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Commission: Waterfront Artist Stranraer

(This Opportunity is Now Closed)

The Stove Network is seeking a creative practitioner(s) to design and develop a programme of their own creative work which will be delivered with and for the community of Stranraer.

About the Commission:

Fee:

A fee of £10,000 is offered for this commission. This fee is inclusive of all expenses, materials, and VAT (if applicable)

Timescale:

The work is to be completed within a six-month window – mutually agreed milestones at beginning of commission (e.g., research period, schedule of events planned by Creative Stranraer and how work of Waterfront artist fits with this). 

Timeline: October – March 2024 

The purpose of the commission is to creatively engage the local people in the town’s waterfront area.

The creative practitioner is invited to utilise their own creative practice (and/or collaborate with others), to inspire a new conversation in the town about the waterfront and how it could once again form a vital part of the town’s future.

The commission will form part of a wider process of re-imagining the Waterfront and the Waterfront Artist will join a small team comprising:

  • Arts and Engagement Officer (AEO) – who has been working within the Stranraer community gathering the creative sector and working with them on creative community engagement with local people as part of the revitalisation of Stranraer. The AEO will support the Waterfront Artist in building relationships with local people/groups/partners, communications/marketing, and event production.
  • Research, Recording and Reporting (R, R+R) commission holder – this is a special commission to support the work of the Waterfront Artist by helping to gathering information research leads that surface through the work and write up all the information/ideas and opinions that are generated through the creative work with the Waterfront.
  • Support from The Stove Network – The Stove Network has been working in Stranraer supporting community-led regeneration projects for two years. The Stove is a leading Creative Placemaking organisation in Scotland and will actively support the creative engagement work on Stranraer Waterfront with the full range of services offered by the full Stove team (from production and communications to partnership building and operational systems)
  • Support from DG Council and local community groups – the Local Authority is working in partnership with a diverse range of local community groups as a broad-based community leadership group to deliver capital projects(including Waterfront projects such as Stranraer Marina, Stranraer Watersports Centre and a marine research facility) that will underpin a future Stranraer. This group will support the creative engagement work on the Waterfront with information, contacts, partnership events and assets.

This commission builds upon the Dandelion community garden project, which occupied a section of greenspace located by the waterfront as a community garden. The ‘Unexpected Garden’ was utilised as a community events space, hosting workshops, gigs and other events. 

Who we’re looking for:

We are in search of an experienced creative practitioner(s) with a strong background in community-embedded and social arts practices. 

An ability to effectively engage and acknowledge the diverse voices of Stranraer’s populace is vital. 

We seek an audacious individual(s) who can facilitate and envision exciting possibilities, instilling fresh connections with one of the town’s most valuable assets.

The commissioned practitioner(s) will have access to the Creative Stranraer ‘Hub’ located in the town’s High Street as well as significant support in community engagement as well as strategic interaction with the town’s established community events and festivals.

It is hoped the creative practitioner(s) will interact with Creative Stranraer’s programme of activities, weaving thematic considerations and activities, offering a diversity of experiences to ensure as wide a range of the community’s voices are heard.

What you’ll be doing:

The Creative Practitioner(s) will be expected to engage the community through creative activities, installations, interactive elements, and inspire conversation towards re-thinking the future use of the waterfront as a connected, culturally significant feature in the future of Stranraer.

The creative practitioner(s) are expected to:

  • Embrace the Waterfront’s inherent value and its potential for rejuvenation, using your creative lens to inspire new ideas, spark conversations, and incite actions that will lead to its revival. (Background: up until 10 years ago the waterfront was predominantly an ‘industrial’ environment as the embarkation point for the Stena Line vehicle and passenger ferry to Belfast)
  • Reflect the value of the Waterfront and the potential therein through a creative lens to inspire new ideas, conversations, and actions towards its regeneration.

Required outputs:

  • A series of interventions situated at the Waterfront to encourage a new relationship to the site. 
  • Contribution to one large-scale public event situated at or near the Waterfront at the commission’s conclusion (NB additional budget is held to produce this event)

How to apply:

Deadline for applications: Thursday 24th August 2023 at 5pm

We would like to hear from creative practitioners/artists with an initial response to the project in the form of a short proposal.

We are looking for proposals from creative practitioners/artists working in any discipline.

We are interested in processes that are responsive and adaptive, demonstrate a commitment to collaborative working and give a clear idea of the creative skills and tools you bring to developing this. We are open to joint proposals or those from performance collectives but would want to hear how this might impact on the financial support for the individual freelancers involved.

