Sky Arts and IdeasTap have announced that Lawrence Payot, Drew Roper and Felix Mortimer are the latest winners of the Sky Arts Ignition Futures Fund. They each receive £30,000 to support their career and develop a creative project in the next year.

The second round of the fund, launched earlier this year, was judged by broadcaster Jo Wiley, artistic director of Soho Theatre Steve Marmion, Head of Exhibitions and Displays at Tate Liverpool, Gavin Delahunty; Artistic Director at Battersea Arts Centre, David Micklem; Manisha Ferdinand, Head of PR for Sky Arts and Sky Movies and Sky Arts’ Director of The Bigger Picture, Lucy Carver and round one winner Phoebe Boswell. Sky Arts and IdeasTap have awarded £150,000 to young creative through the Fund so far.

The three winners were selected out of 650 applicants and you can find out more about them and their projects below.

Laurence Payot, 30, is a performance artist, based in Liverpool, who has won £30,000 funding over an entire year for her project Backstaged, which will work with groups of spectators –to create collective performances that infiltrate mainstream events.

Drew Roper, 24, is an animator and director from the West Midlands, who successfully pitched his project At-issue: a five-minute silent motion animation about a man who changes state from stop motion puppet, to 2D drawing, to CGI.

Felix Mortimer, 25, is the third winner of this round of the Sky Arts Ignition Futures Fund and has won a year’s worth of funding for his theatre project RETZ – three productions titled Trial, Colony and Process, which lure participants into a desperate hunt through cyberspace across cities.

• Magnum Photos and IdeasTap open annual £20k Photographic Award
• Magnum Showcase in association with IdeasTap provides new monthly competition
• IdeasTap offer more bursary places for Magnum Professional Practice seminars
• Winners of 2011 IdeasTap Photographic Award Announced

Internationally renowned photography agency Magnum Photos and leading creative network IdeasTap today opened their 2012 Photographic Award.  The IdeasTap Photographic Award is open to 16-30-year-olds and is designed to help promote the careers of emerging photographers.

The award is split into two age categories, 16-22 and 23-30, with one winner from each winning a unique prize package including £5,000 cash to shoot their dream photography project. The two winners are also provided with a coveted paid internship with either the Magnum In Motion team in New York or Magnum Photos in London. 2012 also sees the prize package extended to include an exhibition of the finalists’ projects and an online editorial feature of the winners’ work through new Award Media Partners, the British Journal of Photography.

Applications can be made at www.ideastap.com and close on Friday 1 June.

Launched in 2009, The Award is one of a plethora of opportunities for young photographers delivered through the educational partnership between Magnum Photos and IdeasTap. Together, they today launched Magnum Showcase in association with IdeasTap; a new competition whereby Magnum photographers and staff will select the best photography uploaded to the IdeasTap site each month. The winning young photographer’s work will then be showcased on IdeasTap to its 135,000 monthly visitors, alongside feedback from the Magnum judge on the winning project.

IdeasTap will also continue to offer bursary places on Magnum’s Professional Practice weekends; a unique opportunity to network and obtain valuable industry advice from photography’s leading professionals, which in the last year have taken place in Liverpool, Birmingham and London.

The 2012 IdeasTap Photographic Award launches as the winners of the 2011 award are revealed. The younger age category was won by Maria Gruzdeva, now 23, who was born in Russia but is now based in London. Her project profiles the borders of her homeland and explores what national identity means in such isolated regions.

The older age category was won by 25-year-old Roman Sakovich, also based in London. His work examines how architecture in his native Lithuania tells the story of declining Soviet influence.

Maria and Roman were selected from six finalists, all of who were awarded £1,500 and mentored by Magnum photographers to complete a project for the final stage of the competition.

Peter De Haan, Chief Executive of IdeasTap, said:

“I’m delighted that as our community of emerging photography talent grows at IdeasTap, we’re able to offer more opportunities for young photographers to work with a world-leading agency like Magnum Photos.”

Fiona Rogers, Cultural & Education Manager of Magnum Photos, commented:

“The opportunities available for young creatives through IdeasTap are unparalleled.  Magnum Photos are delighted to be continuing and extending such a successful partnership with a charity that mirrors our own desires for promoting young photographers.”

ENDS

For further information / interviews

Joe Duggan (Public Affairs Manager) joed@ideastap.com  020 7036 9018 / 07748 988 930

About IdeasTap

IdeasTap is a not‐for‐profit creative network that funds, connects and nurtures new talent. It was launched in December 2008 as the arts platform of The Peter De Haan Charitable Trust and has since given over £650,000 in direct cash funding to young creative people. Its membership currently stands at more than 62,000 young creative practitioners and its partners are Old Vic New Voices, the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain, Magnum Photos, The British Film Institute, HighTide, The National Student Drama Festival, MAC Birmingham and The National Skills Academy for Creative and Cultural. The website provides a platform for young creative people to connect, showcase their work and skills, find jobs, and promote events and exhibitions, as well as access unique industry-led opportunities.

