Apply Now: Visual Arts Bursary Award (Ireland)

It provides artists or curators with the time and resources to think, research, reflect and critically engage with their work.

Categories

• There are two strands to the award:
  • Visual Artists: The objective of this strand is to support individual professional artists at any stage of their career to develop their arts practice.
  • Curators: The objective of this strand is to support individual curators at any stage of their career to develop their independent curatorial practice.
  • Oliver Dowling Award

Funding Information

• They offer funding for this bursary according to bands. You should apply for one of the following amounts:
  • €20,000
  • €15,000
  • €10,000
• Oliver Dowling Award: This award is valued at €20,000 and will be awarded to the top-scoring applicant in Round 1 of the Visual Arts Bursary.

Eligible Activities

• Visual Artists:
  • You can use this bursary to spend time:
    • Developing your artistic practice
    • Developing and resolving a specific body of work
    • Re-engaging with your practice after a break
    • Re-evaluating your practice after a continuous period of outcome based, deadline-driven project work.
• Curators:
  • You can use this bursary to spend time:
    • Developing your independent curatorial practice
    • Planning, researching, developing or resolving a body of work relevant to the progression of your independent curatorial practice
    • Supporting your ongoing development of reciprocal partnerships, collaborations and opportunities with artists, producers, organisations and institutions
    • Re-engaging with your independent curatorial practice after a break
    • Re-evaluating your independent curatorial practice after a continuous period of outcome-based, deadline-driven project work.

Eligibility Criteria

• This award is open to professional artists and curators who are resident in the Republic of Ireland. However, they may accept applications from outside the Republic of Ireland. In this case, you must detail in your application form how your proposal would benefit the arts in the Republic of Ireland.
• You need a PPS number to be able to apply.
• A professional artist or curator is someone who:
  • Actively pursues a career as an artist or curator in any art form
  • Considers their arts practice to be their main profession or career. This applies even if their work in the arts is not their main source of income or they have other employment
  • Is recognised by their peers as a professional practicing artist or curator.

Ineligibility Criteria

• They won’t be able to accept your application if you are:
  • An organisation
  • A full-time undergraduate student (including foundation courses)
  • Looking for support towards fees for postgraduate/higher education
  • Looking for support towards work you’re doing as part of a formal course, internship or volunteer work
  • If you are in full-time employment, you must be seeking time away from employment to work on your practice, and how you plan to approach this should be outlined in your application
  • Not a resident in the Republic of Ireland
  • An Aosdána member in receipt of a Cnuas.

For more information, visit The Arts Council.