Samuel Ross announces fourth chapter of Black British Artist Grant Programme – Wallpaper*
Wed 17 Aug
Samuel Ross, the British designer behind London-based label A-Cold-Wall*, has this week announced the fourth instalment of The Samuel Ross Black British Artist Grant Programme, which awards rising Black British talent across various design and creative disciplines – from art to industrial design, fashion to architecture.
Inaugurated in 2020, the programme first emerged in response to international civil rights protests following the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police that May. ‘We need more visibility and collaboration between the arts and design institution and Black artists, the design industry must engage,’ Ross told Wallpaper* in June 2020. In the time since, 30 grants have been distributed – spanning writers, sculptors, filmmakers, furniture and fashion designers, and those working in VR – with notable recipients including furniture designer Mac Collins, photographer Ronan Mckenzie and architect Dominique Petit-Frère (of Limbo Accra).
The programme itself comprises a number of £2,500 grants in support of the various recipients’ ongoing work; alongside, those chosen receive mentorship from Ross and an advisory board, which numbers both design luminaries and representatives from some of Britain’s leading institutions, including the Royal College of Art, V&A East, the British Fashion Council, the University of Westminster and the Design Museum.
‘We’re missing perspectives, contributions and creativity that level beyond commercial virtue placements, score sheets and influencer fees,’ Ross said in a foreword to the 2021 edition, which selected ten grant recipients last August. ‘Already a reality amongst the marginalised, barely visible – often invisible – communities that form Britain’s modern society, it seems implausible to not embed a layer of structure and coordination to begin changing this reality, step by step, year on year.’