Our activity delivers amazing outcomes for artists, creatives, and partners
Collusion’s three year arts & technology development programme worked with artists, creatives, technologists and academics to create experimental new work, share knowledge, strengthen networks & skills, and develop new practice. Working in Cambridge, Bury St Edmunds, Wisbech, Huntingdon, St Neots, Peterborough and King’s Lynn, we raised £0.9m to deliver over 442 hours of activity, achieving 1,906 engagements with artists and creatives.
We directly supported at least 109 artists to create new work and produced more than 90 events. in_collusion created 3,726 days of employment over the 33 months of the project for artists and creatives, or 113 days per month. This takes various forms and range from a single day to many months.
- 25 artists took part in our labs series (Data Culture, VR/AR, and AI) and we supported seven of them with small bursaries for R&D, giving them time and support to work up ideas emerging from the labs.
- In late 2017, a national callout for proposals resulted in more than 120 applications. We commissioned six projects involving 14 artists to work with us as producers on a 12 month period of R&D leading to the creation of a new art work for our Collusion 2019 showcase – 2030, Above the Surface, Datacosm, Doomsday Blockchain, TEO and My fingers distended as honey dripped from your lips and we danced in a circular motion. One of the artists, Jo Lawrence, had come through our labs and received small-scale R&D support. We later commissioned architect Charles Holland to create pavilions to house the works.
- Between 2017 and 2019, across our five hubs (King’s Lynn, Bury St Edmunds, Huntingdon, Peterborough, Wisbech) we created six new public events involving at least 25 commissioned artworks created by 70 artists – King’s Lynn R&D Challenge, The Brink of the Future, My Lincoln Road, Reframing Bury St Edmunds, REVEAL, and Wisbech:Made in Minecraft.
- We also delivered three sector events – Maker Takeover Huntington, Maker Takeover Bury St Edmunds, Future Takeover St Neots. These projects successfully engaged more than 150 people across the broader cultural and creative industries supporting skills development and knowledge transfer, place-making and increasing cultural capacity.
- We delivered 31 R&D sessions in hubs including masterclasses and making sessions.
- We held 23 arts & technology meetups across six sites (Cambridge, King’s Lynn, Bury St Edmunds, Huntingdon, Peterborough, Wisbech), generating networks with 2,134 members. These networks have engaged with all of our activities, including workshops and R&D Challenges, not only in their own locations but travelling to other places too.
- 18 tech workshops took place for artists and creatives across six locations covering topics such as VR authoring, 360 film, and Bin-aural sound.
- We held five artists seminars with Anglia Ruskin University, bringing together speakers from across the UK to present on key areas of opportunity in arts and tech.
- We ran four peer to peer sessions for commissioned artists.
- We provided many mentoring sessions for artists and creatives looking to develop new work, helping them to scope ideas, develop bids, and connect to expertise.
- We shared our knowledge and learning beyond the project, delivering many presentations on our work, including to Nesta, Hello Culture, Cambridge Arts Network, New Anglia Cultural Board, University of Cambridge, and Norwich University of the Arts.
