Animate Projects seeks three UK based animation artists to work with us to deliver WORK Records, an ambitious, community focused and engaged project, exploring, and developing resources in response to three heritage collections across the East Midlands, and a public engagement programme.

Each artist will be part of, and play a role in facilitating, an ‘investigative team’ – joining curators, historians, existing and former workers, to explore a particular East Midlands heritage collection, identifying records and objects, and seeing where they lead us, and to who, and what stories they can tell, about working lives.

They will then develop and produce a short, animated film that articulates this new knowledge and understanding, telling previously hidden and untold stories of working lives.

The artists will also be members of the overall Project Community, sharing their experience, joining conversations, and contributing to the development and delivery of the public engagement programme.

The three films will be the catalyst and inspiration for an extensive public engagement programme, including screenings & discussions, workshops, a ‘staff newspaper’ publication.

They will be shown online and made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence. 

Location: remote working, and in person meetings and activities in the East Midlands
Contract: freelance
Duration: May 2025 – October 2026

A total fee of £18,000 for each artist is calculated as:
Facilitation, research, pre-production, public engagement: £5,000 (25 days @ £200)
Production: £10,000 (50 days @ £200)
Production materials, post production, insurance: £3,000

Person specification

• Established professional independent/artist animation practice
• An excellent track record in delivering independent and/or commissioned animation projects, on time, and within budget.
• Experience of working to engage diverse communities in a contemporary heritage and/or visual arts/museum context.
• Experience of working with a range of partners and stakeholders.
• A passion for social history.
• Confident in speaking about your ideas, process and practice with a range of stakeholders, and in public forums.
• Able to work to tight deadlines
• Experienced in managing budgets.
• Able to work remotely, including access to reliable WIFI for regular online meetings
• Ambitious, resilient, flexible, and creative.
• A commitment to access and inclusion.

Key tasks/Responsibilities

You will:

• Contribute to the development and delivery of WORK Records.
• Participate in and contribute to the WORK Records project community – meet ups, public events, thoughts, ideas, etc.
• Lead, with support from the WORK Records Project Manager, and in collaboration with the WORK Records Heritage and Engagement partners, the investigative team for one of the heritage collections.
• Develop and produce a short, animated documentary film, in close collaboration with the project community, Project Historian, and with production and editorial support and input from Animate Projects
• Contribute to development and delivery of the public engagement programme.
• Taking part in online and in person activities as part of the engagement programme.
• Contribute to the evaluation of the programme and action research on good practice in around situated/collaborative approaches for heritage and arts projects
• Ensure all work is delivered in line with Animate’s policies and procedures, including Environmental Sustainability and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.

Please see the outline and schedule below for more information.

We ask you to send us the following: 

• A statement outlining your relevant experience and suitability, why you are keen to join us and would like to take on this role.
• If you have a preference for working with one of the collections, please state this and why.
• Your CV (maximum two pages)
• Links to up to three relevant examples of your work

If you would prefer to record a 2-3 minute video or voice memo rather than send a cover letter, please send a link to the video on Google Drive or Vimeo or another platform. 

If we wish to invite you for a brief interview on Zoom, we will email you by 29 April.

Deadline: noon, Tuesday 22 April 2025

Online Interviews: 12, 13 May 2025

If you have any questions or if you require the job description in an alternative form, please contact Gary Thomas at Animate through CuratorSpace.

We particularly encourage applications from individuals from low-income backgrounds, those who are ethnically diverse or disabled, and anyone else who considers themselves under-represented within the visual arts.

We ask all applicants to complete an Equal Opportunities Monitoring Form. We will send this to you upon receipt of your application. The form will not be shared with anyone involved in assessing your application. 

If you have any access needs, or barriers to access that you would like to discuss, please do not hesitate to let us know either before applying or as part of your application.

We will notify all candidates who have not been short-listed for interview, but we are unable to offer detailed feedback.

The successful candidate will be required to demonstrate that they have the right to work in the United Kingdom. 

Animate Projects is an Art Council England National Portfolio Organisation.

WORK Records is made possible with The National Lottery Heritage Fund thanks to National Lottery players.

