FIRECULT (Wildfire Resilient Cultural Heritage) is a new international collaborative research project that examines the relationship between wildfires, community and cultural heritage, delivered by Imperial College London, Newcastle University, The Maltings (Berwick) Trust and partners. The project is now looking to appoint three artists who will be working in three of the case study areas (Ireland, Turkey and Italy) to explore the relationship between wildfires, community, and cultural heritage through artistic research, engagement and activity.
FIRECULT operates at both global and local scales. Globally, the project will assess the cross-border, biome-level effects of climate-induced wildfire regime change on heritage, assessing the risk of fire to ways of life, landscapes, and landmarks. Local analysis will take place in case study sites of heritage-rich landscapes in Ireland, Turkey, Kenya and Italy, purposefully selected to represent a range of biomes, levels of current and projected fire risk, and traditions of land use management.
The research commissions are located in the following locations:
- Ireland (The Wicklow Mountains, south of Dublin), January – March 2025
- Turkey (Kozak Plain Region in Izmir), April – June 2025
- Italy (Natural Reserve ‘Monte Pellegrino e Parco della Favorita’ in Palermo), September – November 2026
Each artistic commission is scheduled for a three-month period; however, the partners do not expect the artist to be resident in each case study area for the full three months. This is a research commission drawing on socially engaged artistic practice and the partners do not expect an outcome, however, as a minimum they request the following from the commission:
- Documentation of research and artistic work produced during the three-month period.
- Presentation of initial work and proposals for future development of the work to project partners (The Maltings and the FIRECULT consortium).
- Presentation of research and any artistic work produced during the residency period via public events at the partner Universities and The Maltings (Berwick) Trust (physical or online) as agreed with the artist.
Each artistic commission is budgeted at 15,000 GBP (17,760 EUR) including artist fees, travel, accommodation, research fees and materials.
