DIY: 2020 – Call for Proposals

DIY 2020 partner briefs

For DIY 2020 we have 24 opportunities for artists to run a DIY, and although DIYs can be about anything you want, some DIY partners have written specific briefs for artists to respond to, which cover an exciting and diverse range of themes.

ArtHouse Jersey

ArtHouse Jersey is based in a former military barracks site owned by the National Trust on the North coast of Jersey. The space has recently been renovated and comprises of two fully-equipped two-bedroom apartments and two flexible studio spaces. The Barracks are nestled just above a sandy beach and between two cliffs. Within walking distance are two pubs, two cafes and a shop. If people share twin rooms we can accommodate up to 8 people.

We particularly welcome applications from artists who are wanting to explore the effects of their physical environment on their work; and also artists who focus on the environment more widely. We can offer a space to retreat and play.

Because of the availability of our spaces this DIY must take place between the 13 and 18 September.

For more information contact Tom.

Compass Live Art and hÅb – Live Art in the public realm

Compass Live Art and hÅb would like to support a DIY concerned with artists working in the public realm and socially engaged practice. Compass has been commissioning artists to make live interactive projects with communities and groups since 2011 and hosting them in public spaces around Leeds. Among the many initiatives created by hÅb is Hazard which has been intervening in Manchester City Centre since 2007. While this DIY would not have to take place in the public realm, we’d like to see proposals that are issue-led, socially engaged and exploring a response to their environment. We expect it will be hosted in Leeds.

For more information contact Annie.

Fermynwoods Contemporary Art – Live Art, nature and technology

Fermynwoods Contemporary Art supports life through art. Our education and artist residency site at Sudborough Green Lodge is a remote building set in the Northamptonshire countryside. Located in the middle of Fermyn Woods and the largest and richest biodiversity grassland in Northamptonshire, Sudborough Green Lodge is only accessible by car via a three-mile track off a main road.

We welcome DIY proposals for explorations of humanity at the intersections of nature, technology, and artistic practice.

Sudborough Green Lodge has self-catering accommodation with 3 bedrooms (one double bed and four single beds). In addition to the budget, we can also offer transportation to and from nearby Corby or Kettering rail station.

For more information contact Jessica.

Ideas Test

Ideas Test is the Creative People and Places initiative for Swale and Medway. We have just moved our office to Gillingham, one of the Medway towns, which is home to Gillingham FC, the Royal Engineers museum, an ice rink, a mosque, parks, libraries and the Sunlight Healthy Living Centre, which acts as a community hub for many groups including Medway Afro Caribbean Association and Men in Sheds. Its twin towns are Ito and Yokosuka in Japan.

We are inviting artists interested to explore:

• The stories and lives of Gillingham’s diverse communities and how these might be made visible in the town and in its spaces
• The rapidly shifting impact of the social and economic dynamics of the area on issues such as migration, homelessness, low incomes, identity, place, commerce  and on the people who live and work here

For more information please contact Lucy.

Lancaster Arts – Age and Ageing

For more information please contact Jocelyn.

Metal Peterborough – Live Art and disability

Metal in Peterborough (Cambridgeshire) has a long history of running interdisciplinary artist LABs and residencies, and has built a strong track record of supporting disabled and LGBTQIA artists.  We are keen to receive DIY proposals from disabled artists with surprising and radical ideas for artistic enquiry.

The sharing of food is an important part of our practice, and shared lunch/dinner for all will be provided. The selected artist will be supported by Metal Associate Producer Kate Marsh, disabled artist-academic.

Metal is sited in a domestic setting in the city centre, with flexible rehearsal/making space and access to an outdoor garden. It is 45 minutes from Kings Cross by train.

For more information contact Kate.

Museum of London

Museum of London is currently engaged in the Smithfield Programmes – a three-year action research project that supports the transformation of historic Smithfield into an extraordinary creative and cultural place for London and Londoners, and informs the development of future programming for the new Museum of London at Smithfield.

As part of this research Museum of London is particularly interested in proposals that respond to any/all of the following questions;

• What does it mean to be a ‘shared place’? And for whom, and built with whom? What does it mean to be a shared place in the city? And in response to the COVID-19 crisis, what might a “shared place” be while socially distancing?
• What does it mean to be a ‘force for good’ in London today?
• What might attitudes of ‘hospitality’, ‘conviviality’ and ‘kindness’ mean in this context for commissioning and collaborating with creative practitioners and participants?
• How might you create public spaces and programmes that are child-led and young people-led?
• How might you create/nurture transgenerational conversations?

For more information contact Lauren.

National Theatre New Work Department

At the National Theatre we make world-class theatre that is entertaining, challenging and inspiring, and we make it for everyone. We invite DIY proposals which take advantage of our resources in order to reimagine histories and design new futures. Based at the National Theatre Studio in Waterloo, London, the New Work Department has access to a range of costumes, props and period furniture from past NT productions, as well as three workshop spaces equipped with lighting rigs, sound equipment, video projectors and other technical resources.

