We are delighted to announce the recipients of six awards in Cycle IV of Outset's major arts funding programme,Outset Partners.
Established in 2018, the Outset Partners are a dynamic collective of international philanthropists who work together to meet the evolving needs of the global cultural sector. The group is directed by a Research and Strategy Lead for each cycle, who crafts a framework for Outset Partners’ deliberations and decision-making, supporting their uniquely iterative and consensus-driven approach to funding transformation in the arts. Outset Partners are keen to learn what art institutions need and why, what motivates them and where they want to be tomorrow. They are willing to take risks on behalf of genuine innovation and the prospect of meaningful impact.
In its fourth cycle of funding, the programme has awarded a total of£275,000across a range of agenda-setting museums, galleries and organisations to support challenging new art projects with a demonstrable transformative aspect for the creative sector.
TRANSFORMATIVE AWARD £150,000
TheTransformative Awardof £150,000 was awarded to the African Artists’ Foundation for their major projectDig Where You Stand - From Coast to Coastwhich explores the regenerative potential of art across the African continent, in dialogue with the world.
African Artists’ Foundation for their projectDig Where You Stand - From Coast to Coast:
A series of travelling exhibitions across Africa, offering a new model of engagement with questions of decolonization, restitution, and repatriation. The exhibition brings together examples of regenerative artistic practices and acts as a regenerative agent in itself –in each location working with local artists and communities, leaving behind a toolkit for jump-starting economic processes.Dig Where You Standfunctions as a discursive platform on which to pose questions and initiate conversations about issues grounded in local realities, as well as in politics of dispossession across broad areas and industries – from the lasting legacies of European imperialism in Africa to the intersections of privilege, access, and class.
Azu Nwagbogu, Founder and Director of African Artists' Foundation, said:
"For African Artists’ Foundation to receive this Transformative Award for the innovative project ‘Dig Where You Stand’ at this time is opportune and humbling. We are extremely grateful to Outset for thinking with us throughout the process and for this generous award. It will allow us to create an energised way of connecting contemporary artists and art institutions across the continent with its various diasporas through meaningful exhibition-making metabolised through intellectual rigour and in-depth research."
IMPACT AWARDS £25,000
Five additionalImpact Awardsof £25,000 each are awarded to public institutions for a range of projects that respond to crucial issues for the public, artists and curators. In line with the Outset ethos these can be through enabling innovative exhibitions and artistic productions with an international reach; empowering educational initiatives or providing professional development opportunities; institutions enriching public collections; or projects that enhance the creative infrastructure through providing workspaces and strengthening communities.
Fondazione ICA Milano, Italy, forRebecca Moccia’s Ministry of Loneliness:
Moccia's extensive workMinistry of Lonelinessis a research-based project that investigates loneliness and its politicisation in neoliberal society, starting from the experience of isolation and the dissolution of everyday life that occurred with the COVID-19 pandemic. The project's practical and symbolic starting point of the project is the Ministry of Loneliness, established in the United Kingdom in 2018 and later replicated in Canada and Japan in 2021.
AT The Bus, UK, forArt as therapy, on a double decker bus:
The mission of AT The Bus is to support the education, health and well-being of children and young people in school by providing therapeutic intervention using art as therapy. AT The Bus students work in small groups led by experienced facilitators trained inThe Beattie Method,a creative therapeutic intervention that supports mental wellbeing, alleviates anxiety, develops resilience and helps young people build their self-esteem, self-confidence and independence. Sessions take place in specially designed studios on school sites, accessible throughout the school day, with the flagship studio being a converted double-decker bus.
Julie Beattie OBE and Maggie Scott, joint CEOs of AT The Bus said:
"We are overwhelmed to have been awarded this extraordinarily generous award by Outset. We are currently working with nearly 300 children and young people every week, and this additional support will enable us to train more committed facilitators in The Beattie Method and so extend our reach to more students who need our support in many more schools. Just like our work, the grant will make a huge difference and transform many lives for the better."
Locus Athens, Greece, forRevolution is not a one time event:
An exhibition with an accompanying public program which thinks about feminist practices as a form of inclusivity. Over three months, TAVROS (locus athens’ permanent art space) gathered together and hosted performances, talks, workshops, reading groups, educational programs, screenings, open-mic sessions, poetry readings, community meetings and more, encouraging peer-to-peer learning in the belief that every small gesture, act or gathering has the potential of being revolutionary.
Maria-Thalia Carras, Founder of Locus Athens, said:
"We are honoured to be one of the recipients of this year's Outset Impact Awards and to be part of a network of grantees with inspiring projects from around the globe. We believe that the arts can have a social impact, and this award amplifies the work we, alongside other great local initiatives in Athens, are trying to do."
Forma, UK, forOliver Frank Chanarin’sA Perfect Sentence:
A Perfect Sentenceby Oliver Frank Chanarin is the most ambitious commission in Forma’s 20-year history. Oliver’s artistic vision, combined with his talent in bringing people together meant Forma was able to build a truly collaborative national project with multiple co-commissioners and institutions, production partners and funders to match the ambition we had set ourselves.
LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art), USA, for the exhibitionImagining Black Diasporas: 21st Century Art and Poetics:
Opening at LACMA in Spring 2025, the exhibition will draw aesthetic connections between 55 Black artists working around the world today and examines Black Diaspora as a way to conceptualise the forced movement, migration, and exchange of Black peoples, their collective vulnerability to racism, and their struggles against forms of oppression. Featuring a stunning array of 60 works of photography, video, painting, and sculpture,Imagining Black Diasporasrepresents the first museum exploration of the last two decades of artistic innovation by Black artists.
Michael Govan, CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director of LACMA, said:
"We are grateful and honoured to be the recipient of an Outset Partners Grant in support of LACMA's forthcoming exhibition Imagining Black Diasporas: 21st Century Art and Poetics. This important show will be the first to explore the last two decades of artistic innovation by Black artists. Organised by curator Dhyandra Lawson, the exhibition will draw aesthetic connections between established and emerging Black artists working around the world today. The Outset Partners Grant arrived at a pivotal moment in the project's development and this early investment allowed us to move forward with a dynamic, multifaceted publication."
"For Outset Partners, each year brings a new insight into the arts sector as we gain an ever-expanding perspective of the challenges faced by cultural institutions around the world; some are longstanding and continue to be felt across the sector, whilst others seem to have rapidly risen in urgency. This cycle shed light on the unparalleled value of community - from spearheading conversations around decolonisation; to connecting marginalised identities; uplifting young children in schools; examining shared experiences of loneliness globally; challenging systemic gender inequities and shining a light on overlooked diasporic voices. Outset Partners believe that the six award recipients will make powerful and transformational societal changes, and these issues will be addressed as communities are built and connections rebuilt, with art at the very core of this journey ahead."Candida Gertler OBE, Co-founder & Co-Director, and Nicolette Cavaleros, Co-Director, Outset Contemporary Art Fund, on behalf of Outset Partners