We are open to video/recorded sound applications that address the brief and would encourage those who may have additional access requirements or support needs, both in application and anticipated through delivery of the project, to please let us know what we can do to make this opportunity as accessible as possible.

TO APPLY:

Please send by email to [email protected] with a maximum file size of 10MB, before Thursday 24th August 2023 at 5pm and include the following:

  • Subject line: Waterfront Artist Stranraer
  • A statement of no more than 600 words stating what interests you about the Waterfront Artist commission including a brief description of your practice and an initial idea of how you might approach the project.
  • Current CV (max 2 pages)
  • Up to 4 examples of past work that you feel best supports your application – this can be in any form (images, films, texts, testimonials, links to online video or other online resources). 
  • If you are willing, please also complete our Equalities Monitoring form as part of your application:

It’s important that our people reflect and represent the diversity of the communities and audiences we serve. We welcome and value difference, so when we say we’re for everyone, we want everyone to be welcome in our teams too. Wherever you’re from, and whatever your background, we want to hear from you. We will accept applications from anyone and everyone who feels they have the skills required to fulfil this role.

We will always send an email acknowledging receipt of any applications. If you do not receive an email, please contact us again. If you require specific support when making an application, please let us know. 

If you have any questions you’d like answered before submitting your application, please contact us by email at: [email protected]


Background

Stranraer is at a pivotal point in its history. Ten years ago, the Stena Line ferry moved its operations from Stranraer to run their route to Northern Ireland from Cairnryan. A period of decline has followed for the town, but now Stranraer stands on the brink of a new chapter in its story with investment secured for a series of significant capital projects. These include projects for the Waterfront: a marina, a watersports centre, and a marine research facility. In the town centre the centrepiece project is the re-development of the former George Hotel into a culture and community centre including a bouldering centre and bunkhouse. These projects are all stitched into the community-led Place Plan for the town. The local community have worked in partnership with Dumfries and Galloway Council and South of Scotland Enterprise, and this commission is part of an ongoing commitment to keep the community right at the heart of the future vision for Stranraer.

Categories
Musings News

Spring Public Art Musings

From Public Art Lead Katie Anderson

Public art isn’t always the big things.

Sometimes it happens in the small scale: intimate interactions, one to one conversations, temporary actions; the testing out of ideas can happen in many forms and take on different guises.

The Stove’s public art practice roams between the two – scaling large productions for our annual festivals and events, creating spectacles such as The Tower of Light last December, but also taking a moment to mark the small changes in our calendar – welcoming the return of the swallows, re-visiting familiar spaces in the town, and occupying space for conversation and exploration.

Helen Walsh’s installation, Swoop! fell into this category. Following a call for ideas and artworks that explore or encourage a renewed awareness of seasonality and in response to our need to better adapt creative working in response to the needs of our environment and wider climate, Helen’s proposal invited participants and audiences to take the time – through construction of our felt flock to discovering them in situ – noticing our avian neighbours arrival, and signalling the transition towards the summer months. Working with volunteers and HNC students from Dumfries and Galloway College who contributed to ‘the swoop’ (collective noun for swallows, of course), the birds made their temporary appearance in the rafters of Dock Park’s Victorian bandstand at the weekend.

Welcoming the swallows opened up a wider conversation about how we open our doors here, to all from the seasonal return of transitory populations like the swallows, to tourists and visitors, New Scots and folk moving here for work, safety and inspiration. Our Migratory Routes trail mapped out routes in miniature around the park, inviting visitors to walk routes taken by visitors and residents from both current and historical lives in Dumfries.

We printed postcards to send out a welcome from Dumfries, chatting about icons and monuments that represent the town and the people we would like to welcome to the town. Small conversations to measure the undercurrents.

The bandstand stands witness to the comings and goings of the park, occupied occasionally by children playing games or looking for an impromptu ball game court, but predominantly standing empty – waiting for the start of a performance. The HNC students were also invited to imagine their own public art installations for the bandstand as part of the public module element of their coursework, and during a return visit they shared a dazzling collection of ideas, from community weaving projects, to projections, found object mobiles and light works – their proposals moved through similar scales of spectacle to intimate, personal experiences, inverting the space and exploring the edges of their practice and ambition. Inspiring stuff!