For more information about this brief, including resources/spaces available, please contact Stewart.

The Sick of the Fringe – Live Art and the Body

The Sick of the Fringe is interested in supporting a DIY that reflects on the body, its problems and potentials.

For more information contact Brian.

The Sick of the Fringe  – vulnerability and its opposite

The Sick of the Fringe is also looking to support DIYs which, in some way, address questions of vulnerability and its opposite (which may be resilience, or toughness, or indestructibility or or or or or). We are interested in how language about self-care, self-recovery and radical softness has been co-opted by the mainstream, and in DIYs which present new possibilities for both action and reflection.

For more information contact Brian.

The Place Bedford – Live Art and young people

The Place Bedford are looking to explore opportunities for young people aged 12-16 that explore themes of play, playfulness and gamification.

We’re looking for artists who are excited about making Live Art that engages this age group, empowers young people (exploring issues faced by people of this age, or made for people of this age), and/or exploring playfulness for family and young adults.

As part of The Place Bedford’s ongoing GAME PLAY festivals (which run each January) we are inviting proposals for a DIY project by artists (and if/where possible artists working with game designers, urban developers and/or researchers) that explore ideas of playfulness, gaming, social and family interactions, and competition vs collaborative exploration.

Is Play the future of work? Are Games the perfect medium for translation between popular culture and Live Art? What can playing with Live Art open up for young creatives?

We welcome critical, imaginative and irreverent interrogations of these themes. We particularly encourage applications that aim to centre underrepresented perspectives, positions or groups, or that seek to engage directly with local themes around social inclusion, youth deprivation or young people’s mental health.

For more information contact Alex.

“To archives and beyond” – responding to Katharine Araniello’s legacy (supported by the Wellcome Collection)

 The late artist Katherine Araniello made essential and challenging work engaging with agency, disability and the aesthetics of the body. Her work was politically fearless and infused with subversive humour.

Wellcome Collection, working in partnership with LADA and the Katherine Araniello Advisory Group, invites proposals for a DIY that responds to or engages with the archive of Katherine Araniello’s film, performance and digital art.

We welcome proposals that will engage rigorously, playfully and thoughtfully with this archive and legacy.

The Katherine Araniello Archive includes video art that is available online, in addition to materials and objects that are in London.

For more information contact Brian.

LADA – Managing the Radical 2020

LADA is based in Bethnal Green, in the East End of London, where enormous wealth co-exists with great poverty, traditional cultures and ideas sit shoulder-to-shoulder with tech start-ups, while hyper-diversity and waves of migration continue to bring new communities to the borough.

We invite proposals from artists who want to explore the socio-geographic location of LADA, particularly in relation to power and money and how these impact on artistic practices, on ways of working, and on the communities artists are working with and within.

This could involve drawing on ‘different’ ways of doing things developed by artists, cultural activists and organisations past and present or simply by experimenting with different models of production in as yet unimagined ways.

This DIY forms part of LADA’s Restock, Reflect, Rethink Five: Managing the Radical (2019-2021), a research project which aims to rethink, reposition and reimagine how art that operates and thinks ‘differently’ is created, produced, peopled, funded, represented and contextualised.

Scottish Sculpture Workshop – What can governance learn from Live Art?

“We’re more than politics, more than settled, more than democratic. We surround democracy’s false image in order to unsettle it. Every time it tries to enclose us in a decision, we’re undecided. Every time it tries to represent our will, we’re unwilling. Every time it tries to take root, we’re gone (because we’re already here, moving).” – Stefano Harney and Fred Moten, The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study

‘A truly queer, feminist, anti-racist, posthuman Board would dance a tango with Governance – resisting, releasing, evading, acquiescing, rejecting’ – Jack Tan, artist and SSW Board member

Throughout 2019 SSW was working on and through governance in many ways – participating in RESHAPE, collectively planning our BE-PART programme and navigating how we remake our own institutions’ governance models whilst existing within the old ones. We now invite proposals for DIYs that explore democracy and governance in the arts and ask What can governance learn from Live Art?

To support the proposal we can offer in-kind accommodation, studio space and access to facilities at SSW from 10 – 13th October.

Funding information
This DIY forms part of BE PART,  a large EU collaboration project which critically explores collaborative art-making and sharing through decentralised governance models involving local citizens, artists, partners and policymakers. We hope that the learning from this DIY will support the development of this programme.

About SSW
Scottish Sculpture Workshop empowers artists and communities through collective learning and skills development. Our programme and rural workshops support experimentation, alternate knowledge production, togetherness and artistic desire. We question the narratives of our location and critically engage with the urgent issues of our time through artist-led projects, residency, open access and international collaboration. We build meaningful connections with the material world and each other.

For more information contact Jenny.