Funding for New Outdoor Art: Four Nations Bursary 2026

£5,000 for emerging artists and companies to create new outdoor work and tour it across England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales in 2026

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Fran Bundey - Bradford Four Nations recipient 2025 with her walkabout performance, Charlotte Brontë: Senseless Trash

Sunday 1 February 2026 at midnight

The Four Nations Outdoor Arts Bursary offers supported funding to emerging artists and companies to create new outdoor performance work. This work will be toured to festivals across all four nations throughout the summer of 2026.

We're thrilled to be once again able to bring the Four Nations Outdoor Arts Bursary to early-career performance makers in Bradford, nurturing the creation of exciting new work for touring next summer.

The Four Nations Outdoor Arts Bursary includes:

• A budget of £5,000 for the creation of new outdoor performance work
• A fee of £150 per day, per person for performance days
• Professional mentoring from the associated festivals and partnership networks
• A residency in Brecon, Wales, in March 2026
• Travel, accommodation and per diems are provided for both the residency and the performance tour
• Support with access to appropriate rehearsal and creation space

This opportunity is for early-career performance makers and companies based in Bradford or that have a strong, demonstrable connection to the District, such as regularly making work here. While you don't need to have made outdoor work previously, we expect applicants to have some experience of performance making for live audiences.

• Your application will present a clear idea for a new small scale outdoor arts performance piece, which can be static or walkabout.
• The piece needs to be for a solo or a duo of touring artists (all artists must be confirmed by the applicant before applying).
• The piece needs to be of a scale that is easily transportable.
• The piece needs to be suitable for performance or exhibition in both urban and green field spaces.
• The artists need to be available for the residency in Brecon between 8 to 11 March 2026.
• The artists must also be available for a certain number of weekday mentoring dates between March and July 2026 (exact dates to be agreed)
• To be available for dates of all four festivals:
  • 24 - 25 July 2026 (BD Festival, Bradford, England)
  • 25 - 26 July 2026 (Surge Festival, Glasgow, Scotland)
  • 31 July - 2 August (Spraoi Festival, Waterford, Ireland)
  • 19 - 23 August 2026 (Green Man Festival, Brecon, Wales)

The Four Nations Bursary Project values diversity and promotes equality and inclusion. We strongly encourage and welcome applications from people of all backgrounds and abilities.

Please note that the scale and reach of this project are dependent on certain funding outcomes.

How to apply

We recommend interested applicants attend our online info session to learn more about this opportunity and how to make the most of your application. If you can't attend the live session, you can register to receive a recording. If this session has passed and you would like to receive a link to the recording, please drop us an email to

This event has passed. Tickets are no longer available.

To apply, please email your proposal (max. 500 words) and a short bio for each performer/collaborator (max. 100 words each), together in one document to . Please refer to the applicant requirements above when writing your proposal.

Applications close at midnight on Sunday 1 February 2026.

Decisions will be made by Monday 9 February 2026.