PRESS RELEASE
December 2015
Launching The Northern Faculty – Call for Participants
The Faculty: creating an alternative-learning environment for those engaged, or wanting
to engage, in social arts practice.
Creative Scene, Heart of Glass, LeftCoast and Super Slow Way are delighted to announce the
launch of a new and unique professional development opportunity for artists, producers curators
and other creative practitioners, , from any discipline, based and /or working in Blackburn,
Darwen, Burnley, Hyndburn, Pendle, West Yorkshire, Blackpool & Wyre and St.Helens.
Working together and from their base locations across the North of England, the partnership is
delighted to be collaborating with project facilitators In Situ and Chrissie Tiller, on this
ambitious initiative.
The four partner projects are supported through Arts Council England’s Creative People and
Places programme, a £37 million action research fund, focusing on art, people and place.
To read more about Creative People & Places, visit: www.artscouncil.org.uk
WHO IS THIS FOR?
We are looking for 20 curious, forward-looking, open-minded
artists/practitioners/curators/producers, who are currently not in full-time education or
employment, to take part in a unique learning and sharing opportunity and be part of developing
and realising The Northern Faculty of Social Arts Practice. There are no limitations on age,
educational background, previous training or ways in which you are currently engaged in
creative practice but we imagine you may be at a stage where you are excited by the thought of
shifting direction or unpicking your practice and your thinking, and sharing it with others.
You may be working directly in the visual or performing arts or in an allied role. You may be an
engineer, youth worker, production manager, or architect who finds yourself increasingly working
in this context. What we are looking for is a group of people with a passion for socially engaged
art and the commitment and appetite to learn and to work with a group of peers to explore some
of the exciting questions around interdisciplinary collaborative art and social practice.
WHAT WILL IT INVOLVE?
This six-month pilot programme will re-visit the notion of the formal learning environment and
invite those joining us on the journey to be central to laying the foundations of a radical new
framework for all those wishing to engage with creative practice, sharing knowledge and
experiences, and reflecting on ideas and actions with others working in this field.
The Faculty will take the form of 4 weekend residentials, and a one day de-brief/sharing
throughout the pilot period, with input from artists working with the 4 partner CPP programmes
(Heart of Glass, Super Slow Way, Left Coast and Creative Scene) and the possibility of other
one-day events across the region. The periods between the residentials will be supported by
online, ‘distanced learning’ tutorials, seminars, discussions and ‘assignments’, to be responded
to in any medium or appropriate method. This might include making a piece of work, planning a
session, using audio or visual media, performance, information collecting, or undertaking any
form of writing. Participants will have on-going support in developing these skills from The
Faculty team and artist mentors working across the region.
We will provide access to an exciting library of thought and practice and the possibility to engage
with different thinkers and thought through online and live events. At the end of this year we
hope you will feel your critical thinking, as well as your practice, has been strengthened and
deepened.
WHAT WILL IT COST ME?
In the spirit of shared exploration and learning we will be waiving any fees involved in this pilot
and your local CPP will be covering all accommodation, food and travel for the residentials. In
return we will be asking that selected participants are fully committed to being active members of
The Faculty; including attending all 4 residentials, and the de-brief, and completing the
appropriate assignments.
HOW CAN I APPLY?
In the spirit of The Faculty we are not looking for a formal C.V. or asking you to complete any
complex forms. We are asking for personal letters of application that explain what you might
want to realise through this experience, what you feel you would want to share with others and
why you would like to contribute to the shaping and realisation of The Faculty. You can send
your applications to info@heartofglass.org.uk and the closing date for submissions is January
22nd and 2pm.
If you have any enquiries please send to the email address supplied above in the first instance.
FACULTY LEADS
The Faculty will be shaped and led by course leaders Chrissie Tiller and In Situ.
