Reflecting on two years of Space to Dream Funding
‘Space to Dream’ exhibition installation, taken by Josh O’Connor
For the past 2 years, we have been supported by Freelands Foundation through their Space to Dream fund to support our intersectional community of creatives to thrive as artists, producers and leaders in their own right. We reflect on what we’ve been able to achieve through this funding and what’s next for Rising and our community.
Influenced by the recommendations of our Whose Culture Report (spearheaded by Rising Non-Exec, Roseanna Dias), our Space to Dream project sought to continue the work started by Whose Culture, look at our community as part of an creative ecosystem and create meaningful opportunities for them to create, lead and thrive in the sector. This project was intentionally multi-pronged to support the changing needs of our community, agency and sector.
The landscape and our community has changed so much since we were awarded funding in 2022. This project has enabled us to shift and adapt with the needs of our community and build a level of resilience within the agency to deal with the changing needs of our community and sector. Through creating meaningful commission opportunities, hosting community meetups and workshops, offering rest fees, developing sector training such as our Caring Work Cultures Training and resourcing innovative offers such as a Strategic Mentoring and OnBoard, we’ve been able to help more of our community take up space in a sector that is in crisis.
An assortment of images of community engagement from Space to Dream between 2023 - 2025
OUR IMPACT: AT A GLANCE
Through this work we’ve been able to:
Give £23,400 in commissioning opportunities to our community
Recruit and induct 47 members into our community
Pay £4,520 in rest fees for marginalised members of our community
Recruit 11 young people on to boards
Support 7 young people to mentor sector leaders
Put on 2 exhibitions platforming and celebrating the ingenuity of our community
As well as resourcing our engagement work, this fund has enabled us to deeply reflect on the agency and continue to support our community to feed into what happens in Rising. For example, we’ve run x4 strategic labs where we’ve paid members of our community to have a say on the spaces we occupy, power dynamics in sector partnerships, what goes into our equity policy and our upcoming leadership transition.
Leadership Transition Community Lab January 2025
There have been moments of reflection and implementation through our Augusts of Rest and ongoing wellbeing support for the team. Rising has been able to have access to consultancy to build an accessible website and the team has undergone evaluation training to refocus on our intention and curiosity around the work we do. We’ve also supported the sector to nurture caring work cultures and see young creatives as leaders, board members, consultants, facilitators and mentors. We have stayed ambitious and hungry for change throughout.
Co-Director Jess working on the Rising team’s group installation piece for the Space to Dream exhibition February 2025 cred. Josh O’Connor
‘SPACE TO DREAM EXHIBITION’
To celebrate the end of the funding, we put on a group exhibition of the same name at KITFORM gallery in February 2025 curated by Amber Bardell. We commissioned 8 artists (including Amber) from our community to create work and exhibit it as part of the show. We had over 114 people join us for the launch, welcomed multiple school groups for tours and commissioned an interactive gallery guide. The Rising team contributed a group installation piece, ‘The Rising House’, the making of it offering the team the meditative space to create work that exemplifies the theme of space to dream. It feels like the perfect way to mark such an impactful project.
LOOKING AHEAD…
Looking ahead, we’re really excited to continue disrupting the status quo within the sector, and ensuring our community is resourced to do that alongside us. Over the next 12 months, we'll be implementing the suggestions from our community leadership lab to support the next generation of leaders of Rising to take up the mantle. We’re also thinking about how we can sustain the Rising Fund to resource more artists in our community to develop their practices. How can we make more art as a team and community that pushes the envelope and helps us grow, learn and share together. We have accomplished a lot together, and even though it’s the end of this funding, it feels like it’s start of something radical.
The ‘Space to Dream’ Exhibition Launch Event - Feb 25 - cred. Josh O’Connor
Thank you to Freelands Foundation for supporting this work.
If you’re interested in finding out more about how you can support our work, get in touch with our Co-Directors Jess Bunyan jess@rising.org.uk and Euella Jackson euella@rising.org.uk.
Or consider giving a one-off donation.
