Creative Wales Awards of up to £25,000 enable artists to take time to experiment, innovate, and take forward their work. The focus of the awards is the established artist who can already point to a record of achievement. Creative Wales offers invaluable research time for such artists at a critical stage in their professional career who want to develop new skills, research new opportunities or develop new partnerships.

A writer, critic and editor, Dr Donahaye (pictured left) works in several genres, including poetry and creative non-fiction, with publications appearing in Wales, England and the US. Dr Donahaye has been awarded £20,000 for ‘Slaughter’, an experimental project centred on a slaughterhouse and its environment. The project will involve an extended period of observation and intensive writing over the course of four seasons.

Upon receiving the award Dr Donahaye, said: “I’m very grateful to Arts Council Wales for the honour and the generous support of a Creative Wales Award. It provides a unique opportunity for artists or writers to explore new ideas and practices, and to expand what they do without having to consider too closely the demands of the market – or, in my case, the expectations of a publisher.

“All my books, including two to be published in the spring, in some way concern the subject of Israel/ Palestine, but this award allows me to move in a new direction, and explore new forms of writing. I’ll be trying to get to grips with a world that most of us, myself included, actively don’t want to know about – so I am both daunted and excited by the challenge.”

David Alston, Arts Director, Arts Council of Wales, said: “This is the Arts Council of Wales’ opportunity to recognise some of the incredible talents in Wales. Supporting creative individuals, nurturing them and retaining them in Wales, forms the bedrock of that strategy and our desire, to make the arts central to the life of the nation”.

Picture credit: Keith Morris