Artist and co-director of Paradise Works announced as part of cohort to receive bespoke professional development opportunity that seeks to develop leaders from across a wide range of cultural disciplines and sectors.

The recipient of the Clore Fellowship, Visual Arts Fellowship, supported by a-n The Artists Information Company, has been announced as visual artist and Paradise Works co-director Lucy Harvey.

The fellowship is a bespoke professional development opportunity that seeks to develop leaders from across a wide range of cultural disciplines and sectors. Harvey is part of 25 new Fellows who will embark on the Clore Fellowship this autumn.

Known for creating sculpture, installation and public works that explore the ‘function of collection and heritage’, Harvey is also co-director of Salford-based organisation Paradise Works. Last year, she was selected for the Castlefield Gallery and a-n Artists’ International Delegation to Budapest and also programmed a-n’s Assembly Salford.

In 2016 Harvey also coordinated and curated the Place + Production programme for Rogue Artists’ Studios which marked the group’s final year at Crusader Mill.

Commenting on the impact the fellowship will have, Lucy said: “Being awarded the Clore Fellowship is a hugely exciting opportunity to research and develop my understanding of sustainable cultural practice and step beyond the artist-led. The Fellowship will allow me to explore how we can more effectively embed artist-led spaces into our changing urban landscapes and identify what civic roles artist communities might embrace to better ensure that our value is understood beyond the sector.

“I am so excited to start! It is a real honour to have my work over the last 2 years at Paradise Works recognised, but the Fellowship is also really timely, giving me an incredible opportunity to take stock, develop my skill-set and establish how to future-proof our organisation, share this impact, and figure out how my creative practice fits into this.”

The other 24 fellows work across 11 different cultural disciplines, from solo workers to those in 200+ people organisations, and are based in six regions across the UK and eight countries around the world. It includes a range of artists, managers, producers, directors, entrepreneurs and policy makers.

The full list includes: Alia Alzougbi, Sona Datta, Esther Richardson, Naomi Alexander, Janine Downes, Ihitashri Shandilya, Lucy Bayliss, Lucy Harvey, Róisín Stack, Stephen Bennett, Andrew Marcus, Melissa Strauss, Sarah Bird, Kez Margrie, Putul Verma, Emily Brennan, Botumelo Motsoatsoe, Matt Wilde, Sade Brown, Lina Mowafy, Ling Zhongjiang, Eduardo Carvalho, Omeima Mudawi-Rowlings, Joycelyn Choi Oi Yee, and Refilwe Nkomo.

In addition to a-n, the other funding partners for the Clore Leadership Programme in 2019/20 are: the Clore Duffield Foundation which initiated the programme in 2004; Arts Council England, which funds the Fellowship and a range of other Clore Leadership programmes; Arts Council Ireland; Art Fund; the Arts and Humanities Research Council; BBC; Chevening Secretariat through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office; Gatsby Charitable Trust; Home Affairs Bureau of the Government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region through the Hong Kong Arts Development Council; National Lottery Heritage Fund; National Trust; The Linbury Trust and Wellcome Trust.

Darren Henley OBE, chief executive of Arts Council England, said: “This exciting group of Clore Fellows are an impressive bunch. They’ll be the creative leaders of tomorrow, making decisions that influence the development of cultural organisations for decades to come.”

Moira Sinclair, chair of Clore Leadership, added: “Our arts and cultural sector is only able to flourish with dynamic, diverse and curious leaders; those that are ambitious, innovative and able to inspire workforces and audiences alike. I hope they grab this opportunity now and for the cultural leaders they will become.”

For more information on the 2019/20 Clore Fellowship visit: www.cloreleadership.org