When Kaos Morris was awarded a grant from the Christine Carter Creative Arts Fund, she spent it on a flash.
It was a relatively small investment: £250 for a Godox V1 Pro. But for Kaos, a photographer from the North East, it opened up possibilities that had previously been out of reach. The equipment transformed the way she photographed live music, helped her work stand out, and, she says, connected her with people who have since become part of her career.
“Without getting the flash and my photos improving because of it, I probably wouldn’t know half the people I do now,” she says.
Kaos, 19, is now preparing to study BA(Hons) Photography at the University of Sunderland, while working as a gig photographer and manager within the North East’s independent music scene. She photographs bands across Newcastle, Sunderland and County Durham, with bookings extending into the end of the year. One band she began working with, Wretch, subsequently asked her to become their manager. She now co-runs Local Harmony, a management company that also puts on gigs.
For Kaos, the grant was not simply money for a piece of equipment. It was an opportunity to take something she had loved since childhood and begin turning it into a future.
She’s been behind a camera since she was four, borrowing her granddad’s Canon before she could reach the shutter without help. She went on to study photography at GCSE and A level, alongside Fashion and Criminology, before completing a foundation year at Durham Sixth Form Centre. Her place at the University of Sunderland will allow her to continue developing her practice at a university that is highly regarded for photography.
The Christine Carter Fund grant came at just the right moment for Kaos, who had already begun photographing gigs at local venues, but the lighting conditions often restricted what she could do. The flash gave her greater control and allowed her to experiment with techniques that had previously been unavailable to her.
“I use it for every single photo shoot I do; every single gig shoot I do,” she says. “It’s allowed for a lot more different photos for me to take.”
The improvement in her work had benfits beyond the photographs themselves. Better images led to more contacts, more opportunities and, eventually, work within the music industry that extended beyond photography.
“All of that is just pipeline down from me getting that bursary,” she says.
A grant and a vote of confidence
Kaos’s pastoral adviser and photography teacher at Durham Sixth Form Centre referred her to the fund. It was the recognition of her talent by someone who knew her work and had decided she was worth investing in that meant a lot.
“It showed that my teachers were confident in my own ability,” she says. “That I was good enough to be put forward for it, never mind actually receive it.”
That vote of confidence is part of what makes small grants significant.
For a young person trying to develop a creative practice, a grant can be the difference between wanting to pursue an interest and having the means to do something with it. A camera, a piece of software, specialist equipment or the cost of getting to an opportunity can all become barriers long before talent does.
Kaos’s experience suggests that removing one of those barriers can have benefits far beyond the original costs.
Turning the camera on the North East
Kaos’s work is increasingly focused on the place she comes from and the people creating its culture.
During her foundation year, Kaos made a project about youth culture in the North East, challenging what she sees as a persistent assumption that the region offers little to young artists.
“Everybody thinks the North East is such a crappy place to live and to be part of the arts community,” she says. “Like it’s basically a death sentence for your career, like nothing’s going to happen. I wanted to prove them wrong.”
The project explored the relationship between politics and local music, and how young musicians use their creative work to draw attention to local and national issues. Kaos combined photography with typography, spray painting and collage.
Her interest is not simply in documenting performances, but in capturing what it means for young people to make themselves visible.
“I think it’s such a good thing and such a scary thing to do, being on stage and performing,” she says. “Having photos of that moment, and being able to look back on it, is pretty awesome.”
Kaos rejects the idea that there is no significant arts or music scene in the North East.
“The statement’s completely wrong,” she says. “There is an art scene, there is a music scene in the North East. It could be loads better, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there.”
She points to grassroots venues including The Globe and The Cluny in Newcastle, as well as charity gigs and the network of independent bands that make up the region’s music circuit.
“Everybody is such nice people around here. I wanted to highlight it.”
Opportunity starts before the grant
Kaos’s story also illustrates why financial support cannot be considered in isolation.
Before the grant, there was a teacher who recognised her potential and a college that gave her access to facilities that allowed that potential to develop.
Her experience at secondary school had been very different. She recalls being given a cupboard in the drama department to work on photography because there was nowhere else in the school equipped for it.
At Durham Sixth Form Centre, she found photography studios, dark rooms, computers and a student gallery. Visiting artists also came to work with students.
“I didn’t even know that was an available thing in a college,” she says.
The difference, she believes, is ultimately about opportunity. Good arts provision does more than teach young people how to make things. It can give them the skills, confidence and connections to imagine a future in which those interests have a place.
Kaos says the skills she developed through the arts also strengthened her work in other subjects. Research and essay-writing in Fashion helped her approach Criminology; IT and Photoshop skills fed directly into her photographic and design work.
“I can make a poster for a gig in about five minutes,” she says.
The bigger picture
Kaos’s journey highlights how with the right interventions and support, we can help young people transform their passion and talent into a career. For Kaos, that intervention looked like a teacher who knew about the Christine Carter Fund, specialist facilities at sixth form, teachers who encouraged her, and financial support that enabled her to buy equipment she could not otherwise have afforded.
Remove one of those pieces and the outcome might have been different.
In the North East, where young people face a labour market that offers fewer opportunities than many other parts of the country, those factors play a significant role. ONS figures for April to June 2026 put the employment rate for 16- to 64-year-olds in the North East at 71.1%, compared with 75.5% across England.
Against that backdrop, supporting young people to develop their interests is not simply about encouraging hobbies. It is about giving them routes into skills, networks, confidence and, potentially, employment.
The Christine Carter Creative Arts Fund did not create her Kaos’s talent. It did something arguably more important: it helped remove a barrier between that talent and the opportunity to use it.
The flash she bought is still being used at every shoot.
The effects of the grant are now visible in the photographs, the bookings, the bands she works with and the management company she is helping to build.
A small grant has become part of a much bigger picture.
This is the real value of investing in young people’s passions: not funding an interest, but funding the possibility of where it might lead.