Launched in 2011, the Jerwood Writer in Residence programme is an opportunity for UK-based visual arts writers to develop their practice. It aims to support early-career writers to explore their experimental critical voice and have their practice engaged with across Jerwood Arts’ audience and extended networks.
The residency provides a paid writing opportunity and substantial developmental support, inviting writers to engage with both the exhibitions programme and Jerwood Arts’ wider work as they choose. In 2022 each residency is six-months long and writers will produce up to five new critical responses across this period. Each writer receives a fee of £1,500, a £500 production budget and a £300 budget for mentoring, alongside editorial and publishing support from the Jerwood Arts team. The programme aims to publish writing that opens up contextual debate surrounding the issues and themes explored by artists within the Jerwood Arts programme.
We encourage writers to self-direct their approach to the residency and to date we have supported 29 writers through this programme. Written responses produced through the programme have ranged from pieces specifically about commissioned artworks to more tangentially connected longer-form essays. Writers have also used social media, delivered radio shows, produced audio or podcast responses and contributed to the events programme at Jerwood Arts as a way to share their research and ideas.
Writers selected for the Jerwood Writer in Residence programme to date:
2022: Salena Barry, Dylan Huw
2020-21: Alex Hull, Marek Sullivan
2019: Gwen Burlington, Joseph Constable
2018: Nicolas Helm-Grovas, Taylor La Melle
2017: Tom Emery, James Gormley, Hatty Nestor
2016: Philomena Epps, Kathryn Lloyd
2015: Alice Butler, Lizzie Homersham, Elinor Morgan, Tom Overton
2014: Shama Khanna, Patrick Langley, Basia Lewandowska
2013: Eleanor Nairne, Morgan Quaintance, George Vasey
2012: Gareth Evans, Jessica Lack, Colin Perry
2011: Louisa Elderton, Chris Fite-Wassilak, David Trigg
