Opportunity: Methilhill Community Garden Residency

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

Opportunity expires: 29 June 2015

An opportunity for an artist interested in the environment, issues around food and with experience in working with young people. The residency will be based at the Methilhill Community Garden in Fife during the autumn of 2015 and is based on 10 days work. It is a Fife Contemporary Art & Craft (FCA&C) mini- residency and will be managed by FCA&C with project partners Common Good Food (CGF) and Methilhill Community Children’s Initiative (MCCI).

Artist Fee £2,000 plus travel expenses up to £250.

Materials budget £1,750.

Artist’s Brief

The aim is to create innovative work with the Great Outdoors Youth Group – a group of (up to 25) primary aged children based in Methilhill Community Garden and the Young Volunteers (aged 10-15). Marking the Scottish Year of Food and Drink, the project should engage in some way with the theme of food. The focus, media employed and outcome of the project is to be developed by the artist, taking into account the ideas, needs and aspirations of the group.

A detailed project plan will be established early on by the artist in consultation with the participants, volunteers, initiative staff,  FCA&C and CGF. The process and outcome of the project should contribute to the priorities listed below and enrich the experience of the children involved.

As well as working on site in the garden, the possibility of visiting other locations and including other groups of people can be considered.

The project should be well documented throughout (particularly if it is largely process based) to contribute to project evaluation and share and profile the work involved.

The artist will liaise with FCA&C throughout the project and meet twice with the project management group: after the first session to establish the project plan and towards the end of the project to review. The artist should contribute to project evaluation through a short written report.

Background

Methilhill Community Garden is run by the Methilhill Community Children’s Initiative as an outdoor play and learning space. They run a wide range of groups and clubs for local children and young people and are passionate advocates for the many benefits of spending time in nature, particularly for children. The space is a continual work in progress, a vibrant jumble of play, growing and other useful areas, which change and grow in response to the needs and enthusiasms of the participants.

MCCI  have an imaginative approach to their work, incorporating lots of opportunities for involvement with the arts, including frequent cultural events, the most recent of which celebrated Cinco di Maio, with Ramadan coming up soon. They are very keen to be able to cook food on site and are in the process of building a clay oven. They’re also fundraising for a small building, which would provide a hygienic kitchen space for the children to learn more about cooking. Shirley is keen that the children should be able to experience the cycle from growing, to harvesting, to cooking to composting food.

Although MCCI now employ several members of staff, the project also relies a great deal on voluntary support. This includes ‘young volunteers’ aged 10-15, and who play a vital role in supporting the work of the initiative, as well as gaining valuable confidence, skills and experience themselves.

Recent suggestions from participants on what they’d like to do more of included: tie dye; batik; salsa dancing; music; drama.

Priorities for MCCI are:

  • Giving local children a safe place to play and learn outside.
  • Building children’s confidence, resilience and life skills.
  • Giving children a direct experience of nature, with an understanding of the give and take between humans and the natural world.
  • Including as wide a range of people as possible in using and caring for the garden.

www.mcci-clubs.co.uk/communitygarden

Fife Contemporary Art & Craft

FCA&C nurtures the creation, understanding and appreciation of high quality contemporary craft and visual art with international significance; free from the restrictions of a venue we work with partners to create enjoyable and meaningful experiences for all. Our work across Fife includes exhibition and educational activities for the public, a range of support and opportunities for artists and the promotion and retail of high quality craft.

www.fcac.co.uk

Common Good Food

Common Good Food is a new organisation that is a practical advocate of food sovereignty in Scotland. We believe that everyone has “the right to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and the right to define their own food and agriculture systems”. Our work aims to support communities across the country to take control of the food system by running practical programmes: teaching skills, creating resources, and celebrating the culture of good food in Scotland.

www.commongoodfood.org

Artist Spec

  • High quality innovative artistic practice.
  • Experience and enthusiasm for working with young people and developing ideas in collaboration with communities.
  • Interest in the environment / current food issues
  • Ablity to manage several aspects of the project including: project delivery, working group engagement, community engagement, consulting with and reporting to project management, project documentation, presentation of work.
  • Willing and able to travel to Methilhill for the duration of the project (this will probably involve travelling by car, as public transport locally is minimal).

 Responsibilities of the artist

  • Delivering a high quality and innovative visual art or craft experience to the group.
  • Collaboration and communication with participants, volunteers, MCCI, FCA&C and CGF.
  • Reporting to the management group as outlined in the brief.

Recording/sharing the experience of the project.

How to apply

Please email your application to diana.sykes@fcac.co.uk.  This should contain a brief outline of your approach to the artist’s brief (noting relevant experience), your current CV, and 6 images of your own work.  Please email text as Word docs or pdfs and images as .jpgs (up to 3MB in total).

Deadline is Monday 29 June 2015 at 12 noon
Interviews at Methilhill Community Garden will be on Saturday 4 July

Full details including artist’s brief can be found on FCA&C’s website –http://www.fcac.co.uk/opportunity/methilhill-community-garden-residency/.

For further information, please contact diana.sykes@fcac.co.uk (Diana Sykes), or call 01334 474610, or visithttp://www.fcac.co.uk/opportunity/methilhill-community-garden-residency/


Image: Flickr Creative Commons/Qtea

The post Opportunity: Methilhill Community Garden Residency appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

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Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of arts organisations working to put culture at the heart of a sustainable Scotland. We believe cultural and creative organisations have a significant influencing power to help shape a sustainable Scotland for the 21st century.

In 2011 we worked with partners Festivals Edinburgh, the Federation of Scottish Threatre and Scottish Contemporary Art Network to support over thirty arts organisations to operate more sustainably.

We are now building on these achievements and working with over 70 cultural organisations across Scotland in various key areas including carbon management, behavioural change and advocacy for sustainable practice in the arts.

Our work with cultural organisations is the first step towards a wider change. Cultural organisations can influence public behaviour and attitudes about climate change through:

Changing their own behaviour;
Communicating with their audiences;
Engaging the public’s emotions, values and ideas.

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