2010 PHF Breakthrough Fund recipients announced
12th May 2010
Matt Peacock, Maria Balshaw, Stewart Laing, Gavin Wade, and Simon Pearce have been named as the 2010 recipients of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Breakthrough Fund. Started in 2008, this Special Initiative was created to help cultural entrepreneurs, at critical points in their development, make a crucial difference in their organisations and the fields in which they work.
The five recipients, who work in London, Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow and across visual arts, music, comedy and theatre, were selected from 40 invited nominees. Fifteen nominators, chosen by the PHF Arts programme for their expertise and experience across different art forms, put forward the nominees.
Clockwise from top left: Gavin Wade, Maria Balshaw, Matt Peacock, Stewart Laing and Simon Pierce. Inset: The Breakthrough Fund leaflet.
Matt Peacock receives a grant of £83,000 to aid the realisation of his vision for Streetwise Opera, a music programme which brings opera and music to the homeless across the South of England, North East and the Midlands. He said:
"This is a perfect time for Streetwise to take advantage of the Fund ¬ we have been developing a new production model involving live performance and film which is producing exciting social and artistic benefits. To have more time to experiment, incubate and dream is truly incredible and will catapult our practice to the next level."
Maria Balshaw, a former Clore Leadership Programme Fellow and Director at Whitworth Art Gallery, receives a £260,000 grant which, alongside other things, will facilitate the major capital redevelopment and new thinking she is bringing to the Gallery.
Stewart Laing, who founded Untitled Projects in 1998, receives a £273,000 grant to enable the expansion of his core team and the production of more personal, visually driven performances, that attempt to reconfigure the perceived conventions of theatrical space.
Gavin Wade, of Eastside Projects in Birmingham, will use his £360,000 grant to recruit an assistant director and support other key salaries. The grant will also be used to help consolidate and sustain the organisation's growing reputation as a new model of artist-run space which contributes to both national and international cultural ideas and agendas.
The £220,000 grant awarded to Simon Pearce will underpin his wages and help develop innovative projects and practices around comedy at The Invisible Dot, which has in the past seen comedy uniquely incorporate theatre and art practices.
This year's grants mark the last round of three years of grant-making by the Breakthrough Fund. Over £3.75 million has been awarded through 15 grants to 19 individuals. The Fund will now undergo an evaluation, the findings of which will be shared widely in 2011/12.
Click here for a pdf leaflet listing the 2010 recipients in greater detail.
Links:
PHF Arts programme
Streetwise Opera
Whitworth Art Gallery
Eastside Projects
The Invisible Dot