Royal Dock Originals
We are Original: Creative Commissions
We are Original: Royal Docks Originals 2027 Creative Commissions
The Royal Docks is fast becoming London's Cultural Engine.
That engine isn't powered by one festival or one organisation. It is powered by artists, makers, local businesses, creative workspaces and communities who shape this place every day.
Through Royal Docks Originals 27 we're investing in those people and relationships. Our creative commission programme – built from three strands, has been designed to support Royal Docks’ creative practitioners and to strengthen its cultural ecosystem.
1. Original Places: This strand invites Royal Docks’ creatives to partner with a business or venue in Royal Victoria to develop place-based projects that benefit both the local area and their partner
2. Original Workspaces: This commission opportunity invites groups of tenants from the same creative workspace, listed below, to collaborate on a shared project that strengthens connections between practitioners, and benefits both their workspace and the wider Royal Docks creative community.
3. Original Work: This is an open fund, supporting Royal Docks’ creative practitioners or artists at any stage of their career to develop and produce work, responding to the festival themes.
Each supports a different part of the Royal Docks' creative ecology — from artists and workspaces to local businesses and creative leadership.
Commissioning Strands
1. Original Places
Grants between £1,000 - 5,000 approximately six projects
Cultural placemaking sits at the heart of the Royal Docks' transformation and plays an essential role in creating welcoming, distinctive places where people want to live, work, visit and create. Royal Docks Originals supports artists and creative practitioners to contribute to this ambition by making and showing work that is rooted in the Royal Docks.
Through this commissioning strand, we invite Royal Docks creatives to develop projects in collaboration with a business or venue in Royal Victoria.
We are interested in exploring how creative partnerships with local businesses and venues can strengthen connections between people and place, while creating lasting benefits for both the creative practitioner and their partner
Venue/businesses in Royal Victoria includes, but are not limited to:
- B.Bakery
- The Cable Car
- Cage Barbers
- Corniche Food Market
- Good Hotel
- Pizza Heroica
- Pump House
- SweHeat Sauna
- V and A Salon
- WakeUp Docklands
To help spark ideas and encourage new partnerships, we will host a speed networking event where prospective applicants can meet representatives from the listed businesses.
This will take place on Tuesday 27th October from 4-5pm.
It will be an opportunity to ask questions, explore shared interests and discuss potential project ideas.
As participating businesses have limited capacity, we kindly ask that applicants do not contact them directly before submitting a proposal (although you are, of course, very welcome to visit them as a member of the public).
This commission is built around collaboration. Successful applicants will work closely with their chosen place or business partner to develop and refine their project idea together following selection.
2. Original workspaces
Grant of £10,000 for one project
To be eligible for this grant you must already be a tenant in a workspace or studio in the Royal Docks.
Creative Workspaces are an invaluable asset to the Royal Docks; they enable practitioners of different forms and practices to have a space and place to make their work.
We're interested in bringing some of the creative talent within these workspaces together to collaborate on a shared project that may have a positive impact on their own practice, on each other's work, on the workspace itself, and/or the wider cultural ecosystem of the Royal Docks.
We invite tenants from creative workspaces in the Royal Docks to submit a joint application (which should involve three tenants or more).
These workspaces include – but are not limited to:
- Bow Arts
- Expressway
- The Factory
- The Pump House
- Terradock (Royal Docks Centre of Sustainability)
- The Silver Building
Please join us for an online drop-in session at each workspace, in which you can find out more information and meet your fellow tenants/studio artists, as below:
- Terradock : Thursday 22nd October from 2-3pm, join the online drop-in session here
- Bow Arts: Thursday 22nd October from 3-4pm, join the online drop-in session here
- Pump House: Thursday 22nd October from 4-5pm, join the online drop-in session here
- The Factory: Wednesday 28th Oct, 2-3pm, join the online drop in session here
- Expressway: Wednesday 28th Oct, join the online drop in session here
3. Original Work
Grants between £1,000 - 5,000 approximately six projects
This is an open fund, supporting creative practitioners and artists at any stage of their career to develop and produce work, responding to the festival themes.
We have compiled a selection of places and spaces across the Royal Docks that you may wish to consider for your proposal. Please find this here.
Timeline for all Commission Strands:
Date / Time | Activity | Notes |
Tuesday 20th October, 3.30-4pm |
| |
Thursday 22nd October and Wednesday 28th October | Online drop-in sessions for Original Workspaces (links and timings above) | |
Tuesday 27th, 12.30-1pm |
| |
Tuesday 27th October 2.30 - 4pm | Speed Networking Social | Original Places |
Monday 23rd November 23.59 | Deadline for applications | All strands |
Friday 11th December | Successful individuals/organisations announced | All strands |
About Royal Docks Originals 2027
Royal Docks Originals is built on four guiding principles:
- A movement, not just a moment: a year-long journey of creative innovation, skills development and shared storytelling.
- Original work made here: championing artists, makers and creative industries connected to the Royal Docks.
- By and with the community: creating meaningful opportunities for local people to shape, contribute to and participate in the festival.
- Inspired by and rooted in the Royal Docks: responding to the area's unique landscapes, histories, waterways and communities.
Festival Themes
Royal Docks Originals creates space for artists, communities and audiences to explore the histories, identities and possible futures of this extraordinary historic London district.
The 2027 festival programme will directly respond to the changes in the area, creating space for artists, communities and audiences to explore Royal Docks’ histories, identities and possible futures. An important cultural development in London in 2027 will be the installation of The Wake by Khaleb Brooks, London’s new memorial to the victims of transatlantic slavery, located in nearby Canary Wharf.
Alongside marking the installation of this important memorial and its links to Royal Docks’ own history, the festival programme will also explore developments within the Royal Docks itself, as it continues to evolve into a major waterside destination for culture and leisure - with new neighbourhoods, food and beverage, public spaces, and a major floating wellness centre at Royal Victoria underway.
