In 2020, 5 projects were selected for a Mead Final Project Award. Mead Fellowships are designed to help UAL alumni develop and launch their creative practice. With up to £10,000 funding, we accept proposals for any single arts project or piece of research which adds something new to your industry or discipline and has a positive impact on your own practice.
We received 88 project applications for the 2020 Mead Fellowship awards from across all six UAL Colleges and all art and design disciplines. From these, eight finalists were selected to present their ideas to the Mead Awards judges in November 2020.
The Mead Awards judges awarded a total of £35,990, offering five 2020 Mead Fellowships. Here are the projects we selected.
The 2020 Mead Fellows
Emre Kayganaci
BA Product and Industrial Design, Central Saint Martins (graduated 2020) Awarded £6,000 for ShootingBack
ShootingBack, is an innovative physical support designed specifically for wheelchair athletes who play basketball, both for professional and non-professional use. Utilising various technologies, ShootingBack provides enhanced support to the athlete. It ensures comfort plus efficiency and enables athletes with disabilities to perform at their best.
The Mead Award has given me the opportunity to build upon a project that I believe to have potential. I am so humbled that the judges believe in it too. It is great to have their support as the grant will allow me to develop, test and promote the idea but also to potentially take it to the market.
Jade Bruce Linton
BA Fashion Design, London College of Fashion (graduated 2020) Awarded £6,000 for Birthright
Birthright conveys an immersive experience exploring feminine identity expressed through ritual practices, performed intuitively to reinvent an individual ritual language that is read by the body. The theme is explored by a sculpture, a short film, and a series of eight podcasts. Jade’s paternal ancestral connection with the practices of Yoruba people.
The Mead Fellowship is a great opportunity for creatives to understand how to produce a project. The award will enable me to broaden my practice in these different areas. I can build a narrative and branch into developing the core values of my future aesthetic as a creative. It is my wish to represent stories of the body, feminine identity and spirituality.
See Jade’s work here: https://www.instagram.com/jade_o_belle/?hl=en
Masha Wysocka
MA Photojournalism and Documentary Photography, London College of Communication (graduated 2019)
Awarded £6,000 for Jardín de Naturalización (The Garden of Naturalisation)
Jardín de Naturalización is a photography project about naturalisation of immigrants in Spain or how the natural sciences can define a national identity. People who come from the former colonies represent a significant part of naturalised citizens in Spain. However, they are not always considered as an integral part of Spanish culture like tomatoes or potatoes are. People with a migration background are often depicted as “invasive” plants. This project uses photography and research to deconstruct these stereotypes and broaden understanding of Spanish identity. The photographs will be shown at the open-air exhibition, at the Acclimatisation Garden of La Orotava, the Canary Islands (Spain).
The Mead Fellowship is an incredible opportunity for me to bring art and science together. I believe that this award will help me grow both as an artist and person. I am very grateful to Scott Mead, the Mead Awards judges and the Careers and Employability team for their interest and trust in my photography project.
See Masha’s work here: https://www.instagram.com/the_garden_of_naturalisation/?hl=en
Natasha Hughes and Lucy Malone
MA Culture, Criticism and Curation course at Central Saint Martins (graduated 2020) Awarded £8,000 for Enshrined: Creating Space for Grief
Natasha and Lucy explore non-hierarchical curatorial methods. Their work with everyday stories and shared experiences of grief have brought them together for this project, which will reframe grief as a source of creative energy and connection, within a society that typically ignores it. The project will host a series of workshops by creative practitioners working in six different mediums (including writing and visual art). Participants who have experienced grief, can navigate their loss through making and sharing. This will culminate in a collaborative exhibition where participants will curate and display the work they have made. Enshrined seeks to open a vital conversation during the time of COVID-19, when the subject of death and grief is painfully relevant.
The Mead Fellowship has given us the most fantastic opportunity to explore a topic which has fundamentally affected us both. We are so grateful that through the generosity of Scott Mead we can now realise Enshrined. Creating a space for grief, connection, and creation, and challenging hackneyed and damaging stereotypes to form a new understanding. We can’t wait to get started!
Zula Rabikowska
MA Photojournalism and Documentary Photography, London College of Communication (graduated 2020)
Awarded £9.990 for Inter Alia
Inter Alia is a photography documentary research project about contemporary female identity in Eastern Europe. Zula will travel along the former Iron Curtain, the former political barrier (erected in 1946) which divided the Soviet Union from the West, during the Cold War. She will document how a communist past has shaped female identity. This project will combine analogue photography, moving image, and written testimonies to engage with the question: What is contemporary womanhood in post- communist countries?
I am absolutely delighted to have been awarded the Mead Fellowship this year. This is a project that I have been planning for a significant amount of time, and a topic that I have been passionate for over a decade. It's been 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and to this day countries which were once behind the Iron Curtain are often seen as less civilised, backwards or secondary. My own experience growing up as a Polish woman in the UK and witnessing these stereotypes led me to start this project. The Mead Fellowship is going to facilitate the creation and promotion of this project, which is going to help me challenge what is understood as contemporary Eastern Europe.
See Zula’s work here: https://www.instagram.com/zula.ra/