EDINBURGH.- The Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture announced the launch of a new award to support artists working in response to the current Coronavirus pandemic.

The RSA Award – Pandemic: A personal response to COVID-19 (£2,500) has been set up in response to the COVID-19 outbreak to assist artists with the creation of new work at this difficult time.

Eight artists will each receive a monetary award of £2,500 to research, develop and produce new work which reflects their personal response to the COVID-19 outbreak. Selected artists will also be invited to exhibit the resulting work at the Academy in Edinburgh at a future date.

The Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture is a self-funding charity which supports artists through a range of exhibition and bursary opportunities. Funding for this new award has been drawn from other independent sources to enable artists to make new work in this challenging and unprecedented time.

Colin R Greenslade, RSA Director states: 'The speedy development of this award will assist eight artists to make new work as a response to the current international situation. Life, as we know it, will undoubtedly change and it is our hope that the artists whom will benefit from these modest awards will be amongst the chroniclers of this change. The current pandemic affects our global community and it is wonderful – at a time of such uncertainty - to be able to assist artists to record and respond to the difficulties at hand. I very much look forward to a time when we can see the results of the research and present these works to the viewing public in the RSA galleries once again'.

The Academy offers a range of support for graduate artists and architects and this new award, in response to this extraordinary period on our lives, will be a welcome source of funding to the selected artists.

Eligibility
• Entrants must be working in any fine art medium.
• Entrants must have left education within the last 10 years.
• Undergraduate or postgraduate students are not eligible.
• Entrants must have been resident in Scotland for at least 3 years.
• Entrants must not have received an RSA Bursary Award in the last 3 years.

Key dates
• Applications will open online on from Tuesday 14 April, details on the RSA website.
• Deadline for application will be Thursday 14 May.
• Award winners will be informed by Friday 19 June.
• Award should be completed by the end of 2020.