Job opportunity: WORK engagement coordinator

Animate Projects is a small arts organisation working at the intersection of animation, film and art, working out of Derby and London.

We are looking for someone to help deliver our project, WORK.

Working with four arts organisations across the Midlands, we have commissioned four artists to create moving image works that explore contemporary work contexts and experiences, engaging the public as participants. The films will be exhibited in conventional, temporary and online spaces in autumn 2019. See below for more information.

This is a varied role, focused on engagement and building a project community, and that will also involve working on related exhibition and marketing.

You will be working closely with Animate’s two directors and our WORK partners, but you will also need to be self-sufficient and happy to take responsibility for managing your time and workload. You will need to be confident in dealing with our project partners, artists, the public, etc.

The WORK programme and this position are supported by Jerwood Arts and public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

Your responsibilities will include:

• Working with our partners to develop and deliver an engagement and marketing plan for the WORK exhibition and events programme;
• Liaising with partners, artists, participants and community organisations;
• Administration (dealing with enquires by email and phone, organising meetings, updating databases, filing, etc);
• Undertaking interviewing participants, drafting and editing copy/content for the WORK website and PR;
• Collating statistics for reporting and evaluation.

Person specification

We are looking for someone who:

• Has an interest is contemporary visual arts and in the aims and ambitions of WORK;
• Has experience working in contemporary visual arts/film exhibition and audience development/community public engagement;
• Is motivated and willing to take the initiative, is flexible, and confident in dealing with people;
• Is experienced in using social media channels and websites;
• Has excellent attention to detail, organisational skills, research skills, and written and verbal communication skills;
• Is proficient in Word, Excel and database applications, and WordPress.

Details

Contract: Freelance/self employed
Duration: 52 days, 1/2 days average a week
June 2019 – January 2020
Fee: £6,240 (£31k pro rata)
Location: Derby/Midlands (remote working position)

Deadline: 10am, Thursday 25 April 2019
Skype interviews: Thursday 2 May 2019

This position is offered on a part-time, freelance basis. We anticipate that you’ll be working one day a week from June to September (16 days), then two days a week until January (36 days). You’ll be expected to manage your days so that you cover busier periods and some weekends, and you will need to be able to work remotely/from home. You will be required to attend meetings across the Midlands and expenses will be covered for that.

How to apply
Please send us the following:

• A CV (not more than two sides of A4);
• A statement outlining how your skills and experience meet the criteria (no more than two sides A4);
• A completed equal opportunities monitoring form.

Download the form here.

Send as Word or PDF documents to: gary@animateprojects.org
Deadline: 10am, Thursday 25 April 2019
Skype interviews: Thursday 2 May 2019

If you’ve got any questions, please contact Gary at: gary@animateprojects.org

About WORK
Animate Projects and four other Midlands arts organisations are embarking on WORK, an ambitious and innovative two-year practice development programme that will support animation and moving image artists to develop, produce and exhibit films in collaborative contexts.
WORK explores ideas and the realities of what ‘work’ means for the way we live today and experiences of contemporary working lives. WORK sets out to challenge and support artists working in moving image to produce work exploring contemporary working lives, and engaging workers in the development of that work, generating meaningful conversations that would not otherwise happen.

Our partners are: Fermynwoods Contemporary Art, Thrapston; Junction Arts, Chesterfield; Vivid Projects, Birmingham; and QUAD, Derby.
We are working with four artists, each responding to a specific theme/context, working with Animate and the respective partner:

• Dryden Goodwin, working with QUAD, is considering how the rhythms of a person’s working life defines and shapes them, in the context of home care health working.
• Jenny Holt, working with Fermynwoods Contemporary Art, is investigating the tensions between a historically rural, farming community and its recent development as a site for internationally networked distribution hubs, creating visual, economic, social and cultural transformations of place.
• Adam Lewis-Jacob will be working with Vivid Projects, taking the Trade Union Resource Centre archive as his starting point, devising methods of shared authorship to explore contemporary issues affecting workers’ rights.
• Esther Johnson, working with Junction Arts, is exploring ways for film to tell individual stories of the impact of economic changes brought from post-industrialisation in Bolsover.

The films are being developed and produced from summer 2018 through to summer 2019, with exhibition from autumn 2019.

WORK is supported by Jerwood Arts and supported using public funding by Arts Council England.

More information on our partners, contexts, locations
We are working with four other Midlands arts organisations, providing a geographic cohesion, although as much as 100 miles separates us. Whilst each has experience of projects that engage the public in their creation, they have distinct and different histories, approaches, and expertise. An objective of WORK is that our co-producers will contribute to and also benefit from, their participation.

The partners are:

Fermynwoods Contemporary Art is based in Thrapston, a small market town in rural Northamptonshire. Its two rail stations closed in the 1960s. An approach by car belies its seeming isolation – half a mile to the west there is a vast Primark warehouse, and to the east, another for Paperchase, just two of many that dominate the landscape.

WORK addresses broader concerns that complement Fermynwoods’ own Art Work Placement for Business initiative, exploring how integrating art into working life can effect change within it.

Junction Arts, based in Chesterfield, has worked with communities in North East Derbyshire and Bolsover District to deliver art projects for over 40 years.

Bolsover’s history is one of industrial boom and bust: agriculture, textiles and mining. It is ranked the most deprived district in the county of Derbyshire (data taken from the 2015 area summary profile, Derbyshire Observatory) and fewer than one in 20 young people in Bolsover District go on to higher education.

Vivid Projects, in Birmingham, has a growing reputation for connecting contemporary digital cultural practices in the arts with post ’68 media histories and conservation. Their antecedent organisation, Birmingham centre for media arts, grew out of the independent film workshop movement of the 1980s. Their archive of the Birmingham Trade Union Resource Centre is an impetus for our WORK commission, with a focus on contemporary workplace activism, workers’ rights, legislation and campaigning.

QUAD, in Derby, has a strong history of community based projects, including the participatory filmmaking project, Shine a Light. QUAD’s artistic programme has a digital focus. For WORK we’re interested in workers in healthcare or wellbeing contexts.

Animate Projects is an arts agency working at the intersection of film, animation and art, established in 2007 by curator/producers Abigail Addison and Gary Thomas. It has maintained an international reputation for high quality, innovative, experimental and engaging films, and for producing films and projects for exhibition across broadcast, cinema, festival, gallery, public, online and digital platforms. Animate has partnered with cultural organisations to produce extraordinary projects for diverse audiences, including Channel 4, QUAD Derby, Art on the Underground, Vivid Projects in Birmingham, National Trust’s Ham House and Gardens, FACT Liverpool, and The Photographers’ Gallery in London. It has supported talent to make ambitious moving image projects, and since 2007 has worked with more than 100 artists, filmmakers, and animators.