. The bursary supports Scotland-based creatives with professional development grants of £500, along with additional budget for access needs. It was open to freelance artists, curators, producers, writers and educators at any stage in their career.
The 2024 recipients are: Adam Lewis Jacob (artist and filmmaker), Alaya Ang (artist), Andrea Geile (artist), Gosia Walton (artist), Josie KO (artist), Jude Browning (artist), Katie Schwab (artist), Rae-Yen Song (artist), Rebecca Palmer (artist), Robyn Woolston (artist), Sally Huband (artist and writer) and Saskia Singer (artist and curator).
The recipients' multidisciplinary projects span printmaking, film, curatorial practice, sculpture, performance and painting. Whilst their insightful topics include exploring Britain’s shoreline ecology, a shamanic exploration of the imaginary world of the bird, food and arts community projects across the UK, caring and healing properties of knitting and feminist practice within archival research methods
The awardees will be supported to travel within the UK for professional development including residencies, research, collaboration and mentoring between now and the end of 2024. The 2024 Fund will take artists and curators from across Scotland and the UK including up to Shetland and down to Isle of Wight.
Of the grant selected artist and filmmaker Adam Lewis Jacob said, “Receiving the Stephen Palmer Award means a great deal to me. I was fortunate to work with Stephen during my time at Transmission Gallery, and he was always very supportive and generous with his time. The award will enable me to pursue two creative collaborations, providing me with the time and support needed at this early stage to make contact and travel to meet participants.
Creative Scotland and Engage Scotland’s priority through the Bursary is to support work that has respect for the environment and for participants to use this bursary to encourage sustainable travel within Scotland and the UK. We were especially interested in helping people who may have had limited opportunity to travel for work purposes before, for example those with caring responsibilities or disabled people. Sarah Robinson Frood, Coordinator for Engage Scotland said "Engage Scotland is delighted to partner once again with Creative Scotland on the Stephen Palmer Travel Bursary Fund. The 2024 Fund supports sustainable travel within the UK for professional development, and we are thrilled to be supporting such a wide range of insightful contributions from artists, curators, and writers to Scotland's rich cultural landscape."
The Stephen Palmer Travel Bursary was developed in 2022 by Creative Scotland in partnership with Engage Scotland, to honour Stephen Palmer, a highly regarded and deeply respected Officer and Visual Arts specialist who devoted much of his career to the work of Creative Scotland and its predecessor body, The Scottish Arts Council. Established following his death in 2021 these annual awards reflect Stephen’s deep belief in the value of travel to broaden horizons, to build new connections and to inform and inspire the development of new work.
Kirsteen Macdonald, Visual Arts Officer at Creative Scotland said: "We were impressed with the range of proposals received for this year’s travel bursaries, and are delighted to be supporting an increased number of applicants in 2024. We keenly anticipate hearing more about the positive impact this research will have on their future work, leading to new connections and the exchange of ideas.”
The Stephen Palmer Travel Bursary Fund is supported by The National Lottery through Creative Scotland.
Background
For full information about the Stephen Palmer Travel Bursary Fund, visit the Engage Scotland website.
About Engage
Engage is the lead advocacy and training network for visual arts engagement and participation. We support arts educators, organisations, and artists to work together with communities in dynamic, open exchanges that give everyone the opportunity to learn and benefit from the arts. Engage works across five priority areas: training the workforce, diversifying the workforce, increasing the profile and visibility of members’ practice, providing opportunities for members to debate and shape practice, and leading sector advocacy. Engage has 700+ members in the UK and abroad in c.270 organisations.
Engage is an Arts Council England Sector National Portfolio Organisation and receives funding for its programmes in Scotland from Creative Scotland and for the programme in Wales from the Arts Council of Wales. Funding has also been received from trusts and foundations, individuals, and the corporate sector.
Engage Scotland programmes are delivered by programme coordinators and supported by voluntary development groups.
You can find more information about Engage on our website www.engage.org.
About Creative Scotland
Creative Scotland is the public body that supports the arts, screen and creative industries across all parts of Scotland, distributing funding provided by the Scottish Government and The National Lottery. Further information at creativescotland.com. Follow us on X, Facebook and Instagram. Learn more about the value of art and creativity in Scotland and join in at www.ourcreativevoice.scot
Media contacts
If you need additional information, images or to arrange interviews please email [email protected].