Open Call for Artists - 25 x 25 Art Gene’s 25th Anniversary Residency #2 - A 25-day Residency in Barrow-in-Furness: Spaces and Structures at Art Gene

Open Call for Artists

25 x 25 Art Gene’s 25th Anniversary Residency #2

A 25-day Residency in Barrow-in-Furness: Spaces and Structures at Art Gene

In 2027, Art Gene celebrates 25 years of artist-led, environmentally-aware placemaking, research, artist residences, exhibitions, and socially engaged art projects – all involving artists and communities in the revisioning of their social, natural and built environments.

Founded in 2002 by artists Stuart Bastik (1965–2024) and Maddi Nicholson, over the past two and a half decades, Art Gene has made a distinctive impact by hosting local and international residencies, curating exhibitions, and nurturing collaborations.

Working with artists, architects, communities and specialists, we have explored the evolving relationships between art, industry, and nature, often focusing on local issues and biodiversity in Barrow-in-Furness.

Art Gene is deeply committed to understanding and creatively engaging with place.

Our approach considers the social, natural, and built environment as an interconnected whole, enhanced through thoughtful, long-term and site-specific artistic practices rather than isolated, standalone works or structures.

To mark our special milestone, Art Gene invites applications from artists or collectives for a second 25-day residency in Barrow-in-Furness (the first was advertised in July 2025).

This is a unique opportunity to engage with and take inspiration from Art Gene’s extraordinary portfolio of past projects, our ethos of working for positive change, and our longstanding focus on ‘the local’, as well as global issues such as biodiversity loss and the impacts of the climate crisis.

The residency encourages artists to look back but to make work that equips us for the years ahead.

What we’re looking for

This residency calls for creatives or collectives to design and develop a concept or reimagined work that responds to Art Gene’s physical spaces within the Nan Tait Centre – our studios, gallery, production areas (see below for more information on the Nan Tait Centre).

We’re particularly interested in proposals that explore innovative, critical or imaginative ways to use or activate Art Gene’s indoor spaces – for example, by approaching new ways to host artist residencies, host workshops, or engage the wider community.

This could be in the form of a structure such as an eco-pod, a project or intervention that sits within or outside of the building.

Artists in residence will:

• Research and design a new structure, project or intervention that responds to a specific space within the Nan Tait Centre.
• Explore connections between the built environment, people, place, and culture – your concept will focus on context, regeneration, or socially engaged practice.

The resident/s will work closely with Maddi Nicholson and the Art Gene team to develop their concept.

We invite the resident/s to engage with and explore previous structures that Art Gene has designed in the past, such as:

• Low Carbon Barrow (2020-2024)

A two‑year climate initiative funded by the European Regional Development Fund and Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership, with engagement and grant-giving elements led by Art Gene. These included, not exclusively:

Bug Out (2021), a concept for a touring sculptural structure/ vehicle designed by Maddi Nicholson and Stuart Bastik to promote and demystify off-grid technologies and low carbon lifestyles.

• The Braithwaite Hide and Tinbergen Hide (2016)

Bold architectural interventions and viewing structures with interior interpretation. Installed on South Walney Nature Reserve for Cumbria Wildlife Trust.

Artworks featured in the Stuff exhibition in the Art Gene Gallery, before being installed on the reserve.

• The Roker Pods (2012)

The Roker Pods grew out of a response to the unique natural and industrial heritage of Roker, Sunderland, and its coastline’s cannonball rock formation.

Maddi Nicholson and Stuart Bastik designed three spherical mobile ‘Roker Pods’ for Roker seafront to enhance interest in Roker as a 21st century resort.

Each pod served a different community purpose: café, educational, performance space.

They were constructed from stem bent oak, and equipped with renewables - solar panels and wind turbines - contributing to their self-sufficiency.

The project was commissioned by Sunderland City Council. See: https://www.art-gene.co.uk/roker-pods/

About the Nan Tait Centre (1998 – now):

• The Nan Tait Centre is a Grade II listed historic and widely admired building that has helped shape many lives in Barrow for over a century.

Initially established in 1903 as a Technical College (1903 – 1964), the building served as a hub for technical and vocational education, particularly for Vickers shipyard workers. 

By 1998, the building (by then known as the Barrow College, Abbey Road Annex) had fallen into a state of disrepair with plaster falling from the ceilings, broken windows boarded up and leaking roofs.

Stuart Bastik had been allowed to set up a studio in the late ‘90s and he, Maddi and Julie Hammerton began working with Cumbria County Council to repurpose the site for arts use.

This effort ultimately led to the rescue and refurbishment of the listed building and the formation of Art Gene on January 24th, 2002, with three Directors.

The artists secured a long-term lease for 55% of the building and have since refurbished it to support a thriving creative space. Today, Art Gene operates two galleries, multiple studios, workshops, and a production area.

