The Arts Foundation has announced a significant increase to their Fellowship Award, doubling the amount from £10,000 to £20,000. This bold move underscores the foundation’s ongoing commitment to nurturing and supporting independent artists and creatives across the UK, providing them with the financial freedom to pursue their creative development and realise their artistic potential at a pivotal moment in their careers.
The winning fellow in each art form is set to receive £20,000 from 2025. The five winning fellows of the Arts Foundation Futures Awards 2025 in the categories of Dance, Design, Film, Theatre and Visual Art will be announced in late February 2025.
The foundation took this step to ensure its work continues to have the same life-changing impact and responds to inflation, the ongoing cost of living crisis and low artist income precarity experienced across the contemporary arts in the UK.
Since its inception in 1993, the charity has offered financial support to a diverse range of artistic practitioners through its fellowship programme, the Arts Foundation Futures Awards, including those in disciplines that often lack support from traditional funding avenues. The increase in the fellowship award will see the foundation become one of the UK’s largest unconditional funders of individual artists, unique in its support across art forms – from Dance, Design, Film, Literature, Music, and Theatre to Visual Art – distributing £115,000 annually.
We are delighted to announce this critical development to double the Fellowship Award, as we recognise the growing financial pressures facing independent artists today. This increase is not only about providing more funding; it’s about affirming our belief in the transformative power of the arts and the critical role that artists and creatives play in society. The legacy of the foundation’s work is clear, with past fellows often going on to establish genre-defining practices that resonate for years to come – but as with all extraordinary artistic endeavours, this can only be achieved with tangible financial investment and the time and space to take risks, today.
Mary Jane Edwards, Director of The Arts Foundation
The Arts Foundation has a distinguished history of supporting individual artists, with its awards acting as a springboard for future success. Previous recipients have gone on to become some of the UK’s most celebrated creatives, making significant contributions to their fields, such as Wayne McGregor, Ali Smith, Rufus Norris, Carol Morley, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye and Alice Birch.
I was fortunate enough to be awarded the Fellowship for Film Directing way back in 2001 when I had just directed my first feature film. The award had a real, profound impact on me. It gave me both security and confidence, but more critically, it gave me the opportunity to think, I wasn’t forced to find another project, I could take my time and work out what I truly wanted to do next, which I feel helped me form a career over the long term. This type of patient, no-strings-attached funding is so scarce in the UK, it’s really a miracle. I particularly love the diverse range of creatives the Arts Foundation supports each year, this is what makes the Arts Foundation unique and special. I feel this award is needed more than ever as the arts and artists are under attack, they need support. I’m really proud to be a past Fellow, and I think it’s fantastic to see the Art Foundation increase its award of independent artists in this vital way.
Filmmaker Asif Kapadia who is an Ambassador and past Film Directing Fellow (2001) of the Arts Foundation
The twenty artists shortlisted for the next edition of the Arts Foundation Futures Awards will be announced in January 2025, and the five artists receiving the £20,000 fellowship will be revealed at a live award ceremony in late February 2025, with all shortlisted creatives receiving £1,000.
INFO: artsfoundation.co.uk
The Arts Foundation is a registered charity that supports individual artists and creatives in the UK with unconditional financial fellowships through the Arts Foundation Futures Awards.
Since 1993 the Arts Foundation has awarded over £2 million to the most promising artists in the UK at a pivotal moment in their careers to enable them to concentrate on their creative development, experiment, and realise their artistic potential.
The annual Arts Foundation Futures Awards provide five transformative £20,000 Fellowships, with all Shortlisted Artists receiving £1,000 towards the development of their practice.
The vital contribution of the Arts Foundation Futures Awards to the arts in the UK is demonstrated by its past Fellows, many of whom are regarded as contemporary pioneers and have gone on to become leaders in their respective art forms, including: Wayne McGregor (1994), Alice Oswald (1996), Sarah Kane (1998), Asif Kapadia (2001), Ali Smith (2001), Rufus Norris (2002), Carol Morley (2003), Lynette Yiadom-Boakye (2006), and more recently, Simon Fujiwara (2009), Sam Lee (2011), Alice Birch (2014), Hollie McNish (2015), Evan Ifekoya (2017), Holly Hendry (2019), Onyeka Igwe (2020), Klein (2020), and Bethany Williams (2020).
The Arts Foundation Futures Awards 2025 are supported in partnership with The David Collins Foundation, The Yoma Sasburg Estate, and with development support from The Maria Björnson Memorial Fund.
