News / UWE Bristol
UWE-led funding round supports over 80 art projects nationwide
Immersive Arts, an initiative led by UWE Bristol, has supported around 83 artist-led projects in its inaugural round of funding.
The funding package, worth £1.2m, will be distributed among the selected projects across the UK, including several based in the West Country.
This multi-institutional initiative is spearheaded by UWE Bristol, with its main hub at Pervasive Media Studio in Watershed serving as executive producer. It brings together the University of Bristol and cultural organisations in Belfast, Derry, Cardiff and Glasgow.
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In its first round, the programme received over 2,500 applications from artists seeking to take their work to the next level through immersive technologies.
The scheme supports creatives from all backgrounds by offering grants of £5,000 (Explore), £20,000 (Experiment), and £50,000 (Expand), enabling the development of innovative, audience-focused projects.
The selected works span a wide range of disciplines, from theatre and dance to sculpture and gaming, and incorporate technologies such as virtual and augmented reality, artificial intelligence, and spatial audio.
One of the chosen projects is The Whale by Sharon Clark and Jack Hardiker-Bresson from Bristol. This immersive reimagining of Moby-Dick blends 180° digital projections, spatial sound, physical environments and live performers to explore the ecological themes of the classic novel.
The production also pioneers spatial creative captioning, designed to offer a more inclusive experience for deaf and hearing-impaired audiences. The dynamic captions respond to the environment and performers, while relaxed performances encourage audience movement, creating a shared, immersive experience akin to communal virtual reality.
“We are delighted that people have trusted us with their brave and brilliant ideas, and we’re very excited to see so many of these being taken forward,” said Verity McIntosh, principal investigator and director of Immersive Arts, and associate professor of virtual and extended Realities at UWE Bristol – photo: Jon Aitken
The Whale is produced by Clark’s company Raucous in collaboration with Hardiker-Bresson’s Office of Everyone.
Hardiker-Bresson said: “We’re excited to be selected as one of the awarded projects in the Expand category of Immersive Arts. This support enables us to bring The Whale to life – an ambitious new theatrical XR experience for live audiences that brings together diverse creative sectors in new and equitable ways.”
Verity McIntosh, principal investigator and director of Immersive Arts, and associate professor of virtual and extended Realities at UWE Bristol, said: “We are delighted that people have trusted us with their brave and brilliant ideas, and we’re very excited to see so many of these being taken forward.
“These artists are exploring immersive technologies in a myriad of exciting and distinctive ways, developing a community of practice and practice-led research that we hope will endure for years to come.”
The funding package, worth £1.2m, will be distributed among the selected projects across the UK, including several based in the West Country – photo: Jack Philp
The Immersive Arts programme is backed by the UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Arts Council England (ACE), Arts Council of Wales (ACW), Creative Scotland, and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland (ACNI). Funding from Creative Scotland, ACW, and ACNI is provided through The National Lottery.
Main photo: Sung Hoon Song
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