FVU CURATORIAL PRACTICE AWARD #2, in partnership with John Hansard Gallery

This opportunity is intended to enable people from low-income backgrounds to pursue curatorial careers in the arts.

What is the opportunity?

• £5,000 fee to act as curatorial lead and develop and deliver a newly commissioned moving image work by an artist of your choosing for exhibition at John Hansard Gallery, part of University of Southampton in 2021
• Basic commissioning budget of £10,000 inclusive of a £4,000 fee to the chosen artist (with potential for this to be expanded through additional fundraising)
• Year-long support from the FVU team, who will act as Producers of the work, as well as the JHG team who will work with you to present and develop audiences for the work.
• Four meetings with an external mentor of your choosing
• Desk space at FVU for a year
• Up to 10 days of research and development at JHG

This is an open call for people looking to develop their practical curatorial and commissioning skills via a year-long placement at Film and Video Umbrella [FVU], delivered in partnership with John Hansard Gallery [JHG]. Through the year you will work with FVU and an artist of your choosing to develop and deliver a new moving image work for exhibition on the Digital Array (see images above) at JHG from where it should have the potential to tour to subsequent venues that you work to secure over the course of the year.

FVU specialises in commissioning, producing and touring of artists moving image, in partnerships with galleries, museums, and other partners across the country and internationally. Working closely with FVU over the year, you will learn what is involved in delivering these activities for yourself.

JHG is an internationally recognised and locally engaged contemporary art gallery in Southampton. Learning and engagement are at the heart of JHG and underpin all its activities. The Digital Array is a rolling series of digital commissions for a large-scale media wall in the JHG atrium, supported by the Barker-Mill Foundation.

Through JHG you will find opportunities to explore how your curatorial interests can develop and engage audiences, groups or communities. For example, there could be opportunities for talks and workshops, connections with Winchester School of Art, or links with partner organisations across the city.

You will be supported to develop, fundraise and realise your project by the FVU and JHG team, who will offer expertise and contacts in the specialist field of artists’ moving image, including advice and assistance with partnership brokering, artist liaison, presentation, fundraising, communications and audience engagement.

FVU will work with you to develop your fundraising skills with the expectation that you raise additional monies to expand the scope of your project. This could add monies to your commissioning budget, or monies could be raised to create a small publication to accompany the work, or to help build audiences through marketing, or to develop an event or series of events to run alongside the exhibition.

You will be provided with a £5,000 fee, and will be expected to be based in the FVU office approximately one day per week over the course of a year, though you are free to use the desk space as much as you want (weekdays 10am – 6pm). A budget for travel will be provided so that you are able to spend up to 10 days of the year with the JHG team in Southampton.

We will arrange for you to have four meetings throughout the year with an external mentor of your choosing. Your mentor can both advise you on your project, as well as on developing your career beyond the opportunity with FVU and JHG.

The opportunity aims to provide you with real-world, practical experience of how to commission moving image work, and deliver a significant exhibition in collaboration with exhibition partners, that will not only help build professional confidence for the future but show evidence of delivery to prospective employers. We will also ask you to have a role in helping us review the scheme for a new participant to undertake in the following year.

Who is eligible?

• This opportunity is intended for people from low-income backgrounds. More information on what we ask you to provide to support your application is included in the ‘How to apply’ section below.
• There is no age limit.
• You can be of any nationality, but you must have the legal right to live and work in the UK for the duration of the year-long placement.
• We will not accept applications from people who are currently undertaking a full-time educational course. We will accept applications from part-time students.
• You do not need to have studied the arts to apply but you must be able to demonstrate a knowledge of and a passion for the visual arts, and have a strong curatorial idea or area that you would like to research.

Roles and responsibilities if you receive the award:

• To work with FVU and an artist to develop and refine a proposal for a moving image work, that you then oversee the making of, in collaboration with FVU who will act as Producers of the moving image work
• To work with FVU and JHG to plan the exhibition of the work on the Digital Array in Southampton.
• To broker a tour of the commissioned work, supported by the FVU team, who will then deliver the onward tour.
• To work to fundraise for the project, to expand the scope of the production or other aspects of the project such as events, marketing or publishing
• To author texts about the commissioned work for different outputs, such as websites, wall texts, social media, etc.