UCA partners British Council’s 2026 Venice Fellowship Programme

Held on even years, the Art Biennale will run from 9 May to 22 November 2026. It is one of the most internationally recognised and prestigious art festivals.

UCA’s partnership with the British Council’s Venice Fellowship Programme allows current UCA students to apply to the Programme.

The opportunity offers emerging creatives a chance to represent the UK internationally. It will help broaden their perspective, make connections, and develop their creative practice.

Creative students and professionals will get the chance to spend a month in Venice and work as ambassadors for the British Pavilion exhibition, which is being delivered by world-renowned British artist, Lubaina Himid. As ambassadors, the Fellows will enrich and activate the British Council’s exhibition programme, alongside developing their own research or practical creative projects using the Biennale as a platform.

And by being part of the Venice Fellowship Programme, the Fellows will help elevate the British Pavilion towards an important central focus for universities and creative organisations around the world.

Last year, UCA sent two students to Venice, representing the UK at its Architecture Biennale 2025. Lizzie Grinter, who studied BA (Hons) Architecture, and Pati Starzykowski, who was studying for his PhD.

Lizzie took to Instagram and said: “It’s surreal to think back to when I applied last November while in my third year of my BA Architecture degree; I couldn’t really imagine that I would be here now and what an enriching experience it would be.

“As well as invigilating the British pavilion’s inspirational exhibition ‘GBR- Geology of Britannic Repair’, I have been carrying out a research project into craftivism and the culture of textiles here in Venice and globally.

“Linking back to the themes of the exhibition, I have been looking at introducing visitors to techniques for a more circular economy with their clothes and belongings, discussing the exploitative processes that supply these.”

Since returning to the UK, Lizzie hopes to donate the ‘Rag Rug’ she created from the various workshops she ran in Venice to a homeless or refugee charity, as a prototype of a socially and environmentally conscious insulation that could be made by other communities.

Pati, who works at the intersection of art, science, ecology, and politics, mapped the presence of ruderal plants in Venice – often herbs or weeds that, against all odds, colonise waste ground, urban cracks, abandoned lots and other marginal habitats.

His research in Venice also took Pati to pigeons! He explained: “If we truly care about building something more stable, we need to include the ruderal, the feral and those in the margins.

“Pigeonisation is a ruderal language, born in the cracks of dominant systems. Like weeds, pigeons survive in margins, between pavings, beside borders.

“Let this be a call to resist linguistic supremacy, celebrate urban cohabitation, and raise the flag for interspecies resonance.”

The British Council has a total of sixty places available through its Open Call. Fellows will need to be able to travel to Venice between the months of May and November next year, and each candidate must be enrolled on a course with one of its Programme Partners.

For more information and to apply, current UCA students should visit this UCA webpage.