Public spaces like the bandstand hold incredible potential: as a platform, a soap box, a space of celebration, announcement, and declaration. As we enter the summer months our outdoor spaces come into their own, but who are the voices we should be hearing from these platforms?

Categories
Musings News

Reimagining Where We Live

Cultural Placemaking & the Levelling up Agenda

The Stove often contributes to Government consultations – these are one of the ways that policy is shaped. Committees are the way that Government oversees what it does, so the Culture, Media and Sport Committee looks after the work of the Dept of Culture Media and Sport (DCMS), by suggesting new policy directions and holding ministers to account for what they have promised. It is these Committees that run consultations – when they want to explore something, they call for people’s views, they then hold committee sessions to discuss what has been submitted and often call people to speak to them at these sessions. Following this, a committee will make set of recommendations to Ministers and often new policy results.

In February of this year, a consultation (they call them ‘Calls for Evidence’) was announced by DMCS which was around subjects very relevant to the work of The Stove. Our very own Matt Baker pulled together a Stove submission, but also encouraged Stove Members to contribute to this.

The below is the submission of Hope London, who is a commissioned artist working as part of the What We Do Now project, which forms part of the national programme called Culture Collective coordinated by Creative Scotland.


Reimagining where we live: cultural placemaking and the levelling up agenda

By Hope London

Background

My name is Hope London. I’m an artist with a socially-engaged practice and over thirty years of experience in arts management, consultancy and education throughout the UK, including legal issues for the arts and creative industries.  I believe in the transformative power of the arts to make life better and love working with people to release their creative potential.   Website hopelondon.com

I’ve worked in towns and cities labelled some of the most deprived in the country –  Liverpool and Manchester (in the 1990s/early 2000s); North West and North of England (including Barrow in Furness, Burnley, Hull, St. Helens, Newcastle), the Welsh valleys and South West Scotland. Currently commissioned by The Stove (Dumfries) as established artist for ‘What We Do Now’, a Creative Scotland | Culture Collective project in the seaside town of Stranraer, working with the community to re-imagine their vision and identity for the town in the future. 

Introduction

I will focus on the first three questions:

  • How can culture reanimate our public spaces and shopping streets?
  • How can creatives contribute to local decision-making and planning of place?
  • How can the Government support places without established artistic infrastructure to take full advantage of the opportunities that the levelling up agenda provides?

Artists|creatives are often asked to achieve miracles. We may be called upon to work in deprived areas on arts-related projects with community groups, public art commissions, festivals or events.  We wave our wands in the face of post-industrial decline, deteriorating infrastructure, generational poverty, inadequate public transport, lack of opportunity, even a sense of hopelessness about a positive future. 

Sometimes it works.  Successful projects benefit the people who participate, sometimes profoundly.  I can think of many positive examples involving young people, often those with mental health issues or disabilities. But one-off, short-term projects or those aimed only at a specific group don’t lead to major change across the community or help to re-animate the high street and increase economic opportunity. Poorly conceived or executed projects on the other hand, such as works of public art that aren’t properly maintained, can be downright negative, serving to reinforce a sense of neglect. 

Cultural place-making works best when culture is a catalyst, working organically – not imposed top-down but embracing local culture and building from the ground up.

Innovative thinking, sustained attention and commitment of resources are essential ingredients; otherwise, the arts are just a sticking plaster over an unhealed wound.  Artists and creative producers embedded within a community can play a profound role in the healing process that will lead to the kind of deep, ongoing positive change envisaged by the Levelling Up agenda.  It starts by connecting with the people who live and work there.

Artists|Creatives and Cultural Place-Making

Artists are well-placed to do the work – lack of formal arts infrastructure is not an obstacle*

Arts and creative professionals with a background in community work are well-positioned to work at ground level as a catalyst for cultural place-making, even in areas of the country there is little recognised arts infrastructure.  Local councils, arts councils (e.g. Creative Scotland) and local/regional arts organisations know how to advertise, recruit and work with communities to commission artists/creatives to work with them.  Where needed, appropriate training could be made available (how to prepare a brief, recruit, commission and work with artists and creatives).

Artists can come into a place first.  A formal arts infrastructure is likely to evolve later. There are usually more creative people in every community than some at national level might imagine, albeit a less formal kind of infrastructure.  Artists who work in communities know how to connect and collaborate with local creatives and build on people’s interests, abilities and resources to help communities take advantage of opportunities offered by the Levelling Up agenda.

