LONDON.- One year of touring the UK, 16 week long shows, four galleries, several community spaces and 18 artists later, fig-futures announced that 26 new art works have been acquired for the collections of the participating institutions. fig-futures launched in January 2018 with the ambition to build both a new collecting model for the country, as well as artist and curatorial development opportunities for galleries and practitioners outside the capital. It built on the ideas developed by fig-2, where 50 consecutive week-long exhibitions took place in 50 weeks at the ICA, London in 2015. Now, in 2019, as the final exhibition closes, fig-futures announced this major set of acquisitions, benefiting several regions across the UK, from Lancashire to Cornwall, via East Anglia and the Midlands.

Artworks acquired range from performance works, films, large scale sculptures, photography and paintings to durational dance pieces, diversifying the collections the artworks will go to. The total sum of the acquisitions is in the region of £80,000.00.

Recipients and collection highlights include:

• Norwich Castle Museum acquires its first sound and performance art works: Passing through Metal (2018) by Oreet Ashery (created with a heavy metal band and knitters) and Singular (2011) a durational dance work by Joe Moran, respectively. They also acquire a new site-specific artwork by Broomberg and Chanarin and work by artist Eva Rothschild, who represents Ireland at the 58th International Art Exhibition in Venice this year.

• Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool, gains artworks that include two prints and a ceramic work by Allison Katz and an interactive library installation by Ruth Beale.

• The Box, Plymouth, sees a painting by Eva Grubinger and by Suzanne Treister join their collection and a slide projector installation by Charlotte Moth about post-war Plymouth.

• The Gallery at De Montfort University, Leicester, acquires a performance artwork by Swedish artist Annika Strom and a second by British artist Ben Judd. They also acquire a yet to be created video work by Kathryn Elkin filmed during her fig-futures exhibition, a collaboration with the students of the university.

fig-futures was initiated by Art Fund and Outset Contemporary Art Fund to develop a new collecting scheme for the acquisition of contemporary artworks into public collections, as well as artist and curatorial development opportunities for galleries and practitioners outside the capital. It saw sixteen, week-long exhibitions across four venues who, in turn, acquired works by the artists included in their respective shows. In the cases of exhibiting partners Kettle’s Yard and KARST, the organisations worked with collecting partners, Norwich Castle Museum and The Box, Plymouth, to acquire work.

As the week long shows have been presented, 20,000 people have visited or engaged with them in the four locations, seeing work as varied as an installation with knitters and a metal band, a large scale photography presentation, a maritime inspired sculpture, film projections and projects engaging with students and local communities. Institutions have also programmed talks and events to coincide with exhibitions to help audiences engage even further.

Artist Ben Judd said, “It is an exciting prospect and a privilege for my work Nothing Human is Strange to Me to enter the DMU collection, alongside key historical works and works by my peers. It was a pleasure to work with fig-futures, De Montfort University and Outset, and it’s gratifying that this relationship will continue through the acquisition.”

Artist Ruth Beale said, “I am really pleased that The Grundy has chosen to acquire Library of Future Societies (Blackpool). It’s a living, changing work, made for and by Blackpool. Each time the work is displayed, it will be remade with books held in Blackpool Libraries. I think that libraries - and galleries - can be litmus papers to what is valued in society, so it’s a reflection of the library service, the readers, the books that are in circulation. Because there’s an invitation to sit down and read the books, it's also the ideas in the stories - they’re all utopian, dystopian and speculative fiction, so they’re ideas about what a future society could look like.”

Yves Blais, Project Manager, fig-futures, said, "It has been incredibly exciting to see a momentum build through the week-long fig-futures exhibitions across the past year and to now announce this diverse set of acquisitions, the result of our innovative curating and collecting model, the first of its kind. Many of these artworks have regional or local specificity to the collections in which they are entering, to be enjoyed by and create new discourse for future generations. It will also ensure that the artists being acquired have a permanent voice within the nation’s art collections.”

Robert Dingle, Programme Partnerships Manager, Art Fund, commented, “fig-futures has been an incredibly exciting series of exhibitions that have been experienced by audiences across the UK. We are delighted so many people have engaged with the project and will continue to benefit from these artworks entering public collections. This ambitious series of acquisitions is a testament to the museums and galleries who have delivered the project, as well as the extraordinary generosity of all the artists involved.”

Dr Rosy Gray, Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery curator, said, “Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery is absolutely thrilled to be working in partnership with Kettle’s Yard on fig-futures. We have acquired the most incredible acquisitions for our contemporary art collection across a range of media including print, sculpture and performance. The opportunity to share work of such calibre with our audiences is a wonderful legacy for this exceptional project.”

Nicola Moyle, Head of heritage, art and film, Plymouth, said: “Having a long-term legacy from a temporary exhibition project isn’t always a given so being able to acquire works by the four artists who we’ve been collaborating with in Plymouth is something that really sets fig-futures apart. The exhibitions we’ve held by Suzanne Treister, Eva Grubinger, Charlotte Moth and Laura Eldret have all been very different and that variety is also reflected in our acquisitions. They’re a great addition to the city’s permanent collections.”

Paulette Brien, Grundy Art Gallery added, “We are delighted to be working towards acquiring work from Allison Katz, Amy Stephens, Ruth Beale and Rebecca Birch as a result of our fig-futures partnership. The works being collected variously address Blackpool as place and speak to our policy of collecting high quality contemporary art. These acquisitions provide an important legacy of our fig-futures partnership, but more importantly provide an exciting and relevant curatorial resource for our future exhibition and event programming. We want to thank all the fig-futures partners for making these acquisitions possible, but especially the artists for their insightful and engaging contributions.”

Candida Gertler OBE, Co-founder and Director, Outset Contemporary Art Fund, says: “One of Outset’s main missions is to engage new audiences with contemporary art, and we are delighted that through supporting fig-futures we are helping to bring new art to new audiences, not just in London, but across the UK. It’s not often that such a large number of works are acquired for galleries in the UK regions and we are pleased to have been part of the journey to enhance these collections with such innovative art works”