The Arts Foundation Futures Awards has expanded my conception of my artistic practice. The funding has provided critical breathing space and financial support in a time that would have seen me steer away from artistic work in order to make ends meet. The validation has galvanised me to see my work as dramaturgical authorship, engaging in projects as an artistic lead as opposed to a contracted creative. The fellowship has enabled me to forge connections with artists across disciplines, offering insight, provocation, and a sense of shared purpose at a precarious time for artistic practice.
A highlight of the fellowship was the opportunity to contribute to Convergence, the David Collins Foundation’s exhibition at the London Design Festival 2025, marking both the studio’s fortieth anniversary and the foundation’s longstanding support of artists, of which I was a recent beneficiary. What was most significant was the act of bringing into view what is usually hidden, a scale model painstakingly made and often discarded, presented here as a work in its own right. In standing apart from its usual collaborators, it allowed me to recognise my practice as authorship; spatial work that can lead, hold its own, and extend beyond theatre. Imbued with this newfound confidence, earlier this year I applied to and was awarded my first public art installation commission on The UK Shared Prosperity Fund Southall Public Art Project by Ealing Council.
The award and exhibition expanded my capacity to think and work beyond project-to-project delivery, allowing me to pursue a more intentional direction as a theatre-maker. The funding supported R&Ds and projects that would otherwise have been constrained by time and resources, and enabled early-stage conversations with directors and collaborators about integrating visual storytelling into the conceptual foundations of a work. While this has yet to yield immediate outcomes, fellow artists will recognise that the relationships and ideas seeded here are what sustain a practice over time.
Finally, it would not do the Arts Foundation justice to overlook the fellowship itself. Through it, I have met and come to know artists I would otherwise never have encountered – poets, composers, movement artists, filmmakers, and practices that defy easy categorisation. Networking is often shaped by scarcity and the need to secure work. What the Foundation has created with its funding and resources is a context that is oriented instead towards possibility. In these exchanges, I have encountered new media, approaches, and ways of thinking, free from the immediate pressure of production. It has been an engagement of ideals, philosophies, and praxis. I am certain I will look back on this as a pivotal moment in which I came to understand the wider artistic ecology I am part of and contribute to.