The ‘art project’ is the place itself.  Artists use creative tools to help communities express what they need and want.

Artists are able to create projects designed specifically to discover what local people most want and need.  We’re currently doing this kind of work as part of the ‘What We Do Now’ project in Stranraer, a rural town in South West Scotland.  My colleague Rory Laycock and I co-designed The Stranraer Colouring Book and printed 1,000 copies for distribution throughout the community.  We first talked to a range of local people on the street and at community events to find out what they wanted to change in their town.  We discovered that amongst their top priorities were certain landmark buildings that have become, in their words, neglected or abandoned ‘eyesores’ – omnipresent, depressing structures that lower community morale and deter new businesses and tourists.

The colouring book is just one example of an artist-led intervention – a fun, accessible way of giving people a chance to express their views and make them known.  The completed books will be collected and documented.  There will be an exhibition, and the information gleaned will be collated and shared with local government and more widely, for use in planning redevelopment and making a case for the necessary support. 

* Question 3How can the Government support places without established artistic infrastructure to take full advantage of the opportunities that the levelling up agenda provides?

Artists|creatives initiate change organically – this is a chance to do it better

Perhaps the first question should be expanded to ask “how can culture reanimate our public spaces and shopping streets without making the town too expensive for local residents and businesses?”  This relates directly to the second question: How can creatives contribute to local decision-making and planning of place? 

Sometimes artists|creatives are commissioned to work on cultural place-making projects – but perhaps more often, artists and creative businesses initiate change organically by gravitating to cheap living, working and retail spaces, and kick-starting regeneration. I witnessed this process while living in New York’s East Village in the 1970s and there are numerous examples worldwide.  As boarded-up buildings are replaced by new shops, galleries, restaurants, bookshops and cafes alongside established businesses, public spaces and shopping areas become more vibrant and interesting.  Morale is lifted when eyesores are cleaned up and derelict buildings refurbished.

The danger, however, is gentrification – as more affluent people are attracted to the area, property prices and rents increase; local people who don’t own their properties may be forced out or decide to sell.  Often, the very artists who moved in and started the regeneration process can no longer afford to stay.  This has not yet happened in Stranraer.

You have an opportunity to harness the power of artists and culture to ‘do regeneration’ better, avoiding the pitfalls of gentrification.  In this context, it’s important to remember that people are at the core of culture.  Public spaces and shopping areas are animated by food, fashion, art, music, dance, trees, gardens, architecture, design, performance, shopfronts, street vendors…and the people who live, work and shop there.  Regeneration is supposed to be about making people’s lives better. You don’t want to lose them in the process.

If affordable live/work/community spaces are a serious part of the long-term regeneration plan, local residents and businesses won’t be priced out, and creatives|artists will be encouraged to stay in the area as well.

Artists animate streets and spaces

Streets and public spaces are key to regeneration.  Artists, working with community groups, can co-create projects and programmes of work to bring the public realm alive.  Other creatives can be brought in, commissioned by the community to realise events and projects. Safe, clean, well-designed spaces in the public realm are potential stages for street markets, festivals, horticulture/permaculture, processions, sporting events, performance. Vistas obstructed by rubbish skips and cars – like the view of the sea in Stranraer – can be opened up and walkways/viewing platforms built.  Uninspiring walls can become landmark murals or vertical gardens.  Dingy alleyways can be lit in creative ways.

Blighted buildings needed to be addressed as a priority – artists can help

Buildings, vacant lots and other structures (like the disused former ferry pier in Stranraer) in private ownership pose a sticky problem.  Local councils may have authority over what happens in public streets and squares or buildings that they own, but the legal situation is more complex when it comes to requiring owners to repair deteriorating property and/or put it into productive use. 

In Stranraer, as in small post-industrial towns up and down the country, neglected, poorly maintained and empty buildings are more than an eyesore.  Such buildings blight shopping streets and public spaces, affecting the well-being of the people who must pass them every day. Empty or underused, paint peeling, window frames caving in, trees growing through rooftops – while people require housing, workshops, studios and offices – they are literally a waste of space. 

Until there are effective administrative and legal mechanisms for addressing the problem, re-animation risks being superficial and ultimately ineffective. I understand property rights, and that owners must have a reasonable chance to make repairs to a required standard before penalties may be imposed.  However, given the deplorable state of some of the high-street buildings in towns where I’ve worked (in Scotland, North West England, Wales), existing regulations are not doing the job.

