Short Description:
The Black Heart Art programme aims to provide financial scholarships to underrepresented and under-resourced young people for arts education, empowering the next generation of diverse arts talent.
The art sector remains one of the UK’s most overwhelmingly underrepresented industries, with only 18.2% of the music, performing and visual arts workforce coming from working class backgrounds and just 2.7% of the UK’s art sector come from Black, Asian and other ethnically diverse backgrounds. The UK government has also recently announced that its moving ahead with plans to cut funding for art and design courses by 50% across higher education institutions in England, further widening the gap to participation for many young people.
By providing diverse young talent with funding to pursue their artistic talent, we hope to ensure more equitable opportunities for all to create and experience the arts, no matter their background. Education is key to growth, and as money is the primary barrier to entry in the arts, by removing this barrier, it starts to chip away at the exclusionary way things have always been done in the art world and change the narrative to create greater inclusion.
Application Requirements:
To apply to the Black Heart Foundation Art Scholarship Programme, please visit our application portal. As part of the application we request a personal summary of no more than 1200 words providing a brief outline of the educational activity for which you seek a scholarship, outlining how the scholarship would align with the aims of The Black Heart Foundation and presenting a clear case of financial need. Take care to complete all of the sections in the application before submitting. You are able to save drafts and come back to your application
Eligibility: The Black Heart Art programme is open to all who are hardworking, under-resourced who fit the criteria below:
- Age: 16-25
- Residency: This programme is open to UK residence ONLY (this includes refugee, asylum seekers and those with indefinite leave to remain)
- Financial status: anyone who considers themselves under resourced to take up their desired course. Assessment will be made on household income, including that of the applicant
- Course: Scholars can apply for any visual arts course including, ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, video, film making and architecture. There is a heavy weighting on Visual Arts but other courses such as art history etc are also eligible to apply. The course must be run by a UK establishment and hosted within the UK (at least for the majority of the course. Trips as part of the course are fine if the trip is under 4 weeks). The course must already be in existence or due to launch at the academic year of the scholars start date.
- Portfolio: where possible a portfolio of your work must be submitted as part of your application. The portfolio should be sent to us in via wetransfer, a compressed zip file or in a single PDF file. Please note that we cannot receive any images sent in ai. or eps. where possible please convert these images into jpeg. or png. format
All applications are reviewed holistically and are assessed on an individual basis. The application is not limited to University courses, we encourage all those pursuing vocational and non-traditional courses to also apply.
Program Benefits or Awards:
The Foundation’s primary aim is to provide gap funding however, which is the difference between what you need and what you already have and are eligible for from other bursaries, grants, work, savings and student finance. The amount of funding awarded is assessed on an individual basis. Applications are reviewed on a holistic basis taking into account educational activity, finances, social circumstances and personal aims for future outcomes. So, please apply for what you need.
Entry Fee: none
Location: London, UK
Deadline: Cohort 1: Applications will be accepted between April and August and applicants will be informed of the outcome by 30th September
Cohort 2: Applications will be accepted between August and October and applicants will be informed of the outcome by the 31st December
We will not be accepting applications between November – March. Any applications received during this time it will be added to the applications to be reviewed as part of cohort 1
Website link:
https://blackheartfoundation.org/art-scholarship-programme/
