Applications Open For Our 2019 Cultural Residency

We’re delighted to announce that we are now accepting applications for our 2019 Cultural Residency at the Imagination Lab.

Our Cultural Residencies are inspired by the diverse themes that we explore as part of our Imagination Matters campaign, which launched in 2017.

2018’s brilliant residency was on the theme ‘Places to Imagine’ and saw a collective of artists commissioned to create Super City, a collaborative installation built with children and families.

For the Cultural Residency in 2019, are looking for responses to the theme of Empathy and we are focussing on finding a project which encourages participatory performance for visitors to the Imagination Lab (or wherever your idea takes you!)

The residency

The Cultural Residency programme at Institute of Imagination is in its second year and applications are now open. This year, we are asking applicants from all disciplines across STEAM fields (science, technology, engineering, the arts and mathematics) and beyond to develop a concept responding to our theme of Empathy.

We aim for the residency, which will be taking place between April – July at our Imagination Lab in Lambeth, to be collaborative, involve a performative element and encourage participation and input from our visitors.

The theme: Empathy 

At iOi, we believe that through imagination we can put ourselves into the minds of others, imagining things from their perspective and thus helping to develop our sense of empathy. Anthropologists argue that behaving as such, in a prosocial manner, not only helps to further our evolution as a species, but importantly to increase our sense of wellbeing.

As we live through an era of rapid change, with a world of connections and information at our fingertips, we need to figure out how to make these possibilities work positively for society and whether empathy can (or should) be incorporated into technological developments like Artificial intelligence.

The arts have long been a vehicle for increasing understanding and awareness of the experiences of others. Through this residency we hope to help our visitors see the world from a different viewpoint and by combining the performing arts with a variety of other subject disciplines, we aim to reach a wide and diverse group of participants. We are seeking truly cross-disciplinary applications, which embody our belief that by combining digital technologies, the arts and sciences we can provide memorable, immersive and effective learning experiences for children, families and adults alike.

To apply

Our applications are open to all disciplines, to both collectives and individuals, and we welcome all ideas.

If you are interested in applying, or know someone fantastic who should, please read our full briefing and feel free to get in touch with us to discuss more on culturalresidency@ioi.london or call Kathryn Wilson on 0207 4949 153. Use this application form and optional equality monitoring form to apply.

The winning application will receive £8,000 and support from our in-house team to deliver their ideas.

The deadline for applications is 21 February 2019.

Be part of the activities

If you are interested in being part of the exciting outputs of this residency, keep an eye on our What’s On pages to book onto activities and events in April to July.

The cultural residency is kindly supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, Arts Council England and the D’Oyly Carte Charitable Trust.