I believe a thorough overhaul of regulations is required – for example, requiring compulsory sale orders when owners are unable or unwilling to repair a building that has become an aesthetic detriment to a town – an eyesore, even if it has not quite reached the stage of posing a danger to the public. The legal and business issues involved may be daunting but not impossible.  Community buyouts or purchase by housing associations may be options if a building is up for sale or there is a compulsory purchase by the Council.  Funding is a huge problem but there are innovative ways to encourage owners, developers, residents and artists to work together, with contractual obligations in place to ensure buildings are refurbished to agreed standards and used for the intended purposes at affordable prices.   I know it’s a huge task but in my opinion it’s key to creating the kind of culture-driven levelling up you want to achieve.

Neglected buildings could be refurbished, and those beyond repair gutted and re-designed.  All could become affordable, eco-friendly living, working, business incubator, training, conference or arts/events spaces.  Artists and creatives can put a community’s vision into tangible form with proposals for new uses, re-design and even innovative forms of ownership/partnership to manage buildings.

In short, culture can re-animate buildings, shopping streets and public spaces through:

  • artists and creatives working with communities, using arts-based approaches to articulate a vision for their place and a plan to make it happen (collaborating with the community on local decision-making and planning of place)
  • events, festivals, performance, art, music, food, street markets and more…the whole range of arts and cultural activities that bring streets and public spaces to life
  • improving the aesthetics and utility of the public realm – addressing ‘eyesore’ buildings, rubbish, public realm design, using all tools at the disposal of artists|creatives including planting, street furniture, building facades, lighting, temporary interventions and longer term artworks
  • encouraging artists|creatives to start and operate businesses, shops, cafes, workshops and live/work spaces in premises that are affordable…and finding ways to avoid gentrification
  • re-designing and using derelict buildings for cultural purposes that benefit the community – keeping them in public or third sector ownership where possible

Dumfries Fountain Project: Research and Studio Work, Exhibition

November 11, 2021 @ 12:00 pm 4:00 pm

The Smithy, 113-115 High Street, Dumfries
An exhibition by artist Alex Allan

A pop-up exhibition at The Smithy, 113-115 High Street, hosted by artist Alex Allan. Allan has been working with the Dumfries Fountain Project coordinated by the Stove Network, exploring, and designing a proposal for a permanent piece of public art to be situated by the Dumfries Fountain to complement the historic landmark.

You are invited to consider the research gathered during their time in Dumfries, experiment and play with ideas and materials from the studio and contribute your own thoughts to the work. What would you like from a new piece of public art in the centre of the town?

This is a unique chance to hear from the artist themselves and learn more about this timely and fascinating project. Come on in!

113 – 115 High Street
Dumfries, Scotland United Kingdom

Dumfries Fountain Project: Research and Studio Work, Exhibition

November 12, 2021 @ 12:00 pm 4:00 pm

The Smithy, 113-115 High Street, Dumfries
An exhibition by artist Alex Allan

A pop-up exhibition at The Smithy, 113-115 High Street, hosted by artist Alex Allan. Allan has been working with the Dumfries Fountain Project coordinated by the Stove Network, exploring, and designing a proposal for a permanent piece of public art to be situated by the Dumfries Fountain to complement the historic landmark.

You are invited to consider the research gathered during their time in Dumfries, experiment and play with ideas and materials from the studio and contribute your own thoughts to the work. What would you like from a new piece of public art in the centre of the town?

This is a unique chance to hear from the artist themselves and learn more about this timely and fascinating project. Come on in!

113 – 115 High Street
Dumfries, Scotland United Kingdom

Dumfries Fountain Project: Research and Studio Work, Exhibition

November 13, 2021 @ 12:00 pm 4:00 pm

The Smithy, 113-115 High Street, Dumfries
An exhibition by artist Alex Allan

A pop-up exhibition at The Smithy, 113-115 High Street, hosted by artist Alex Allan. Allan has been working with the Dumfries Fountain Project coordinated by the Stove Network, exploring, and designing a proposal for a permanent piece of public art to be situated by the Dumfries Fountain to complement the historic landmark.

You are invited to consider the research gathered during their time in Dumfries, experiment and play with ideas and materials from the studio and contribute your own thoughts to the work. What would you like from a new piece of public art in the centre of the town?

This is a unique chance to hear from the artist themselves and learn more about this timely and fascinating project. Come on in!

113 – 115 High Street
Dumfries, Scotland United Kingdom
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