FeastFest Play With Your Food: Ingredients For Funding at Social Convention

Funding For Emerging Artists will provide an introduction to arts funding in England with tips and tricks for increasing your chances of success.

SOCIAL CONVENTION is a place for the creative and the curious, the moment-makers and the conversation-starters… A bar for people to hang out and have fun, an event space with regular performances & exhibitions, a community of creatives sharing skills and opportunities. Based in Canning Town since 2022, they are an artist-led organisation supporting creatives with their event and exhibition ideas through affordable mentoring and event space.

Cimeon Ellerton-Kay is the Co-founder & Executive Director of Social Convention. He originally trained as a composer and music technologist (MMus, Guildhall School of Music & Drama and BMus, Trinity Laban) where he founded the UK’s first EDM orchestra – performing with international DJs Swedish House Mafia and Goldie. As one third of composers’ collective Brainer he created work on the boundaries of music, poetry and theatre. Brainer were Artists-in-Residence at the Borealis Festival (2011-2013, Bergen, Norway) with support from the British Council and Creative Europe. As Creative Producer of The People’s Salon he organised conversations between artists and audiences, his personal highlight being a discussion on “Architecture as Art” with Assemble Studios in October 2015 – shortly before they were awarded the Turner Prize.

Cimeon’s work in Arts Policy and Cultural Management includes delivering the Cultural Olympiad in the London Borough of Lewisham, managing various arts grant-giving schemes and producing numerous other arts and community festivals. As Chief Product Officer at The Audience Agency he built Audience Finder – a groundbreaking marketing and business intelligence tool aggregating audience data from across the UK. As a fundraiser he has secured over £10 million in arts and community grants over the past 10 years. Cimeon holds a postgraduate certificate in Creative Commerce (Greenwich University) and a masters in Business Innovation (Birkbeck, UoL) – his dissertation focused on digital innovation in the performing arts.