Growing multi-site exhibition turns to CuratorSpace for simpler management

Saltaire Inspired, the successful multi-site annual exhibition, is now using CuratorSpace to successfully manage complex submissions across a suite of events and exhibitions to ensure efficient and effective selection and management.

Saltaire Inspired aims to establish the Saltaire World Heritage Site as an internationally recognised centre for the visual arts, inspiring people of all ages and backgrounds to participate. Saltaire Inspired specifically uses alternative spaces - public buildings and private homes - to create art and community events that reach out to new audiences and communities. They also provide many free workshops and drop-in sessions on anything from film animation to den-building. They combine visual art, the promotion of artistic practice, contemporary craft and design, community engagement and education, heritage and cultural partnerships. 

They run three main annual events:

• Saltaire Art Trail –  a long weekend of visual art, attracting over 200 contemporary arts practitioners to exhibitions and events in over 40 venues. 
• The Makers Fair Festival Special – a two-day selected showcase of contemporary UK craft and design. 
• Saltaire Living Advent Calendar – a hugely popular community arts event where households create illuminated artwork in windows, one of which is ‘opened’ to the public each day of December. 

Saltaire Inspired gained charitable status in 2013 and, as well as securing support from Bradford Council’s Arts & Culture Investment Fund for the next three years, were successful in gaining £15K finding from ACE for new artistic programming throughout 2015. This has meant a huge growth in administration, selection and organisational management for the project. 

June Russell from Saltaire Inspired told us:

"Before we discovered CuratorSpace we used lots of different fillable forms - both Word and pdf. Whichever we chose, you could guarantee somebody wouldn’t be able to complete it online. All images had to be emailed to us for selection, then collated and put into a presentation format for selection. Data entry took a very long time. Curatorspace has addressed all of these problems.

Now, applicants can access and complete forms easily, images can be quickly and securely uploaded. We can tweak guidance to artists in real time and add new FAQs as we go. Posting links on social media as well as the website is great, as is being able to provide that link to galleries and agencies for passing on – it allows the opportunity to go viral. 

Having all submissions in a format ready to be viewed makes our selection day far easier to manage. We can go to any submission, any time, to give feedback or just check details quickly.We got twice as many submissions as we had places for, both in Open Houses and Makers Fair. We had quite a complicated offer this year, and I think Curatorspace allowed us to manage it all efficiently and easily. 

Managing a call-out online has simply never been easier, and we recommend CuratorSpace highly."

In 2015, the Saltaire Arts Trail will be on the weekend of the late May bank holiday, 23rd – 25th May, the Festival  Makers Fair on 12th – 13th September and the Living Advent Calendar, of course, throughout December. To keep in touch with what’s planned, when to visit, and more, visit www.saltaireinspired.org.uk  and join their mailing list, like them on Facebook and follow them Twitter. 

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