I’m excited to announce that I’ve been awarded Explore £5k funding from Immersive Arts!
I’m one of 83 artist-led projects across the UK to be allocated a share of £1.2 million in the first round of Immersive Arts funding – a scheme supporting artists of all backgrounds and experience to work with immersive technologies.
With three distinct grant amounts available – £5,000, £20,000 and £50,000 – the funding supports artists at different stages of their creative development: to explore, experiment or expand how they make work that uses technology to actively engage an audience.
In this, the first round of Immersive Arts funding, £1,180,000 has been awarded as follows:
- 50x £5,000 – Explore grants
- 24x £20,000 – Experiment grants
- 9x £50,000 – Expand grants
The 83 successful projects will be exploring many different art forms, including dance, theatre, visual arts, music, games, animation, film, sculpture and live art. They will work with a broad range of technologies including virtual, augmented and mixed reality, spatial audio, interactive projections, machine vision, responsive environments, artificial intelligence, haptics and connected textiles.
I’m looking forward to exploring ways of creating an immersive art exhibition primarily for people with profound and multiple learning disorders (PMLD).
My nephew has PMLD and experiences the world in lots of different ways to me. I’ve been inspired to think of ways to create a sensory, immersive experience for people like my nephew and I can’t wait to get started!”
Immersive Arts received 2517 applications from across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland – a much higher than expected volume, revealing a high level of interest and demand for opportunities from artists seeking to make and share extraordinary immersive work.
Principal Investigator and Director of Immersive Arts, Verity McIntosh, Associate Professor of Virtual and Extended Realities at UWE Bristol, said:
“We are delighted that people have trusted us with their brave and brilliant ideas and are very excited to now see so many of these ideas being taken forward. These artists are exploring immersive technologies in a myriad of exciting and distinctive ways, developing a community of practice, and practice-led research that we hope will last for many years to come.”
Commenting on behalf of the programme funders, the UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Arts Council England (ACE), the Arts Council of Wales (ACW), Creative Scotland and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland (ACNI), AHRC executive chair Christopher Smith said:
“Immersive technologies offer the UK’s artists and creatives new and exciting ways to produce work that engages the public and promotes growth in our creative industries. This programme is designed to give them access to these cutting-edge creative technologies to see how they can be used, and it is clear from the number of applications that it is an opportunity they are eager to take. We cannot wait to see what further innovations they can unlock and which new creative frontiers they can explore.”
A full list of first-round Immersive Arts funded projects is available on the Immersive Arts website.
Immersive Arts is hosting its first annual event The Big Thing on 9 – 11 June 2025 in Bradford, the UK City of Culture. The Big Thing brings together artists, creatives, researchers and technologists from across the UK and beyond who want to shape the future of immersive art. For more information about The Big Thing and further funding opportunities, visit immersivearts.uk/events/the-big-thing
Funding for Immersive Arts is provided through a collaboration between the UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Arts Council England (ACE), the Arts Council of Wales (ACW), Creative Scotland and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland (ACNI). Funding from Creative Scotland, ACW and ACNI is provided by The National Lottery.