Chrissie Tiller
Chrissie Tiller is a creative practitioner, writer, teacher and thinker with over 30 years experience of
working globally in participatory and collaborative arts and social practice. Following a Churchill
Fellowship to explore the wider impact of the arts in economic, social and political change across Central
and Eastern Europe in 1990, she created and led a number of major transnational programmes for artists,
producers and curators working in socially engaged contexts in the performing and visual arts. She
continues to work regularly in Central, Southern & Eastern Europe and across the EU, as well as
Palestine, Uganda and Japan. All Chrissie’s work is informed by a passionate commitment to the
possibility for everyone, no matter what their class, education or cultural background, to engage with the
making, sharing and enjoyment of the arts. Ten years ago this led her to found and lead the MA in
Participatory and Community Arts at Goldsmiths College, London University. Her concern with the impact
of the current political and economic climate on Higher Education, particularly in terms of diversity and
access, has recently decided her to leave academia and to explore alternative, and more dynamic models,
of learning.
In-Situ
In Situ is a not-for-profit artist led organisation based in Brierfield Library, Pendle, Our vision is to bring art
into the mix of the existing culture and environment of Pendle: for art to be part of everyday life. Our action
research and enquiry extends to include perceptions of environment, people, place, and culture. In-Situ’s
work also examines the role of the artist and collaborative situations.
In-Situ serves to examine, through art, environment and culture:
o The natural and built environment.
o How we live our lives
o Perceptions of aesthetics: everyday, cultural and ecological.
o How we perceive, appreciate, and affect our landscapes.
o How artists collaborate.
In-Situ, established in 2012, currently consists of three practitioners: two artists and one social practitioner,
2 full time artist interns. With an open approach, we neither presuppose nor make assumptions about
environment, people, place or culture.
www.in-situ.org.uk
FACULTY PARTNERS
Super Slow Way
200 years on from the canal’s birth we want to stage a creative revolution, this time powered by art and
people, collaborating with local, national and international artists and arts organisations. We are here to try
out new ways of enabling people to get involved in arts activity and to work with and alongside artists. We
are here to support artists and arts organisations who put people and communities at the heart of their
practice to try new things. We are here to explore, experiment and debate. To make art happen and in
making art happen, transform lives and places.
www.superslowway.org.uk
Creative Scene
Creative Scene curates, commissions and produces arts projects and events . Creative Scene is about
making great art a part of everyday life in North Kirklees- a rural-urban area people of historic towns and
villages, set around the steep valleys of Pennine Yorkshire, and once the centre of the ‘heavy woollen’
district. Now home to 180,000 people, it’s an area rich in culture and heritage, at the centre of the
‘Northern Powerhouse’ region, and within reach of some of West Yorkshires most populous cities and arts
venues. Our programme is examining the complex interrelationship between the area’s arts and cultural
communities, asking questions about what constitutes a new arts ecology in straightened times, and
developing partnerships to make great arts experiences that are socially relevant, attract and engage
audiences. Our vision is to create a lively and varied arts scene which bubbles up from the people and
the place, with new partnerships and new ways or participation and presenting art.
http://www.creativescene.org.uk/
LeftCoast
LeftCoast is a programme of arts and creative activity happening across Blackpool and Wyre. We’re
all about creating amazing art on your doorstep. From jaw-dropping spectacle to intimate experiences in
your neighbourhood, we want to make art happen. In the process we hope to inspire and support
creatives who live, work and study here. We want you to be part of the art transformation happening in
your area. You might be an artist, parent, greengrocer or teacher – anyone in fact.
http://www.leftcoast.org.uk
Heart of Glass
Heart of Glass is the a new arts commissioning programme based in St.Helens made possible by an
investment from Arts Council England through the Creative People and Places programme. The Heart of
Glass vision is a robust and vibrant arts sector that is valued by our communities and nationally and
internationally recognised; establishing a model of collaborative best practice, supporting artists and
communities (place/interest) to make ambitious work. Through our artistic programme we are interested in
examining the role of art and the artist in a post industrial landscape by commissioning work that will see
passionate and direct interactions between artists and communities of place/interest, offering the
possibility through creative critique and shared art making to imagine other ways of being.
www.heartofglass.org.uk