Arts & Culture
Ollerton Then and Now: Exhibition - Ollerton Library
An exhibition celebrating Ollerton: Then and Now. Photography and artwork coproduced by the communi…
Early Years and Visual Arts Development Commission – Early Years Artists Brief
Who we are:
Inspire: Culture, Learning and Libraries is a charitable community benefit society delivering cultural and learning services across Nottinghamshire.
Our mission is: “To inspire people to read, learn and enjoy culture”.
Our website can be found here: www.inspireculture.org.uk
Our full charitable objects can be found here: About Us | Inspire - Culture, Learning, Libraries (inspireculture.org.uk)
Inspire is a National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) and this opportunity is funded by Arts Council England.
The Story of Little Creatives
Between 2018 - 2023, Inspire has been working to enhance our offer in libraries for early years children and their families.
Early Years Programme: Inspireculture.org.uk/inspiringearlyyears
Inspire secured Arts Council funding to develop early years visual arts. In 2018 early years specialist consultants were commissioned to train a team of five artists. The artists worked to adapt their arts practice to be suitable for the early years. They went on to deliver workshops in early years settings and libraries with families to test and improve the offer, as a piece of action research.
This resulted in a programme of Little Creatives workshops for children aged from 2 - 5 and the team have been working creatively to help early years' children learn new skills and have multi-sensory creative experiences since.
Little Creatives: Inspireculture.org.uk/littlecreatives
The current Little Creatives workshop programme ended in March 2023, and we are now looking for a new team of artists to work with our local communities.
Inspire will commission experts in early years education to train and mentor the selected team who will go on to create and deliver the next programme of visual arts activity in libraries for children and families.
What we want:
We are looking for five artists to take part in early years training and work together to develop their understanding, skills and experience in the early years. The Little Creatives project will broaden access to the arts and:
- Be based on the best practice in early years education
- Build knowledge of the early years’ curriculum and its relationship with the creative process
- Include action research into engaging with very young children
- Explore developmental milestones and identify activities that will help children achieve them
- Stimulate creativity
- Stimulate reading
- Provide parents/carers with tools to engage with under-fives in art activities and reading and enhance our existing library programmes
- Offer artists opportunities to gain further experience by running creative workshops
- Work with Inspire and in partnership with other artists to develop our Little Creatives project, sharing skills and experience
- Work with Inspire to create legacy resources
Project time scale:
- Artists receive training from early years specialists from October 2023
- Artists deliver explorative creative workshops in Inspire Library settings in different Nottinghamshire districts, dates and settings to be decided
- Artists Legacy resources to be developed from the programme by 2024/25 to be on loan in Inspire Libraries by 2025/26
Our largest Libraries are:
For information all our libraries are listed here:
www.inspireculture.org.uk/reading-information/find-a-library/
Fees Available:
Training bursary of £1000 to attend all training and mentoring sessions with early years professionals. Sessions will be either in person or online.
The selected artists will also be paid to deliver a programme of explorative workshops for early years children and their families in Inspire Libraries in winter 23/spring 2024.
For each half day delivery of Little Creatives workshop: £250 inclusive of travel, preparation and materials.
The project will run until 2026 and develop over a period of time, offering the artists further work to be mutually agreed.
What we need from you:
- Your creative response!
- Supply credentials in the form of past work, web links and digital examples, including any early years work you have been involved in and references.
We want to work with new and/or established creatives but would like to see some examples of your work that will help us know more about your practice. This might be:
- Weblinks
- Photos
- Social Media account links
- Podcasts
- Something else…?
Here are some prompts to help you think about what you might show us:
- What is your process?
- How do you deliver it?
- What will you need?
- How will it look?
- How will you engage the end user?
We will accept any form of application:
- Written (Max one side of A4)
- Audio (Max 2 mins)
- Drawn (Max A2)
- Filmed (Max 2 mins)
- Something else…?
Timeline for applications
Submissions should be made by 9am on Monday 4 September 2023 to arts@inspireculture.org.uk
You must be available for professional development / training on the following dates:
Tuesday 3 and Tuesday 10 October 2023, 9.30am - 1pm Training with Ann Langston, Early Years Matters (online via Teams).
Tuesday 24 October 2023, 10am – 4pm Training with Playground Project Artists, Kent Libraries at Beeston Library.
Additional training opportunities and mentoring sessions will be arranged for the selected artists, all additional training dates tbc. You would be expected to attend all training sessions.
Please use arts@inspireculture.org.uk email address if you have any questions or need us to make any adjustments for receiving your ideas.
And finally
We are committed to attracting and recruiting diverse candidates and welcome applications from underrepresented groups.
If you require Inspire to make any reasonable adjustments to the process of receiving your ideas and make it more accessible for you, please contact: arts@inspireculture.org.uk
Thank you for taking the time to review this brief.
