Love Stories to Nature

Artwork by Emma Baker

SPAN Arts is commissioning new work for our Love Stories to Nature project and invites artists and creative practitioners to submit their ideas. The commissioned work will be created specifically for and in collaboration with SPAN Arts.

All ideas need to respond in some way to the prompt of The Environment.

What do we mean by Environment?

We embrace this word in its widest possible context:

It could be inspired by or in response to our natural and built physical environment be that urban or rural, mountains or coast, fields, or forests.
It could be macro or micro, from the global context to microbiology
It could be the climate emergency we are all facing, from a global challenge to personal everyday actions
It could be our relationship to the environment, its importance, impact or value on a personal, community or societal scale.
It could be any or none of these things, we ask you to define what it means in relation to your idea.

What we are looking for?

Ideas that:

Come from the heart

Are inspiring, innovative, and creative

Are ambitious but realistic, provocative, and engaging

Are Pembrokeshire/West Wales focused but nationally and/or globally relevant

Embrace the wide meaning of The Environment, from our natural and build spaces and landscapes to the realities of the climate emergency

Understand that even though love stories are often positive and uplifting, not all of them have happy endings. The environment can be something that offers enrichment, inspiration, and renewal, equally it is something that is under attack and being abused. We welcome ideas that respond to either or both the light and dark sides of the story.

Offer a mix of locations across the county

We are open to any art forms from visual arts and crafts, creative writing and poetry, theatre, drama, dance, sound, sculpture, and 3D work, time-based and digital work and purely participation-based practice.

We welcome ideas that take place in person, inside or outdoors, hybrid or digitally as part of this commission.

We expect to see some element of community/public engagement within the commission, be that central to the creative process or as part of a sharing/event/exhibition/performance. We are as interested in the process as we are in any end product.

In coming up with your idea we ask you to think about the legacy of your work, and what difference it will make. Within the 2026/27 commissions, we are specifically looking for ideas that will:

Reduce feelings of climate anxiety and disconnection from their local environment in the people who engage in the creative projects

Increase participants’ emotional capacity to take a positive action against the climate crisis

The Commissioning Process

The Process

We have 2 deadlines to submit ideas this year:

Monday 6th of April 2026

Monday 17th August 2026

The Love Stories to Nature commission budget is currently £10,000. Though we are fundraising with an aim to increase this. In each of the 2 round, we hope to commission 2 projects at £2,500 each.

You can either respond directly to the full brief or come to one of up to 2 open sessions we will host online to ask questions or talk about your idea before submitting it. The two open session will take place on Tuesday the 24^th of March and Tuesday the 28^th of July. You do not have to come to one of these sessions in order to apply.  

The 2026/27 Love Stories Commission are funded by the National Lottery Sustainable Steps fund.

How to submit an idea:

We invite you to submit your ideas for this commission in whatever format works best to get your message across, it could be written, video or audio.

We don’t have a word count of ideal video length, just make sure you cover all the points in the Full Brief below. Please don’t feel you need to write an epic novel or record a feature-length film, try to keep it short and to the point.

Read the full brief here:

FULL BRIEF – LOVE STORIES TO NATURE

Once you are done send this information to info@span-arts.org.uk

Please read the frequently asked questions (FAQs) below for more info.

FAQ

How is a commission different from getting funding for a project:

If you are awarded a commission, it will be to deliver a project for SPAN. You will work hand in hand with our production team to co-plan the project, we will support the community engagement and logistic of the project delivery.

 Is this art as in visual art or can it be any kind of art?

Any kind of art will be considered, from theatre and performance-based, to visual, written, digital, or sound-based work. Whichever art form you think gets your idea across.

Will you support public art or sculpture?

SPAN does not own land or have rights to install work on public grounds. If you are submitting an idea of this kind you would need to have to negotiate the rights to install the work and have a maintenance plan agreed before the work could be commissioned.

What themes are you looking for in your commission?

We are looking for ideas that are inspired by the environment and that support the community to engage in the climate crisis. Within the 2026/27 commissions, we are specifically looking for ideas that will:

Reduce feelings of climate anxiety and disconnection from their local environment in the project participants

Increase participants’ emotional capacity to take a positive action against the climate crisis

Can I collaborate with other artists on my idea?

Absolutely, we are open to collaborative projects with more than one artist, we do however, ask you to ensure that every collaborator is paid fairly for their involvement.

Do I have to apply for £2,500 or can I submit a smaller idea?

Ideas of different scales are very welcome, if you have a smaller idea you are looking for support for, we would be happy to consider it

My idea needs more than £2,500, can I submit a larger idea?

At the moment we only have the budget to support 2 projects up to £2,500 at each panel meeting. If your project idea is larger than the budget will support, we recommend seeing a difference source of support. We want all the project we commission to be realistic and achievable within the budget available.

Can I use funding from other source to extend the project?

It depends on the focus of this:

We would be happy to discuss how you could extend an awarded commission through additional funding

We are not open to you applying to the commission to extend an existing project that already has funding

What are the deadlines?

We have 2 deadlines to submit ideas this year:

Monday 6th of April 2026
Monday 17th August 2026

How long do I have to deliver the project?

Commissions awarded in April must be delivered by the end of October 2026, and those commissioned in August must be delivered by the end of January 2027.

What do you mean by community/public engagement?

As a community arts charity SPAN supports creative projects that directly involve the community. This could be as a participant in a workshop, walk or activity, attending an event, exhibition or screening, or being part of the creative making process. We are looking for ideas that offer a meaningful experience for the community.

If you don’t have a set application form, what format should I apply?

As long as it’s clear and it responds to the question in the brief you can format it anyway you want – an email, a word document, a PFD or a video, it can be just text or include images, whatever you need to get your idea across. As a guide, most past submissions have been between 2-3 A4 pages (600- 900 words) or a 5 min video.

Does the work have to take place in West Wales?

As a Pembrokeshire-based charity, we will favour activity that engages with our local community, but we will consider creative ideas that happen outside of the area if they have a local connection or resonance in some way.

Is there access budget available?

We have a small separate budget to support access costs for the commissioned artists. If you have additional access needs that are not supported through access to work or other sources, we are happy to discuss how we can use the budget to support the delivery of the work. Contact Bethan Morgan at info@span-art.org.uk with any questions.

I’ve never written an application before, is there support to help me do it?

You are welcome to come to one of the open sessions to discuss your idea and ask for advice. If you find written applications inaccessible you are welcome to submit your idea as a simple video recording, you just need to make sure you respond to all the same question in the Full Brief, that you can download above.

Can I apply if I have applied in the past?

Yes. If you were awarded a commission in the past we will not support you to do the same again but would be open to projects that clearly develop on that idea, or brand-new ideas. If you have applied and were not commissioned, we are open to new ideas for the new rounds.