The Pool Grant 11

 Open to Australian and New Zealand residents over 18 years of age who have not earned their primary income from photography for more than three years, The Pool Grant is an independent initiative which is fully funded by The Pool Collective. It provides a cash grant of $10,000, exhibition funding to the value of $5,000 and a year of mentorship from Pool’s artists and makers to conceptualise and produce a solo show in July 2023.

Launched in 2010, the grant was created as a means to support the development of emerging talent in the region. Since then, it has provided funding to 9 individual artists as well as the first joint project in 2018/19. Throughout each project, Pool artists have acted as mentors to each year’s recipient, assisting with their process and guiding them through the rigours of creating a solo body of work fit for a gallery space. 

The grant is cyclical in that it funds a different project across a 12-month period with the aim of exhibiting said project at the end of that cycle. The announcement of the next recipient traditionally takes place at the opening night of the previous recipient’s exhibition. 

The brief is open and we encourage submissions from every genre, from portraiture to still-life, conceptual to documentary, through to multimedia projects. The recipient will have full access to Pool’s team of makers to assist with project management, planning, promotion, marketing and access to the necessary sponsorship arrangements which facilitate the exhibition of their work to a wide audience in a gallery setting.

The 2022/23 entry kit contains further details and will be available to download from our website on June 1. Applicants will have until midnight Sunday June 26 to prepare and submit their applications.

The announcement of the 11^th recipient will coincide with the opening of the 10th Pool Grant exhibition, Huon, by Noah Thompson. Shot in Tasmania, the work is inspired by the conflicts we have with one another over protecting or exploiting the natural world.

Having received the grant in 2019, the intention was to stage the exhibition in 2020. One of the few silver linings of the pandemic was the enforced opportunity it ultimately offered Noah; to move to Tasmania and fully explore his project over the course of nearly 4 years as opposed to the requisite 1 year of previous grants.

In a first for the grant, we’ll be exhibiting this year’s exhibition in Melbourne at the new Hillvale Gallery in Brunswick in July. Check Pool socials for further announcements throughout June.