Artist Opportunity! Apply for the Emerging Artists Programme

Our Emerging Artists Programme for September 2024 – June 2025 is now open for submissions. We are looking for artists/art collectives who are within the first ten years of their practice, with a body of work ready to exhibit at Orleans House Gallery.  

The selected artists/art collectives will be given a fee of £1000 to support the development of necessary documents for the exhibition and a £500 production budget.  

Previous recipients of the programme include: Llinos Owen, Sophie Gresswell, Emma Theresa Jude, Bianca Raffaella, Mandeep Dillon, Anna Blom and Pía Ortuño, Rudy Loewe and Alexandra Sivov 

Read the brief below and submit your exhibition proposal by 14 April 2024.

If you would like to chat to us about your exhibition proposal or have any questions about the application process, you can book in a ten-minute consultation with us. Please click here: Application Surgeries 

We are now accepting proposals from emerging artists for exhibitions at Orleans House Gallery.    

Artists are offered the Stables Gallery at Orleans House Gallery as a space for experimentation and building conversations with audiences. Artists may propose a collaborative, theme-based exhibition, or a wholly innovative arts-based project. We are interested to hear your ideas. This programme is an opportunity to develop your producing skills and work on the production of your exhibition from start to finish. 

A criteria of the programme is that the art works submitted already exist. We want to support your exhibition financially and operationally; we do not have the capacity to support the production of new artworks. 

Completed proposals must be submitted before midnight on 14 April 2024 to Zoe Wright at zoe.wright@richmondandwandsworth.gov.uk 

We are keen to work with artists from a variety of backgrounds with different skills, stories, and experiences. We actively seek applications from our diverse communities including Global Majority, Deaf, disabled, neurodivergent, and LGBTQ+, to represent diverse lived experiences in our projects.    

If you have access requirements and would prefer to apply in a different format, please email zoe.wright@richmondandwandsworth.gov.uk 

Our Emerging Artists programme (September 2024 – June 2025) is for those establishing their career as an artist and who are within the first 10 years of their practice.   

The Richmond Arts Service vision has the following values, and we are particularly interested in proposals that interrogate or support this direction. We will select against these values.    

• Collaborative – we work with people in innovative and inspiring ways, we invite artists, communities and individuals to create the public programme with us and help develop the arts service.    
• Socially engaged – we respond to the needs and wishes of local people, widen participation in the arts and connect people from different backgrounds, enabling them to have a say over issues that affect them, and promoting opportunity particularly for underrepresented groups.    
• Experimental – through the arts we test new ideas and approaches and share our learning to support the work of the borough. This might involve being playful, adventurous and taking risks.   

• Free exhibition space in the Stables Gallery at Orleans House Gallery     

• Free use of workshop space in the lead up to the exhibition (depending on available dates)    

• £1000 to support in developing necessary documents for the exhibition, site visits, and install and de-install days  

• £500 production budget to cover technical equipment, technician requirements and install and de-install costs  

• Support from the Orleans House Gallery team, given as required, at key development and delivery moments   

• Learning and development opportunities     

• Marketing support – poster design and poster printing, social media marketing and exhibition listings   

• Front of House volunteer invigilation of the exhibition    

• Networking opportunities with the other emerging artists  

• Networking opportunities with professional artists working in other spaces at Orleans House Gallery  

• We support artists who want to sell works through their exhibitions, and a 40% commission applies to all works sold. This money supports our work across Orleans House Gallery programmes.  

• Existing body of work to be displayed at the gallery    

• Production documents and procedures related to the exhibition and opening event (i.e. risk assessment)   

• Images, headshots and blurbs that will be used to promote the exhibition    

• Collaborative marketing strategies and cross promotion, including a press release    

• Tour for volunteers who will be supporting the exhibition    

• Install and deinstall schedule and plan including overseeing any technical support    

• Public Liability insurance for themselves for working on site    

• Orleans House Gallery is delivering Cultural Reforesting, a series of artist-led, multi-disciplinary projects set in the context of the ecological crises of our time. Each artist project responds to the question – how can we renew our relationship with nature? Care of the garden and woodland at Orleans House Gallery is outlined in The Ecosystem Plan. Please consider the environmental impact of your exhibition when applying. 

• We want to make sure all artists working with us support themselves and those working with them financially. We will assess whether the project has realistic expectations. We know everyone has high ambitions, and we want an honest conversation from the beginning around these.