Commission to Collect: A 25th Anniversary Initiative for Iniva, 2019 to 2022
Hours: Monday to Friday, 9.30am to 5.30pm. Full-time, 5 days (35 hours) per week, plus some occasional weekend and evening work which will be compensated by Time off in Lieu (TOIL)
Contract: 12 month fixed term
Salary: £17,780 per annum (Living Wage)
The Project
This year, Iniva is celebrating 25 years of challenging conventional notions of diversity and difference. To commemorate and create a legacy for this special anniversary, Iniva has established a partnership initiative that re-imagines the future of our public collections at major art galleries and museums throughout the UK. Rather than simply initiating a series of short-term new commissions to celebrate our anniversary, Iniva is working in partnership with three museum and gallery partners with generous support from the Art Fund and Arts Council England. In Year One, the museum partner is Manchester Art Gallery.
The partnership initiative has three key aims:
- To commission outstanding new artwork by an artist of African and Asian descent, British born or based, to be subsequently accessioned into museums and gallery collections to better reflect the breadth of contemporary British society
- To transform curatorial practice around commissioning within major British art galleries and museums
- To cultivate a new generation of young people and their families to be self-assured visitors to galleries and museums
These aims will be fully realised with a wider public engagement programme that will have significant impact on the visual arts sector through study days, curators’ days and an annual conference. Importantly the creation of new resources will enable the public to have a deeper engagement with the new artworks as well as the existing collections.
The Role
This Traineeship, offered jointly by Iniva (Institute of International Visual Arts) and Manchester Art Gallery, will be co-located between both organisations with the majority of the contract being spent in Manchester with travel and accommodation arranged in London as needed. The successful applicant will be supported to develop a range of skills expected from the curatorial workforce today including subject expertise, working with living artists, collections care and exhibition making. Learning about audience engagement and widening access will be a fundamental part of developing and enhancing these skills.
The Iniva / Manchester Art Gallery Curatorial Trainee will work end to end on a major artistic commission by undertaking a programme of training which will see the new work accessioned into the Manchester Art Gallery collection. As part of the Traineeship there will be a training and development allowance to pay towards attendance at conferences, for example, and take advantage of other development opportunities. There will be networking opportunities with colleagues and peer organisations in the region and beyond, as well as the opportunity to work independently and shape parts of the project as it develops such as the conference and developing a curatorial network. Mentoring will be provided by senior curatorial staff at both organisations.
Working at Iniva for approximately 3 months of the 12-month contract, there will be opportunities to encounter curators, artists, academics and researchers working in areas related to Iniva’s artistic programme and the Stuart Hall Library.
If you wish to apply for the Curatorial Trainee position, please send a completed application form and equal opportunities monitoring form to recruitment@iniva.org. CVs will not be accepted as part of the application.
Closing date: Wednesday 25th September 2019, 10am
Interview date: Week commencing 30 September
Interviews will take place in either Manchester or London
If you are unable to download these forms or require them in large print, please contact Simina Neagu at recruitment@iniva.org.
Please note due to limited resources, unfortunately, applicants not shortlisted for the first round of interviews will not be informed.
Iniva is an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation.
Iniva strives to be an Equal Opportunities employer.
