Rivers & Moorland Festival

water Commission

Open to South West based artists with a connection to Dartmoor

Up to £10,000 available for a new work exploring themes of water in the natural environment

Submission Deadline 23rd February midday

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Commission Brief

The Rivers & Moorland Festival is an arts & environment festival happening in Ivybridge & across Dartmoor, celebrating everyone living & working on the moor.

Dartmoor Dynamic Landscape is a partnership programme with an exciting vision to create more naturally resilient landscapes, to enable better understanding and to connect people more sustainably to their place.

The festival is seeking applications for a community and environmentally focused project that will launch during the first Rivers & Moorland Festival in Ivybridge, 5-7 June 2026

This commission will respond broadly to the Headwaters project that provides nature-based climate change adaptation, reducing flood risks while enhancing priority habitats and improving water quality.

The project also aims to strengthen community understanding of rivers and natural flood management, with a particular focus on the farming community. 

Themes of water,

rivers, flooding and

how humans interact with

water whilst living

and working in the

environment can be

explored in any

art form

Artists should propose projects that aim to increase understanding of the environment amongst local communities and encourage linking communities of the moor to their environment and to each other.

It is not expected for the work to draw in a large new audience, but instead to make an impact and be meaningful to people that already live in Ivybridge and on Dartmoor.

Projects may choose to focus on a specific community or more broadly at local residents. It should focus in and around Ivybridge and the River Erme but can include other parts of Dartmoor. 

The project will have a public showcase or event during the first festival which runs 5-7 June, 2026. It will also have some presence or reiteration during the next two years, to bridge the gap between the first and second festival in 2028.

It is open to South West Based Artists who live on, work on or have a relationship with Dartmoor with a track record or experience with similar projects. Applications from individuals and collaborations are both welcome. 

The commission amount includes artist fee and all production costs.

The Rivers & Moorland Festival in Ivybridge is being delivered by Dartmoor National Park Authority in partnership with Emergency Exit Arts, Ivybridge Town Council and Flock South West as part of the Dartmoor Dynamic Landscape programme and funded by by Heritage Lottery Foundation and Arts Council England. This opportunity is co-commissioned by the Environment Agency. 

Please see our FAQ for more information or email us at info@riversandmoorland.org
if you have any further questions.

You are also welcome to attend an event on Monday 12 January, in Ivybridge and online, to find out more and meet the organisers. You can RSVP here

More information about the Headwaters Project can be found here:
https://www.dartmoor.gov.uk/wildlife-and-heritage/our-conservation-work/dartmoor-headwaters-project

More information about Dartmoor Dynamic Landscapes can be found here:
https://www.dartmoor.gov.uk/wildlife-and-heritage/our-conservation-work/dartmoor-dynamic-landscape

How to Apply

To apply please send an outline of your proposed project, answering the below questions, to info@riversandmoorland.org with the subject heading ‘Water Commission’ by midday on Monday 23rd February. Please do not submit more than 2 pages, including links to previous work.

You may submit a PDF, a word document or a video. Please include your name in the file name. 

  • Describe your proposed project

  • How will the project have a presence for the next two years?

  • How will your project meet the aims of the brief (eg. increase understanding, link to nature)?

  • Do you propose working with any specific community group, if so how will you engage with them?

  • Do you have any suggested locations for the work?

  • What experience do you have with similar projects?

  • Your own link to themes or location, practice or personal

  • How will this help or expand your practice

  • How will you consider accessibility?

  • How will you consider sustainability/the environment in the project?

  • Please include a rough budget of your project

You should also include up to five examples of your work as images or links to videos or sound files and a one page artists CV. 

FAQ

  • Open to South West Based Artists who live on, work on or have a relationship with Dartmoor with a track record or experience with similar projects. This commission is ideal for mid-career artists or earlier career artists who have been building up to larger scale commissions and can demonstrate they are able to deliver something to this scale. 

    By artist we mean a creative practitioner working in any art form, including sculpture, music, performance, video, photography etc. Applications from individuals and collaborations are both welcome.

  • The project will take place, or have a public showcase or event during the Rivers & Moorland Festival weekend; 5-7 June 2026. It can take place throughout the whole weekend or at a specific time during the weekend. 

    Projects that involve making work with participation from or collaboratively with community members can start this activity before the festival and have a showcase during it, if that is more appropriate. 

    Additionally we are looking for a project that will retain some form of presence, visibility or reiteration over the following two years. This can take any form. 

  • The project can take place within Ivybridge, the immediate surrounding area or elsewhere on Dartmoor . It can be indoors or outdoors or can have no fixed location (for example, an online project, a walk or a walking guide). 

    The main festival activity is currently centred around Victoria Park and Longtimber Woods (where the second commission will be situated), though your project doesn’t have to be.  

    The location should be realistic to get permission to use and safe for audiences to access. 

  • The next Rivers & Moorland festival will take place in 2028 and we want the project to have some sort of visibility within the community between festivals.

    What form this takes should be consistent with the rest of the proposal, but is open to interpretation. It could be as simple as a mural or community signposting or take the form of a publication, film, photographic exhibition, walking guide or even be a performance or exhibition that tours to other locations on Dartmoor or ‘pops-up’ at community events. 

  • Yes, the cost should be included within the budget, including potential maintenance. 

    However, we do acknowledge that there are differences between a ‘one and done’ project that remains in place (such as a sculpture or painting) and a piece of live art that is toured. 

    For touring we would expect for a reasonable amount of reiterations to be included in the commission budget (e.g one each year) but would suggest including the cost of any further performances/touring to be included as a guideline in case this could be covered as part of other Dartmoor Dynamic Landscape partner events or similar. 

  • The environment is a core value of the festival so we want projects to be considerate of things like where materials are coming from and how any waste is managed.

    Wherever possible we want the festival to be inclusive and accessible, however we recognise that projects using existing older buildings or outdoor spaces might find this difficult. In these cases we would like to see some way of including audiences who cannot access that space physically. 

    At this stage we just want you to show us that you can think about how accessible your project is or could be and be able to talk about it clearly. 

  • If your project is selected you will have the ultimate responsibility for the safety and legality of your project. You will need to do a risk assessment before your project takes place and hold appropriate public liability insurance. 

    All projects will need to have all permissions in place and an adequate level of public liability insurance. This includes a Temporary Events License if needed. You can include these in your project budget. 

    Artists might like to consider membership of a-n (the artists network) as it offers a public liability and other artist insurance as part of its membership. 

  • The festival has a very small budget and a team delivering it so support for the commissioned artists would be very light touch. This might include advice, helping make contact with venues or community groups we have a relationship with and a small amount of time to help with problem solving.

    If your project would benefit from dedicated production support, a technician or someone public facing then this should be included in the budget.

  • The applications will be reviewed by a panel consisting of the festival delivery team, environmental partners and invited curators and community members. 

    The panel will be scoring on the following criteria and looking for a project that responds to the brief in a creative way that will appeal to local communities:

    • Quality of the project

    • How it fosters community and understanding  

    • Feasibility 

    • Links to themes and geographical area  

    • Legacy or reiteration between festivals

  • We will notify selected artists by the 6th of March.