Residencies and Awards at ESW

Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop offers a range of residency, bursary and award opportunities enabling artists to spend time developing work, undertaking material experimentation, learning new skills and realising projects. These opportunities give artists the chance to work in a new and inspiring environment in a focussed way without the restrictions of their home or studio. Residents are embedded in ESW’s community of creative individuals, exposing them to new ideas and techniques, helping them develop new approaches to their work, and the  build long-lasting relationships. Often, these relationships can lead to collaborations, exhibitions, and other opportunities. Many times a residency experience is only the beginning of a longer relationship.Residents often return to complete a project they started, to begin a new collaboration, or participate in an exhibition, panel or workshop.

You can see a range of past projects on this page.

Residencies

Our residency programmes offer artists the chance to work at ESW for between 2 weeks and 3 months. Participants receive  24-hour access to a studio, and access to workspaces, including specialist workshops in wood, metal, metal foundry, and ceramics, training, skills development and mentorship.

REACH Scotland

Our REACH Scotland Programme is a self funded but subsidised residency opportunity that is designed for artists working on funded projects that require either the production of final work or a focused period of research and development. It is open to UK or international visual artists living outside of Edinburgh. It is great way for artists working outside the U.K. to visit Scotland, connect with their Scottish peers and acquire new skills.

You can find out more information about these residencies here

Partnership Residencies

Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop works in partnership with other organisations to create opportunities for national and international exchange. They support cultural mobility and exchange as well as providing time for artists to reflect, conduct research, and investigate new works or means of production. The artists who participate in these residences are either invited or are offered places through special partnerships with other institutions, funding bodies, or organisations, or selected from open calls by a panel of curators, artists and arts professionals.

You can find out more about some recent partnership residencies below.

Darling Newhaven

Ukraine Reimagined

RSA Residencies Scotland

Japan Scotland Consortium

Image: Yumiko Ono, Install shot, worked developed on Japan/Scotland Exchange

 

Bursaries Awards and Fellowships

These opportunities tend the be longer term, ranging from 3 months to 18 months in length and more often not residential in nature. These opportunities are tailored to artists at different stages of their career from new graduates to established practitioners and provide, funding, space, training, one to one technical support, networking  and mentorship to help the selected artists develop a new body of work which is often presented at ESW. The artists who undertake these opportunities are selected for open calls or identified by ESW’s staff team.

ESW/ECA Graduate Awards

ESW Fellowship

ESW Youth Bursary

ESW Ceramic Bursary

Image: Everything is Satisfactual, Install shot, Sequoia Danielle Barnes, ESW Fellow 2023 – 2024