Pendle based arts organisation In-Situ, is seeking to commission four artists, academics, or artist collectives*, to undertake creative participatory action research, for the first year R+D phase of the This is Nelson, the arts and cultural strand of Nelson Town Deal regeneration. * we also welcome proposals from interdisciplinary collectives.

Timescale: November 2022 – April 2023
Proposed Budget depending on confirmed funding.
Fee inc. vat: £3,056 
Materials: £1,000
Travel: Negotiable 

Brief

The aim of the This Is Nelson strand of the Nelson Town Deal is to ensure that there is social and community benefit from the £25million investment of the Town Deal. The selected artist(s) will use embedded and creative methods to gather information with and about the people and places of Nelson. This research will be shared with the programme stakeholders and wider public and will help ensure future arts programming is relevant and impactful. 

The themes/areas we wish the commissioned artists to explore through these micro-commissions are: 

-       Diverse economies / community asset mapping (The Market)

-       Underused space and the commons  (The Town Centre)

-       Networks of care and mutual aid (The Neighbourhood)

-       Local food/growing projects and natural resources (The Café and Park)

Working closely with the In-Situ team, the successful artist will choose to explore one of these areas/ themes of Nelson in their artistic research, which may involve dialogue / conversation with locals, participatory mapping exercises, deep listening and audio recording, video/photography or other visual surveying, archival research, or other creative methods. 

In-Situ is embedded in Pendle, which benefits from a multicultural community, and we encourage applications from people who reflect the diversity of the communities we work with and who are based in the region. 

Successful applicants will:

• have demonstrable experience in developing and implementing artistic or creative research methods
• have some experience working in a socially engaged and/or embedded way and will benefit from the opportunity to develop their practice in this direction. 
• An understanding of, and enthusiasm for, working as an artist in the context of post-industrial, multicultural towns such as Nelson
• be able to communicate with the target audiences and communities of the project (the people of Nelson)
• Have some experience creating and producing artwork(s) that communicates to a broad range of audiences

Stages / Timeline

The research can take place any time between the start of the commission in November and its conclusion by the end of April. We expect a minimum of 10 days engagement, but it will be up to the artist to decide how they wish to use their time. They could do two-weeks of intensive research and engagement in Nelson, or choose to spread this out over a number of months (In-Situ can provide nearby accommodation for artists wishing to stay over in Nelson).

In-Situ will assist in providing starting points and making introductions to help the research get underway. Depending on the themes or areas In-Situ may also suggest events that could be used as opportunities for public engagement or dissemination of the research.

Outputs 

a)  A final public sharing of the research and learning from the commission. This could be as an event, publication, image/map/diagram, audio-work, etc. (Public engagements or sharing’s may also be used as part of the research process)

b)  Documentation of the process involved in the research i.e. the raw data/information gathered and an account of the methods through a diary/journal/notebook/blog.

For more information please see: https://www.in-situ.org.uk/opportunities