air drop

I conceived and set up AiR Drop during the COVID pandemic. The idea was to materially support moving image artists who didn’t have access to high end facilities, to make new work at a difficult time. The name refers to an Artist in Residence opportunity, but one that comes to you. Every month we shipped two enormous crates of film equipment to an emerging artist, who would have the equipment for a fortnight to make work or experiment as they saw fit.

The idea came from my own early career experience of not being able to access equipment because of cost, and having no access to institutional facilities. I designed a package, based largely on my own equipment, that would provide everything necesssary to make work and which was customisable by each artist before it was shipped to them. I raised the funding to cover insurance, shipping and any other unforeseen cost, so that it was completely free.

The project supported ten artists who made new work that they otherwise wouldn’t have been able to make. The absolute best part of the project was getting to know the selected artists and their work. Everyone picked up the project and ran with it - some made work that was selected for high-profile festivals, others made proof-of-concept films that they successfully used to win big Arts Council grants (this happened twice!) and others just experimented, at a time that was extremely challenging for any artist.

I co-curated AiR Drop with wonderful collaborator Dhelia Snoussi.

Full details of the project live here.