Over the years, the Nan Tait Centre has been home to Barracudas Carnival Band (1998–2012), BarrowFull (Creative People and Places organisation, 2022 - ), the Registry Office, and Women’s Community Matters, as well as Art Gene.

For more information about the Nan Tait Centre, and to explore a full timeline of the Centre’s history, visit our exhibition If These Walls Could Talk, which traced the building’s history.

Prospective artists in residence will be expected to:

• Propose and design a new concept or intervention that focuses on the Nan Tait Centre, whilst also addressing contemporary sustainability challenges.
• Deliver meaningful public engagement through workshops and/or participatory events/your proposed outcome. Suggested approaches to research and engagement are:
  • Reflect on and build from previous projects by Art Gene.
  • Conduct 1:1 or small group conversations with past project participants, volunteers or partners to understand the project, process and its impact.
  • Host a meet up to test ideas with local individuals or groups.
  • Use creative approaches of inquiry such as guided conversations or walks.

[Art Gene will support you in making contact with relevant individuals and partners involved in previous projects.]

• Produce work that can be exhibited as part of Art Gene’s 2027 25x25 exhibition, in the Art Gene Gallery, to be determined during the residency. This might be finished work, your research, concept design and/or possible materials you want to work with.
• Contribute to Art Gene’s ongoing mission of socially engaged, place-based practice.

Residency details

Duration

25 days in the period October 2025 to February 2026 with a minimum of 5 public engagement sessions and at least 10 working days based in Barrow (to be agreed with the selected artist).

Location

Art Gene
Bath Street, Barrow-in-Furness
Cumbria LA14 5TY

Budget & Artist Fees

The total budget for the residency is £10,500, which includes:

• Artist fee: £7,500, 25 days’ fee at £320 per day.
• Travel & accommodation: up to £1,500 will be reimbursed on production of receipts.
• Materials: £1,500.

You will have free use of our company e-bike when based in Barrow.

A list of local self-catering accommodation will be provided a short distance away from Art Gene’s Office (the Nan Tait Centre).

Artists are encouraged to use repurposed materials where possible, or suggest these within their designs. Art Gene’s studios, fabrication workshop and our extensive range of workshop tools and offices are also available for artists’ use on a 24-hour basis.

Further information

This 25-day residency is a part of our wider 25th Anniversary Programme, 25x25, which celebrates Art Gene’s continued work with communities to explore and influence the social, natural, and built environment.

Public engagement is a core element of the residency. Art Gene offers strong community connections and established relationships with local groups and volunteers to support this.

At Allotment Soup, the community growing space we founded in 2015, for example, we explicitly explore the pressing issues impacting on local people and the biodiversity of Walney Island.

Allotment Soup reflects our commitment to be an environmentally responsible, low-carbon company. We are a founding partner of the Zero Carbon Cumbria Partnership led by Futureproof Cumbria.

Art Gene encourages applications from artists interested in socially engaged practice, community building, and sustainability.

We especially welcome applications from artists with global majority backgrounds, and from those with lived experience of migration to apply, currently under-represented in Art Gene’s practice.

Our procurement policy supports the local and we welcome applications from artists based nearby in Cumbria, Lancashire or the Manchester-Leeds corridor.

The best artist for the contract, however, based on the ideas expressed in the application, will be chosen.

The residency will be shared online, with a dedicated artist’s page on Art Gene’s website, and promoted through Art Gene’s newsletter and social media.

How to apply

To apply, please send:

• CV
• Expression of interest, and proposal as to how you would approach the residency and engage with the community, including evidence that you have explored our website and have ideas on how to respond to the existing work/s (up to 2 pages of A4).
• 10 images of your work
• Your access rider, if appropriate (optional)

Also, please complete our Art Gene Equalities Survey. [NB: Please read 'attend' in Qs 1&2 as 'apply'. Thank you.]

Deadline for applications 10am on Wednesday 1st October, 2025.

Shortlisted artists will be notified the following week and invited for an online interview.  

If you would like any assistance with the application process, or have any queries, please get in touch.

Should you wish to download this page as a PDF click on this link  25x25 Anniversary Residency #2_ Spaces and Structures

About Art Gene

Art Gene is an artist-led research and production charity working to regenerate the social, natural, and built environment through an engaged visual arts practice.

We work collaboratively in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria with communities, artists, architects, and other professionals.

This residency forms part of Art Gene’s 25th Anniversary Programme, 25x25 - a moment to reflect on our journey and envision the future.

Through research, creative engagement, participatory outdoor events, and the development of new artworks, we invite communities and specialists to join in a conversation about Barrow and what lies ahead.

Learn more at: www.art-gene.co.uk

Supported by:

Arts Council England, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, Westmorland and Furness Council and Art Gene.