Lessons From Now

photo by Ben Kreukniet

 

A new fund to help support SWCTN alumni whose livelihoods have been impacted by Covid-19 (Coronavirus) to continue their professional practice at this critical time.

The Brief

  • Is there a creative technology experiment that you can achieve from a position of social isolation? 
  • Is there R&D you can do now for a future project? 
  • Is there some future-gazing that you’d like to undertake? 

 

SWCTN are offering micro commissions of up to £2500 Offered on a rolling basis throughout May and June

Covid-19 is changing both the way we work and the context for our work. How might our shifting understanding of time, touch, liveness, connection and the way we experience our environment impact on what we do next? What observations or discoveries are you making that you want to hold onto for the future, and what impact is this having on your creative practice?

SWCTN recognises the difficulties that many parts of our network are currently experiencing. Within the context of self-isolation and social distancing, many will have seen work plans significantly changed and income disappear. 

We feel strongly that your work is significant and that it holds real value as we begin to emerge from the current crisis and look to build a different kind of future. We want to support that work by commissioning, gathering, and sharing your ideas. With that in mind, we are redirecting some of our grant funding to buy you time for thinking, planning and innovating.  

We are seeking applications that look to the future and build on the work that you have done with SWCTN to date. Applications should reflect on one or more of the network’s on-going discussions about immersion, automation, and data, as well as the ideas that the SWCTN team have begun to explore more recently around economic resilience, inclusion and environmental sustainability. 

SWCTN values interdisciplinarity, as well as cross-sector and cross-region working, the hyperlocal and the global. Your work might be in collaboration with other members of the existing SWCTN network, or you might want to work on your own. Your output should support creative resilience either in your own work or in the broader community. 

Your response might use text, film, or audio; for example, it could be a prototype (on paper or mocked-up) for a future project, an artefact or object that you create, a reflective essay, or a wireframe for a future web project. It might be something else entirely, providing it can be delivered, shared and meets the other criteria – we’re willing to consider it.

SWCTN website here: