Currently 14 active visual and media arts grants, fellowships and residencies open to applicants in the UK. Hand-curated and updated weekly. Almost every entry is funded; a few notable unpaid open calls and festival submissions are included as clearly flagged exceptions. Browse the list below, or use the interactive desk for filtering and shortlisting.
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Whose Archive is it Anyway? is the first in a three-part series of events at The Photographers' Gallery exploring the future of archives and archiving. This one-day event on Friday 16 April 2027 kickstarts the conversation with commissioned talks addressing what it means to make an archive today, who decides what an archive consists of, who creates an archive, who an archive is for, and who has access. The gallery welcomes submissions of real-life experiences rather than academic papers that challenge or answer these or other points related to the future of archives. SUGGESTED TOPICS: artist and photographers' legacies; institutional archives; memory (forgotten or lost histories made visible again); truth within archives (who is telling the stories and how); ownership (who has the authority to tell stories, who owns the images and their stories); relationships between those who create archives and those who use them; radical, non-traditional archives that redesign how stories are gathered and held to safeguard living memories; family archives; reclaimed photographic archives; counter archives that question dominant historical narratives; grassroots archives; technologies that reduce barriers to archives while safeguarding material; digital preservation and digitisation; and dialogic archives. ELIGIBILITY: open to all, especially those with experience of working with archives and the stories within them; applicants must be 18 or older and available to attend The Photographers' Gallery in London on 16 April 2027 to speak at the event. Selected speakers receive a fee of GBP 200 and will be notified by 18 January 2027. Questions to archive@tpg.org.uk. Deadline 1 November 2026, 11:59pm GMT.
Shape Arts' Emergent Residency places an early-career disabled artist at Porthmeor Studios in St Ives, in partnership with Tate St Ives. SUPPORT: GBP 3,000 bursary and a one-week residency (18 to 24 January 2027, plus travel days); a wider shortlisted cohort of disabled artists receives mentoring and support. ELIGIBILITY: self-identify as disabled; aged 18+; within the first five years of your artistic career (career pauses allowed); not in full-time education; not previously shortlisted for Emergent. The bursary and residency are only for artists who live or work in Cornwall, Devon or Somerset; disabled artists elsewhere in the UK can apply for the shortlisted cohort. APPLICATION: via Google Form, or a Word form by email; FAQs available in text, audio, BSL and Easy Read formats. DEADLINE: 1 November 2026, 23:59.
Alpaca is a festival and conference on algorithmic patterns in the creative arts, run by the non-profit Pattern Club in Sheffield. It brings together live coders, weavers, braiders, origami makers, musicians and other practitioners who make patterns by procedure, and it welcomes contemporary algorithmic art that is human-authored. THEME (talks): making languages and notations for making patterns, with unexpected interpretations welcome. WHAT YOU CAN PROPOSE: live performances, hands-on workshops, and roughly 20-minute conference talks; accepted abstracts (max two pages) are published open access with a DOI and may be invited into an edited volume. WHAT YOU GET: performers receive an artist fee plus national travel; workshop leaders receive an artist fee, materials and national travel. The organisers state they cannot confirm fee amounts at this stage and may cover extra costs on request; international travel is not covered apart from a small European train budget. Talks are unpaid: in-person speakers get a free festival pass and lunch on the conference days. EXCLUSIONS: submissions focused on generative AI or unsupervised pattern generation by LLMs. APPLICATION: via the online form at calls.alpaca.cc; questions to contact@alpaca.cc. DEADLINE: 1 November 2026.
BRAID, the UKRI AHRC-funded Responsible AI programme at the University of Edinburgh, is commissioning around seven creative works that treat Responsible AI as a question of relationships, commitments and obligations rather than a technical checklist or a set of rules, under the title A Promise in Return. WHO: UK-based creative practitioners in any medium: artists, designers, musicians and performers, architects and urban designers, craftspeople and artisans, writers and poets. Full-time undergraduate and taught postgraduate students are not eligible; PhD students may apply if registered as self-employed freelancers. WHAT YOU GET: a commission budget of GBP 8,000 to 12,000, production support from Inspace and the Institute for Design Informatics, and presentation during the Edinburgh Art Festival in August 2027 with the Edinburgh Futures Institute. APPLICATION: online form (written or an eight-minute video application) plus a single PDF of portfolio, CV and budget emailed to braid@ed.ac.uk; late submissions are not accepted. DEADLINE: Monday 2 November 2026 at 17:00 GMT.
The Upe Foundation and Gasworks are recruiting a full-time Curatorial Fellow for 12 to 18 months, embedded in Gasworks' curatorial team in south London. The Fellow works closely with the artist selected for the 2027 Gasworks residency for artists based in the Baltics and co-develops their 2028 solo exhibition, alongside wider exhibition, registrar, interpretation and residency duties. WHO: early-career curators with a connection to the Baltic region (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia or their diasporas); Gasworks will consider visa sponsorship for this fixed-term role. WHAT YOU GET: a GBP 32,000 per year salary, a 5% employer pension contribution and up to GBP 250 towards relocation flights. APPLICATION: download the job description and application form from the call page and upload the completed form; questions to rosaharvest@gasworks.org.uk. DEADLINE: 9 November 2026, 13:00 UK time.
Sadler's Wells Digital Stage commissions three new Dance on Screen films of up to four minutes on the theme The Future Remembers, asking artists to consider legacy, responsibility and the futures we are creating together. WHO: filmmakers and dance artists of any style working across dance and moving image, aged 18 or over, applying as individuals, groups or companies; international applicants are welcome and filming can happen anywhere. WHAT YOU GET: a flat GBP 6,000 per commission regardless of team size, which must cover equipment and any external filmmaker or producer; a Sadler's Wells producer helps shape the idea and source collaborators, and the in-house filmmaker may support editing. Finished films premiere at the Dance Digital Film Festival in November 2027. APPLICATION: online form describing your practice and the idea; shortlisted artists are interviewed in early December 2026. Contact digitalstage@sadlerswells.com. DEADLINE: midnight, 22 November 2026.
Welcome to the Fringe Palestine is an 8-day festival of Palestinian performance inside the 2027 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, run with Independent Arts Projects and the Workers Theatre Co-operative. WHO: Palestinian performance artists in any discipline, based anywhere in the world. Work must be live (visual art or film needs a live element), small-scale (a team of no more than two, simple tech, everything in reasonable hand luggage), in 60-minute slots (shows of 30 minutes or less may share a slot), and finished or a presentable work in progress; no development or residency support is offered. Non-English shows need a finished translation and surtitles. Past participants may apply, but artists not previously programmed get priority. WHAT YOU GET: a GBP 2,000 fee per artist or company, plus travel and visa costs, accommodation, per diem and bus passes, Fringe registration, marketing and PR, a dedicated venue with simple tech, documentation, and networking events. APPLICATION: Google Form linked from the call page, in English or Arabic; contact sara@i-a-p.net. Results by February 2027. DEADLINE: Wednesday 9 December 2026, 23:59.
Arts Council England has opened applications for its next National Portfolio, the core structural funding programme for England's cultural sector. For the first time the programme offers five-year funding from the outset, covering April 2028 to March 2033, after the current portfolio was extended to March 2028. WHO: properly constituted arts organisations, non-national museums and libraries across England, with an independent board or oversight group in place; festivals, venues, companies, studios and digital and media-arts organisations are all within scope. Museums working towards Accreditation must achieve it by 1 April 2028. Applications must be viable without additional investment, and ACE warns that demand will exceed the available funding. WHAT YOU GET: regular annual funding for five years, minimum GBP 50,000 a year with no upper limit. APPLICATION: via the National Portfolio Applicant Hub, which holds the eligibility guidance, the full applicant guidance (published September 2026) and the online application. The window opened 20 October 2026. DEADLINE: 15 December 2026.
Gasworks and the Upe Foundation offer a fully funded eleven-week London residency for one contemporary visual artist at a pivotal stage in their career who is based in Lithuania, Latvia or Estonia, as part of a multi-year partnership for artists and curators connected to the Baltic region. The resident develops their practice in London from 7 July to 21 September 2027 and returns for a solo exhibition at Gasworks in July to September 2028, developed with the Upe Foundation Curatorial Fellow. WHAT YOU GET: a private studio at Gasworks, accommodation in the Gasworks residency house, economy return flights and taxi transfers, all visa costs and application support, a weekly living stipend of GBP 175, a materials budget of up to GBP 800, studio visits and curatorial support. APPLICATION: read the Application Guidelines and Residency FAQ, then submit via the online form on the call page. DEADLINE: 2 February 2027, 13:00 UK time.
The Daiwa Foundation Small Grants support projects that promote interaction between the UK and Japan in any field, including arts exchanges, exhibitions, conferences, grassroots and educational exchanges and research travel, with travel between the two countries as the main focus. New initiatives are encouraged, and gender equality and SDG themes are welcome; continuing or regular events (such as an annual festival edition) are unlikely to be funded without a strong reason or special occasion. NOT ELIGIBLE: commissions of artworks, capital costs, consumables, salaries or professional fees, tuition and commercial activity. WHAT YOU GET: GBP 2,000 to 9,000 (most awards GBP 3,000-4,000), with flights funded up to GBP 1,200 each and subsistence up to GBP 100 per person per day, plus GBP 50 extra per flight for environmental projects in Japan. APPLICATION: read the Application Notes, then apply via the Foundation's online portal (separate forms for UK- and Japan-based applicants); advice from grants@dajf.org.uk. Decisions by late May or early June 2027. DEADLINE: 31 March 2027 (the following round closes 30 September).
The BFI Doc Society Features Production Fund (delivered via BFI with Doc Society as delegate partner) supports UK filmmakers producing non-fiction feature films intended for theatrical release. Two strands: Directions (first- or second-time directors) and Momentum (established talent). AMOUNT: up to £150,000 non-recoupable grant (the total Doc Society contribution per project cannot exceed £150,000). ELIGIBILITY: UK-based filmmakers, both emerging and established directors; experienced and debut producers eligible; projects must meet at least three of six stated priorities: equity/diversity, audience impact, talent development, creative risk, UK-wide access, and environmental sustainability. PROCESS: two-stage — submit an Expression of Interest, then a Full Application if invited. Rolling intake year-round. Opened May 2026. APPLY via BFI Doc Society website. Contact: hellobfi@docsociety.org.
England's main always-open public funding route for project work: individual artists, freelancers, collectives and cultural organisations can apply at any time for GBP 1,000 to 100,000. Supported disciplines span visual arts, combined arts (including festivals), dance, theatre, music, literature, museums and libraries, and the fund regularly backs digital and interdisciplinary work within those. WHAT YOU GET: project funding covering artist fees, production, R&D within a project, touring or presentation, with decisions in roughly 8 weeks under GBP 30,000 and 12 weeks above. ELIGIBILITY: applicants based in England (others can apply if the activity substantially takes place in England and benefits English audiences); individuals must be 18+. DEADLINE: none, rolling applications via Grantium on artscouncil.org.uk.
Scotland's main always-open fund for individual artists and freelance creative practitioners across all artforms, including visual art, moving image, sound, digital and cross-disciplinary practice. It supports the development of creative practice and new work: research, experimentation, creation, collaboration, professional development and small-scale presentation. WHAT YOU GET: GBP 500 to 50,000 covering artist time at fair pay rates, materials, access costs and project costs; decisions in 10 weeks for requests up to GBP 20,000 and 14 weeks up to GBP 50,000. ELIGIBILITY: individuals based in Scotland (not organisations; a separate Open Fund serves them). DEADLINE: none, rolling applications via the Creative Scotland portal, subject to available budget.
Wales Arts International's International Opportunities Fund supports Wales-based creative professionals and arts organisations to build relationships, collaborations and networks abroad, share skills internationally and raise Wales's profile. WHO: arts organisations, individual creative professionals and formal or informal collectives based in Wales (unconstituted groups need one lead applicant). WHAT IS FUNDED: in-person, arts-focused activity outside Wales and the UK with at least one international partner, such as presenting work at an international partner's invitation (where the partner pays at least an appropriate fee), attending international networks and events, collaboration and partnership development, and residencies organised by an international partner. WHAT YOU GET: up to GBP 7,500 for collaboration, presentation, and networks and events, or up to GBP 5,000 for residencies (GBP 7,500 outside Europe with prior approval), covering up to 90 percent of eligible costs. Artists, bands, songwriters or producers invited to international showcase festivals should use the PRS Foundation International Showcase Fund instead. APPLICATION: rolling via the Arts Council of Wales portal; projects must start at least 10 working weeks after submission. DEADLINE: rolling.