Grand Union is a registered charity (Charity number: 1184473) and relies upon funding and donations to make our work possible.
Harvest Celebration, 2025. Grand Union, Birmingham.
We receive core funding from Arts Council England (National Portfolio Organisation) and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation (Arts Fund Grant) which contributes to the organisation’s running costs and aspects of our various activities and programmes. This funding also supports us in developing more sustainable practice, making space for longer term thinking and development within the organisation and team.
Additional fundraising is essential for our work; with communities through The Growing Project, supporting artist projects & exhibitions, affordable studio provision, and our significant capital redevelopment project Junction Works. We regularly raise these funds through grant-making trusts and foundations, corporate partnerships and sponsorships, and the generosity of donors.
Arts Council EnglandOpen accordion
Arts Council England is the national development agency for creativity and culture. Our vision, set out in our strategy Let’s Create, is that by 2030, we want England to be a country in which the creativity of each of us is valued and given the chance to flourish, and where every one of us has access to a remarkable range of high-quality cultural experiences. Between 2023 and 2026 we will have invested over £467 million of public money from Government, alongside an estimated £250 million each year from The National Lottery, to help ensure that people in every part of the country have access to culture and creativity in the places where they live. Until Autumn 2025, the National Lottery is celebrating its 30th anniversary of supporting good causes in the United Kingdom: since the first draw was held in 1994, it has raised £49 billion and awarded more than 690,000 individual grants.
Paul Hamlyn FoundationOpen accordion
Project Funders 2026
The Growing Project is generously funded by The National Lottery – Awards for All, The National Trust, Hortons Estates, Canals and Rivers Trust, Grimmitt Trust, and the Oglesby Trust.
Jasleen Kaur is being supported by The Ampersand Foundation to research and make a new artwork for Junction Works project over the next 18 months.
Laisul Hoque’s exhibition is supported by The East London Art Prize, run by Bow Arts. The East London Arts Prize is sponsored by Minerva and Prue MacLeod.
Our two public art commissions with Infinite Opera and Jasleen Kaur – Art at Typhoo – are funded by Stoford Ltd through new public art commissions.
With support for Infinite Opera’s commission from the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, VWF Foundation, and Hindrich Foundation. Infinite Opera’s “Open For Business” operatic performance is generously being supported by 10 venues across the Digbeth Community.
‘Matter Out of Place’ was supported by the University of Birmingham through our long term partnership on the Art History and Curating MA course.
Khairani Barokka and Bella Milroy’s ‘Languages of Intimacy’ is generously funded by Arts Council England, Paul Hamlyn Art Fund, The Elephant Trust and DASH. With thanks to Birmingham School of Art, Shape Arts and Wysing Arts Centre for their support.
Our partnership with Bruntwood SciTech provides free studio space for artists in Birmingham City Centre.
We work with Birmingham City University to provide access to studio and production facilities to young and emerging artists in the city, to encourage new making, nurture talent, and support graduate retention in Birmingham.
‘Endangered Pudding’ with Faye Matloub and Harmenpreet Randhawa, for April Digbeth First Friday, 2026, Grand Union. Image courtesy of Tegen Kimbley.
The Empire Remains Shop Birmingham installation by Cooking Sections at Junction Works with Grand Union 2019. Photo by Tom Bird
Junction Works
Junction works is our live capital project that is working to position and embed artists and our wider community, at the centre of the regeneration that is happening in Digbeth.