FACT – United Kingdom

Over recent years, FACT’s programme has strived to become more integrated and coherent across its Exhibitions, Learning and Residencies. Our focus as an organisation has shifted to be artist-centred by foregrounding ways of working that support artists’ practices more holistically: skills and talent development, production, presentation, participation and public engagement. With this in mind, we are currently establishing Studio/Lab, a new production and workspace that will become a hub for a creative community of artists, curators, researchers and participants at FACT. Studio/Lab’s programme is dedicated to experimentation and collaboration within digital art and culture, prioritising new critical perspectives, as well as stories or voices which are underserved by both visual arts and the tech world.

In partnership with Mondriaan Fonds, we are seeking an artist or curator from the Netherlands to undertake a residency within Studio/Lab at FACT during Autumn/Winter 2024. Here they will get the chance to work alongside other residents (both UK and international), as well as with our local artist members. The residency will focus on research and practice development with some opportunities for public outcomes in the form of open studios, talks, or other artist-led events – such as performances or screenings.

Looking towards our onward programme, we are keen to work with creatives who critically and playfully explore the possibilities of interfaces between the digital and the haptic. We’re especially interested in those who aim to create different types of sensorial experiences – both physically, and in the virtual realm – and think how they might bridge audiences’ encounters with both worlds. Although this residency is based primarily on research, we would be happy to work with the artist to think about further production possibilities outside of the residency, after its culmination.

During 2025 the works in our Programme are concerned with possibilities for new forms of collaborative existence –thinking about how we move between our individual identities and collectivity – and the role (both good and bad) that technology can play in this. Exhibition artists include Uma Breakdown, Jenkin Van Zyl, Melanie Crean, Katrina Palmer, Pilvi Takala, Amartey Golding, Ain Bailey, R.I.P. Germain, alongside a diverse Public Programme of artist-led events, and a host of both national and international residencies.