Freelands Foundation

Freelands Foundation believes art is central to a broad and balanced education, and a right for everyone. We are driven by a conviction in the vital role of learning and making to foster creativity, resilience, criticality and problem-solving that empowers and equips us for the future. We champion the symbiotic relationship between teaching, learning and making art, and encourage artists to teach and view teaching as an artistic practice. We value life-long learning as integral to artists’ work, enabling collaborative relationships with teachers, schools and universities with galleries and museums. Fostering the development of bold and diverse approaches to teaching, we research and explore art education at all levels: from primary to postgraduate, as well as outside the formal system. Through progressive training and development, we support teachers to expand and sustain their practices. Our approach combines action research, through academic commissions, workshops, discussions, exhibitions, publications, films, partnerships and a dedicated library; and funding, through grants, awards, fellowships and residencies. Since 2015, we have undertaken a series of initiatives responding to urgencies and inequalities in the visual arts sector, informed by research. The annual Freelands Award for museums and galleries has championed mid-career women artists, whose work is previously under-recognised. In 2020, our Covid-19 emergency fund distributed grants to thousands of individual artists experiencing hardship during the pandemic. In the same year, we embarked on a landmark £3m programme to address racial inequality in the visual arts, including significant grants to Black and Brown-led organisations and programmes specifically supporting Black and Brown artists. Today, we recognise the crisis in art education in the UK and the existential threat this poses not only to the sector but to wider our culture and communities. As we approach our tenth anniversary, we resolve to strengthen our work with teachers, students, schools, universities, artists and cultural organisations: championing, advancing and expanding the teaching and learning of art for everyone, in the belief that it equips society with the tools to imagine and build the future. Freelands Foundation was set up in 2015 by Elisabeth Murdoch. It is a registered charity (number 1162648).