ROTOR and East Street Arts are delighted to be offering two, paid residency and exhibition opportunities to artists or small collectives living and working in West Yorkshire.

Open House: A Collaboration of Experts

ROTOR and East Street Arts are delighted to be offering two, paid residency and exhibition opportunities to artists or small collectives living and working in West Yorkshire.

Context

ROTOЯ is an on-going programme of art and design exhibitions at Huddersfield Art Gallery; founded on a partnership between the gallery and the School of Art, Design and Architecture. The aim of ROTOЯ is to work with various communities, professional agencies and arts organisations to effect change and support new development and thinking within art and design practices, cultural policy, urban and economic strategies. We believe that long-term commitment to place making, working in a creative, responsive manner brings about stronger communities that are more connected and mobile and, consequentially produces socially engaged practitioners.

The basis of the ROTOЯ programme is a collaborative, working relationship: By its nature, ROTOЯ is familiar with ideas of coproduction and collaboration. But how would this manifest in an exhibition connecting local people and ideas?

The Offer

We are inviting proposals from artists who are currently living and working in West Yorkshire region, who are also interested in working with local people, places and archives to form a co-produced exhibition within Huddersfield Art Gallery.

The selected artists will have access to space within Huddersfield Art Gallery, which they will use as their primary studio space during an initial four-week residency period. They will invite involvement by other artists, community groups, students or members of the public (perhaps through café events, open calls, workshops, explorative discussion or making) This is with a view to a final exhibition outcome at the end of the four-week residency period, which will stay on show within the gallery for 8 weeks. The gallery will remain open to public throughout the making process.

Each commission comes with a budget of £1500. This amount is to cover the artist’s fee, travel and basic material costs. A small amount of surplus budget is available to support events, workshops or work within a community setting.

We would like to offer this opportunity to two artists, or small collectives, with separate focuses. One proposal for each focus will be selected:

Wayfinding Commission

This commission offers an opportunity to work in and respond to public space. The artist will explore ideas of signage, visibility and wayfinding to encourage creative exploration of the town and increase traffic to, the currently fairly hidden, Huddersfield Art Gallery. 

Archive Commission

Exploring local history, identity and storytelling, the artist will have access to the vast and curious collection and archive at the Tolson Museum. From Roman artefacts to examples of rare wildlife and remnants of textile history, this is an opportunity to work with a truly unique collection!

Application

Please share your proposal with us by filling in an application form via Curator Space. Let us know what interests you about this opportunity, how your working practice would benefit from working in this way and who you may want to involve/work with.

Please specify whether you are interested in the wayfinding commission or archive commission.

The deadline for this opportunity is Sunday 20th March.

If you have any questions about the opportunity or application process, please contact Lydia at East Street Arts: Lydia@esamail.org.uk