Opportunity – Two Artist Micro Commissions

Think Like a Catchment

Commission fee: £580
Presentation: Saturday 17 October 2026

As part of the Forth Rivers Trust Artist in Residency programme, exploring our relationship with the Leven Catchment, we are inviting two artists and creative practitioners who live or work within the catchment to each respond to the ideas emerging from the residency so far.

THE INVITATION

A catchment asks us to think differently about place.

Rather than following the boundaries of towns, neighbourhoods or ownership, it follows water, connecting people and places that might otherwise seem unrelated.

The residency so far has explored three recurring ideas:

FLOW
The movement of water, but also of people, stories, memories and care.

SCALE
From one burn, pond, tree or memory to the complexity of an entire river system. How do we connect the places we know intimately with the much bigger landscape around us?

POWER
Who owns land? Who shapes access? Who decides how nature is experienced? Whose knowledge and relationship with the landscape is recognised?

Alongside these themes, the residency has explored care, access, childhood, memory, belonging, stewardship and the different ways we understand landscape.

You can read more about the residency and the thinking so far here: https://catchmentcollective.scot/newsandevents/think-like-a-catchment/

THE COMMISSION

We are offering two micro commission, each £580, for artists or creative practitioners living or working in the Leven Catchment to make a response to any of the ideas, questions or themes emerging from the residency.

We are deliberately keeping the brief open.

Your response might be visual, sculptural, photographic, performative, written, sonic, participatory, digital or something we haven’t thought of. It does not need to be a completely new or finished artwork.

You might use the commission to:

• develop an idea you are already exploring;
• extend or adapt an existing piece of work;
• test something new;
• undertake a small piece of research or experimentation;
• create a work in progress that could develop further in the future.

What matters is that the work creates a meaningful response to the idea of the catchment and brings another perspective into the conversation.

WHAT WE NEED FROM YOU

Keep it simple. Please send us in an email to levencollective@forthriverstrust.org:

Up to 200 words telling us:

• what you would like to explore;
• how it responds to the themes or questions emerging from Think Like a Catchment;
• what you think you could create or develop with the £580 commission.

Please also include:

• links to three examples of previous projects or work;
• a link to your website and/or social media;
• your name and where you live or work within the catchment.

We’re interested in the strength of the idea and its connection to the residency, not beautifully polished application language.

TIMESCALE

The two selected artists will have until Saturday 17 October 2026 to develop their response.

The work, or work in progress, will be shared as part of the Catchment Festival: A Day Along the Leven Catchment, bringing artists, communities, farmers, ecologists and local organisations together to explore the catchment through different perspectives.

Application deadline: 17th September
Artist notified: 20th September
Commission period: 20th September– 17 October 2026
Fee: £580

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to levencollective@forthriverstrust.org

A QUESTION TO START WITH

What happens when we stop thinking about the places where we live as separate places, and start thinking like a catchment?