For more information about IdeasTap go to www.ideastap.com or view our press pack 

Kindly supported by: The British Journal of Photography and Blurb.

In partnership with the Observer, and using an expert panel of judges, NESTA have identified 50 people and organisations who are changing Britain for the better; those applying fresh approaches in practical and scalable ways, through social, technological, scientific and artistic methods.

Peter De Haan, chairman of The PDHCT has been identified in the list for his pioneering work as founder and Chief Executive of IdeasTap.

NESTA’s list offers recognition to some remarkable people and organisations and it’s hoped that it will inspire, motivate and provoke others to innovate and build on the ideas presented.

For more information on Britain’s 50 New Radicals go to http://www.nesta.org.uk/news_and_features/britains_new_radicals/peter_de_haan_ideas_tap

Financial Support for Young People Staging Productions at Edinburgh Fringe

IdeasTap have teamed up with Old Vic New Voices and Underbelly, to present five new plays at an Underbelly venue at the 2012 Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Successful applicants will be offered expert technical and marketing support and an ideal opportunity to get their work seen by the theatre industry, gaining invaluable experience in the process.

More details can be found here.

In October 2011, thirty-one actors, seven directors, seven producers and seven writers staged the Old Vic New Voices (OVNV) 24 Hour Plays, sponsored by IdeasTap.

You can read a report on the most successful 24 Hour Plays ever and its impact here

Peter De Haan – IdeasTap Chairman

‘The way that Old Vic New Voices invests in emerging artists and showcases talent through The 24 Hour Plays was one of the things that inspired me to set up my own arts charity – IdeasTap – as part of The Peter De Haan Charitable Trust’

Steve Winter – Artistic Director, Old Vic New Voices

‘The great commonality between IdeasTap and Old Vic New Voices is that we empower the individual. Through money, networking and opportunities we have created something really successful that can genuinely help emerging artists’

Young Participant

‘I find it hard these days to meet exceptional writers and form a bond with them, also to work on a stage like The Old Vic was a brilliant experience that has taught me a lot, I have really only worked in studio theatres so to adapt to that in a short space of time has really benefited my education’

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has published a Commission of Inquiry on Peatlands, which brings together experts in science, policy and practice to carry out a thorough review of key peatland issues.

The report delivers a clear scientific consensus about peatland restoration, particularly in relation to climate change, biodiversity and ecosystem services.

The IUCN is a global organisation, providing an influential and authoritative voice for nature conservation.

The work of the IUCN UK Peatland Programme and the Commission of Inquiry is funded primarily by the Peter De Haan Charitable Trust.

You can download a summary of the report here

Alternatively you can download the full report here

The Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust has been awarded a grant from the Peter De Haan Charitable Trust for a project that will improve and enhance the quality of key areas of freshwater at the Rutland Water Nature Reserve.

This will be achieved through a careful practical programme of works to restore and improve a range of water bodies and water ways and bring them into good ecological condition, including:

• cleaning out and desilting 4 large ponds
• extending and enhancing 2 shallow pools
• clearing and deepening of 1,650m of silted and vegetated ditches
• installing 8 pipes / sluices to enable efficient control of water flows

Trust Director, Simon Bentley said “The grant from PDHCT is greatly appreciated and will enable us to undertake key work, which will both improve water quality and create better habitats for the wildlife living in and around the Rutland Water Nature Reserve – a major wetland of international importance covering some 1,000 acres.”

For more information go to http://www.lrwt.org.uk/

Ideas Fund Innovators is IdeasTap’s funding scheme open to16-25 year-olds from all creative disciplines, all year round.

If you’re aged between 16-25 and have a creative project that could do with a cash injection, this is the fund for you.

IdeasTap are offering 10 projects £1,000 each to help get them off the ground.

This round of Innovators is open until 23 December 2011,

For more information click here.

Thanks to the ongoing success of IdeasTap’s partnership with renowned photography agency Magnum Photos, they’re offering photographers in the IdeasTap community another career-changing opportunity.

IdeasTap have 10 heavily subsidised places to give away on Magnum’s next two-day Professional Practice seminar in Birmingham on 3 and 4 December 2011. This opportunity is available to IdeasTap members between the ages of 16 and 25.

With an emphasis on providing practical and vocational guidance to emerging photographers, this is an unmissable opportunity to gain tailor-made, impartial advice from specialists at the top of their profession.

Speakers for the Birmingham seminar include:

• Tony Bell, Picture Editor of the Observer
• Rhiannon Reid, Client Engagement Manager of 24 Productions
• Peter James, Head of Photographs of Birmingham Central Library
• Dewi Lewis of Dewi Lewis Publishing
• Fiona Rogers, Cultural and Education Manager of Magnum Photos
• Laurence Watts, Head of International Picture Desk of ActionAid
• Visual Consultant Rebecca Swift, formerly of Getty Images
• Magnum photographer David Hurn