The winners the Freelands Award, a new awards scheme launched to help boost education projects at arts and culture organisations across the UK, have been announced.
The initiative, announced in January by the Freelands Foundation—a philanthropic organisation founded by the media executive Elisabeth Murdoch—gives £100,000 of unrestricted funding to three organisations annually for the next five years, totalling £1.5m.
This year’s winners include Wolverhampton Art Gallery, which was recognised for two projects whereby participants work with the gallery team to help build careers in the creative industries. The Burton, a gallery in Bideford in North Devon, has made an impact with Burton Futures, an outreach programme working with “schools to remove barriers to arts engagement”, says a statement. The final winner, Signal in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, was recognised for its Artist Development Lab, which assists artists through workshops and expert mentoring.
The move comes as culture professionals continue to call for more investment in creative education in UK schools and colleges after years of decline. “The winners share a commitment to arts education at a time when the arts are being squeezed across the board,” wrote one of the prize's judges, the art historian, Ben Street, on the social media platform Linkedin. Other judges include the artist Joy Gregory, the broadcaster Gemma Cairney and the curator Jenni Lomax, with the judging panel chaired by the Freelands Foundation's director Henry Ward.
The new award replaces the Freelands Foundation’s previous annual award; this initiative, which focused on enabling a UK arts organisations to present an exhibition of new work by a mid-career female artist, ran for eight editions between 2016 and 2023.
The Freelands Foundation is simultaneously backing a key education programme, “The Superpower of Looking”, which is run by the charity Art UK. The scheme helps UK primary school children “gain an essential superpower: the ability to really ‘see‘” and decode works of art.
