LONDON.- Hackney artist Lexi Zelda Stevens used to earn her living working on live-events like Glastonbury festival and London’s large-scale public events, making art work alongside. One week last March her year’s work vanished in the space of a week, similar to many of the friends and colleagues she had built her career with over the last decade.

10 months on and she is working with artists across the UK to provide coaching support in these challenging times, reaching over 70 artists in 2020. This month she launches a Bursary for 25 artists and people working in the arts, who live or work in Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets or Waltham Forest. The Bursary is in association with Civic State & Hackney Wick Underground and supported by the Foundation for Future London’s Westfield East Bank Creative Futures Fund.

The Bursary is to fund a place on her Five Session Programme, five 75 minute one-to-one coaching sessions, and is open to artists who need but financially cannot access this kind of support otherwise.

An art studio resident in Hackney Wick for nine years, Lexi has teamed up with Civic State and its newest project Hackney Wick Underground to deliver this project.

She says: “I’ve been on Universal Credit since falling through all the gaps in Government support and was fortunate to secure an Arts Council England Emergency Grant early on which meant I could focus on adapting how I make art work, and also think about how I might write a business plan for this kind of activity to replace my producing work in live-events. I had been made redundant from my back up job in arts management just weeks before the first Lockdown.

The new support I have just secured from Westfield East Bank Creative Futures Fund feels like an opportunity for me and 25 other artists to go from surviving to thriving in 2021. I am really excited to be launching this in the first few months of Civic Sate’s new space, opposite Hackney Wick station. The area is changing a lot, including my studio building going, so it is great to be part of the more positive side of change here.”

Foundation for Future London awarded £102,004 through the Westfield East Bank Creative Futures Fund to 21 projects that will make a difference to local people’s lives. The Small Grant Scheme aims to fund projects to do with arts and culture; opportunities to build skills; Covid-19 response; employment and learning opportunities; and innovation and entrepreneurship. All projects will run in Hackney, Newham Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest, with approximately 6,769 local people to benefit from the activities. A full list of projects can be found here: https://future.london/article/round-1-of-small-grant-scheme-awards-102004-to-21-projects/

The Bursary is open to professional artists and people working in the arts in all artforms, who are outside of formal education living or working in Hackney, Tower Hamlets, Newham or Waltham Forest. Particularly those facing significant financial challenges, either pre-existing or as a direct result of the pandemic. Selected artists are asked to contribute the first £15 of coaching costs if they can, or they can receive a full Bursary if this is not possible.

Deadline 1 March. Information on how to apply here:

www.lexizeldastevens.com/overview/coaching-mentoring