About Animate Projects

Animate champions experiment in animation. Our mission is to engage the public with the creativity and craft of the artform.

We do this through developing new work, supporting artists to create thought provoking projects, engaging with audiences across digital and physical contexts, and promoting critical debate.

We support collaborative and transformative projects, between artists, people working in other disciplines, and the public, exploring particular themes and places.

Our work in heritage contexts includes projects with Sir John Soane’s Museum in London, Thackray Museum of Medicine in Leeds, National Trust’s Ham House and Garden, Norwich Museum and Art Gallery, and Shrewsbury Museum and Gallery.

Animate’s mission is to: 

• engage the public with the creativity and craft of animation
• develop and produce projects of high artistic merit with artists, partners and participants, from across the UK, with a focus on collaboration, place and social justice

Our programme is grounded in principles of collaboration, innovation and social justice. We support artists to develop new skills and to work in collaboration with other disciplines (biomedical science, heritage), in response to particular themes and contexts (working life/workplaces). 

We engage the public with artists’ animation and the process of its making, as both contributors and participants - aiming to give voice to the unheard.

You can find out more about our work here:

animateprojects.org

workprojects.org.uk

About WORK Records

Animate Projects is working with five Midlands organisations to deliver WORK Records, an ambitious and innovative 18 month programme exploring historic working lives, through an ‘investigation’ of the holdings of three heritage organisations, production of three documentary animations, and a public engagement programme of events and online activities and resource.

The programme sets out to explore ideas and the realities of historic working lives, with a particular focus on three ‘family firms’, as represented in the collections of the heritage Partners and elsewhere. 

WORK Records will explore historic working lives in three locations across the East Midlands, animating untold stories intrinsic to the holdings of three historic collections. We want to raise the profile and explore the significance and contemporary resonance, of historic working lives.

Our heritage collection partners are Derbyshire Records Office, Corby Heritage Centre, and John Smedley Archive. Whilst the collections are distinctive, they are geographically and culturally connected as part of the East Midlands, and, more specifically, we will focus on holdings relating to family firms: Smedley (Lea Mills), Robinson and Sons (Bolsover) and Stuart and Lloyds (Corby).

Three ‘investigative teams’ - curators, historians, existing and former workers, and artist facilitators – will explore each particular historic collection, identifying records and objects, and seeing where they lead us, and to who, and what stories they can tell, about working lives.

The WORK Records project ‘community’ will bring together heritage and arts organisations, heritage curators and archivists, artist facilitators, historians, current and former workers.

WORK Records also explore the work of the collections and the process of heritage work, and explore related themes, such as historic and contemporary workers’ rights and activism.

Three short, animated films will articulate this new knowledge and understanding, telling previously hidden and untold stories of working lives, and will be the catalyst and inspiration for an extensive public engagement programme, including screenings & discussions, workshops, a ‘staff newspaper’ publication, and the core of an online resource.

Partners

Animate Projects
Gary Thomas, Director – WORK Records lead
Abigail Addison, Director – WORK Record production lead
Christine Thomas, Engagement Manager – WORK Records engagement programme lead

Heritage Partners

John Smedley Archive, Lea Mills
Corby Heritage Centre, Corby
Derbyshire Records Office, Matlock

Arts/community engagement partners

Fermynwoods Contemporary Art, Thrapston, Northamptonshire
Junction Arts, Bolsove

Current/former workers at John Smedley, Stewarts & Lloyds, and Robinson’s
Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site (event partner)
Dr Cath Feely and Dr Kathleen McIlvenna, University of Derby
MA Public History and Heritage students at University of Derby
Professor Heather Shore, Manchester Met University
Three artist/facilitators 

Schedule

Stage one
March – May 2025
Recruitment, development, finalising plans

Stage two – six months
June – November 2025
Investigations
Project Community Meet Ups
Engagement programme development

Stage three – nine months
August 2025 – April 2026
Films in production
Engagement programme planning
Production of assets, website, marketing

Stage four – six months
May – October 2026
Public launch
Engagement programme
Newspaper published

Stage five
November 2026
Final review, evaluation report
Reporting
Legacy

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