Talent Development – 51 grants awarded

Every year, the Creative Industries Fund NL provides emerging design talent with the necessary support to focus on their artistic and professional growth. The selection committee recently decided which 51 candidates would be awarded grants in 2022.

During the second round, the Selection Committee assessed 81 development plans following a pre-selection round consisting of 190 portfolios submitted during the first round of the Talent Development Grant Programme and four Scout Nights, during which 45 young makers presented themselves to a jury. The Committee, consisting of Angelique Spaninks (chairperson), Paul Amoksi, Paulien Bremmer, Aiman Hassani, Lotte van Laatum, Harriët Mbonjani, Hellen van Rees, Tim Terpstra and Simone Trum, subsequently selected 51 plans. Thirteen of these plans passed the selection procedure via the Scout Nights. The selected candidates will each receive a grant of € 25,000 euros with which to further develop their artistic practice in the coming year, both artistically and professionally. As part of the assessment, the Committee considered the development plan's quality of purpose and design, environmental awareness and the positioning of the practice within its particular discipline and social context, development potential and, finally, the extent to which the development plan and proposed activities can contribute to the development of a distinctive and meaningful practice within the creative industry.

Dasha Tsapenko

general impression

The Talent Development Grant Programme is invariably characterised by many different themes, approaches and methodologies. This year's noteworthy new trends are: the focus on the non-human perspective in relation to sustainability issues, climate and ecology; the energy transition and green energy in relation to landscapes, production, climate and ecology; industrial by-products, waste or 'dead stock' in relation to circularity and sustainability; issues around social justice; cultural heritage, archaeology and ethnographic or anthropological research to uncover personal histories and to link these stories to wider societal trends, and an intersectional approach to issues in connection with gender, migration histories, feminism, discrimination, racism, decolonial thinking, inclusion and displacement.

One notable development is the emergence of film as medium. Makers focusing on this medium frequently look for cooperation opportunities with film festivals such as IDFA and IFFR and foreign film festivals for short and documentaries. In terms of content they tend to concentrate on storytelling and on giving a platform to the voices of the unheard and marginalised. In contrast to previous years, this year has seen an unusually large number of applications from typographers, i.e. four in total. There is a lot going on within this discipline, also with regard to the above-mentioned themes.

Give me your hand, by Diego Manuel Yves Grandry

selection

The following 51 designers and makers were selected:

Barki, by Yoru Moniz

disciplinary spread

The 51 applications with a positive assessment can be categorised according to the following subdisciplines, although many of them cover a range of disciplines:

• 1 award per subdiscipline: ceramics, graphic novel, scenography, textile design, urban planning, animation, coding and hacking
• 2 awards per subdiscipline: bio design, product design, information design, landscape design, performance
• 3 awards per subdiscipline: graphic design and architecture
• 4 awards per subdiscipline: social design, typography and art science
• 5 awards per subdiscipline: fashion, audio-visual and digital storytelling

Next year the closing date of the Talent Development Grant Programme is 9 februari 2022.