We have 3 residencies going to open call. The available opportunities are: Large lantern residency; Fire sculpture residency and Illuminated Costume residency. We are looking for an artist or artists to collaborate with groups. All commissions to include all fees, materials, travel costs, room hire, installation and CPD session with the Blackburn Festival of Light team of artists. All artists may be teamed with a volunteer or a student from our team who will help support the commission and residency. Successful commissions will give people experiences that give them a sense of pride in the town, raise self esteem and bring communities together in a shared celebration. We want to allow groups of people to come together and meet new friends, learn digital and practical skills, build cross generational links and create collective work celebrating pride in the town, further developing the sense of ownership and involvement that local communities have in the festival.

Artists are invited to submit expressions of interest for Blackburn Festival of Light 2018. If you want to work with us to create a wonderful, unique and authentic light and community festival for Blackburn, then we want to hear from you.

Blackburn Festival of Light is in its seventh year. The 2018 event date is Saturday 15th December, with a community lantern parade and a town centre festival atmosphere created by street performers and light installations;  culminating in a fireworks spectacular finale from Pennine Events.

The Event is delivered by Blackburn Festival of Light CIC in partnership with Blackburn Business Improvement district (BID) and Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council, supported by funding from the Big Lottery and Arts Council England. Kerris Casey-St.Pierre leads on the artistic programme.

Commissions

We have 3 residencies going to open call.

The available opportunities are:

1. Large lantern residency We are looking for an artist or artists to collaborate with a group with a residency  based at a Community Centre in the heart of our south asian heritage community to create large lantern structures with a local group or groups of residents. We are particularly interested to find an artist working in a non western tradition of lantern making. £3,000 budget for this commission.

2.  Fire sculpture residency with young people from a variety of backgrounds. We are looking for an artist to work with young people to create a piece or pieces of work which will be displayed in the town centre on the night of the event and will enhance the fire performances from the team of young people working with Flame Oz. There may be the opportunity to work with the Making Rooms to access CNC and laser cutters. There is a £2,000 budget for this commission.

3. Light up Costumes residency. We are looking for an artist or team of artists to work with people who identify in groups- scouts, dance schools, clubs- to come together to have a collective presence in light up fashion in the parade. We are also looking for costumes to be made with and for the Community Samba Band who will play in the parade and the illuminated dance performance piece which are being produced. There needs to be an element of dance or movement choreography with this commission for any groups not already working with a dance artist. This can be something that is taken on as part of the commission, or by bringing in another practitioner to work on this element. There is a £2,000-£3,000 budget for this commission. The artist selected for this commission will be able to join in a CPD workshop at Walk the Plank in Manchester on Tuesday 13th November.

All commissions  to include all fees, materials, travel costs, room hire, installation and  delivery of one CPD session with the Blackburn Festival of Light team of artists.

All artists may be teamed with a volunteer or a student from our team who will help support the commission and residency.

Successful commissions will give people experiences that give them a sense of pride in the town, raise self esteem and bring communities together in a shared celebration. We want to allow groups of people to come together and meet new friends, learn digital and practical skills, build cross generational links and create collective work celebrating pride in the town, further developing the sense of ownership  and involvement that local communities have in the festival.

The work is part of the programme of community engagement for the annual Blackburn Festival of Light. The final piece will be showcased on 15th December 2018.

Selected artists will be supported by the Blackburn Festival of Light team throughout the development of the work, with support for the artist whilst on site and during the installation/performance of the work, but the artist must be able to manage the technical installation within the budget, as Blackburn Festival of Light has no specialist technical production staff.

This brief are fairly open, as we are interested in starting a conversation with an artist or collective to explore the possibilities presented within the parameters. We are particularly interested in hearing from artists who have a track record of meaningful collaboration with groups of participants to realise high quality outcomes.

Ownership:

All work produced as part of these commissions will belong to and remain with the Blackburn Festival of Light CIC to become part of the bank of works which can be used again each year. Artists are able to share images and footage of the work for their own purposes and may be able to arrange to borrow the work back for other events. 

Deadlines: 

Deadline for applications is 6th November at midnight.

Shortlisted artist interviews to be held on Thursday 8th November.

Budget: The budget for each commission must cover fees, expenses and materials. Given the short timescale for participation and delivery, it is important that you are clear about what is possible in terms of delivery and consider how to create maximum impact within a tight budget and timescale.

Delivery timescale: The selected artist/s will work during November and December 2018 to collaborate with their allocated groups to create a work to be installed/ performed and completed for the Blackburn Festival of Light on 15th December. Given the short turnaround time for this project, Blackburn Festival of Light will support the selected artist/s with the engagement of a group of people to participate in the project.

How to apply: Please send us:

• An indication of which of the residencies you are applying for

• A short outline of why this project interests you, your area of focus and the process you would undertake towards the realisation of the final work.

• An outline of your previous work and examples of no more than 3 projects that you feel demonstrate why your practice is relevant for this opportunity (including images or links to video / sound based work).

• A simple budget outlining how you would aim to use the available budget, including your daily rate.

• Please combine all of this together as a single PDF document.

If you have any questions or want to talk over your application prior to submission, please contact us through Curator Space with any questions or to arrange a time to chat.

N.B. The successful artist must be available to deliver the project within the timescales outlined above.

Please ensure you indicate which commission you are applying for.

Further Information

The Festival:

The Festival is a town centre celebration event. Audiences can join the parade or enjoy experiencing performances, outdoors in the town's open spaces along the parade route and set against the backdrop of the heritage buildings. Ideally any performance events should be repeated several times throughout the evening, be durational or be part of the parade.

On the Saturday evening (15th December) installations / artworks run from 4pm, culminating with the annual fireworks display, fired from The Making Rooms just before 7pm. Expected audience: 5,000 +

The Festival is family friendly. Engagement opportunities will be available to audiences and local communities in the lead up to the festival and throughout the weekend.

The festival and pre festival programme has free participant & spectator opportunities which is particularly important locally and gives a range of ways to engage in people’s own community as well as coming together with others to celebrate.

Volunteering opportunities provide locals with the chance to get hands on experience of a public arts event with opportunities in workshops and training.

More information about Blackburn Festival of Light can be found here https://www.facebook.com/BlackburnFestivalofLight/ and www.blackburnfestivaloflight.co.uk

Locations:

The Festival is located in Blackburn Town centre. Workshops could be at various community venues including community centres, libraries and leisure centres, or you could base yourself at The Bureau Centre for the Arts, in the festival hub office.

Background info

Blackburn & Darwen has a diverse communities are amongst the 10% most deprived neighbourhoods in the UK, with prevalent child poverty. It is also the lowest engaged borough in arts in the Country.

Weather:

Wind and rain is likely to be a factor in December. And, whatever the weather, our audiences will still come. All projects should be weatherproof, or should have a wet weather contingency plan to allow them to go ahead in all but the most extreme weather.

Support:

 All projects should be technically self-sufficient and budgets calculated to include all technical requirements. Projects will be supported by the Festival Creative Producer and a Festival Production Manager who will act as a co-ordinator and advisor to participating artists and organisations. All projects will be marketed centrally by the Blackburn Festival of Light.