Announcement: Friction Arts is Shortlisted for Civic Arts Award

We are thrilled to have been shortlisted for Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s Award for Civic Arts Organisations. The Award ‘highlights and celebrates civic arts organisations and their response to the pandemic’ and will ‘shine a spotlight on the vital role that arts organisations play in sustaining a thrilling, creative, and connected society, particularly during challenging times.’ The Award acknowledges the vital work the company has done during the pandemic like expanding and continuing delivery of our young person-focused programmes, supporting artists to get ACE emergency funding and experimenting with socially-distanced performance at Quiet Carnival.

We are 1 of only 10 to appear on the list out of 260 original applications sent to Calouste Gulbenkian and we are both surprised and extremely pleased to have been selected for consideration. We now await the Foundation’s decision on Thursday 11^th March 2021 to see who will win 1 of the 3 prizes on offer: £100,000 for the winner, or 1 of 2 runner-up prizes each worth £25,000. If we are fortunate enough to win, we will invest the money in a new city-wide project we’re developing that will respond to 2020 and grief.

We are really pleased for a big foundation and major funder in Britain to have recognised what we do. It’s a real testament to the creativity, responsiveness, and hard work of our legions of artists and participants, especially during such a difficult year.

We will keep you posted on what happens next.

Thanks again for your wonderful support. We couldn’t have done it without you.