OPEN CALL: Art Assembly, City as Art School – Manchester 2022

Open call for artist applications for the Art Assembly co-commissions

Open to contemporary visual artists living and/or working in Greater Manchester 

Application deadline: 12 noon, Tuesday 30 November 2021

• Are you a contemporary visual artist living and/or working in Greater Manchester? 
• Do you have an interest and commitment to collaboration and co-producing art and cultural projects with other individuals and groups? 
• Would you like to co-produce new work with children and young people and learning collaborators (schools, college and university settings) in the cities of Manchester and Salford?
• Do you have a track record of ambitious high quality production of contemporary visual arts and culture?

We are seeking to recruit eight Greater Manchester experienced artists/artist collectives to create co-commissions in collaboration with educational groups in which they will be embedded for Art Assembly, a one-day festival in Manchester city centre on 18 June 2022.

Each of the eight artists/artist collectives will receive a fee of £2,500. A production budget will also be available for each co-commission. 

These co-commissions will sit at the heart of the programme, acting like a golden thread running through the one-day event, provoking discussion, thinking, and sparking ideas that might empower all to be able to engage in the Art Assembly podcast debate.

Whilst the co-commissions will be informed and led by the learning groups and artists working together, we anticipate they will engage with and explore some of the key issues of our time, from global to local concerns. Whilst to illustrate only and not limited to, this might include climate change and justice; race, equality and social justice; movement and migration; happiness, health and wellbeing; care and community, identity, body image and body positivity.

Art Assembly, Manchester, is organised by a collective of Castlefield Gallery, HOME, Manchester Art Gallery, the Whitworth, and The Manchester College at Shena Simon Campus, working in partnership with the Art Fund.  Art Assembly will explore how art and culture can shape our understanding of the world through the opening provocation City as Art School.  Art Assembly will seek to rethink the way we embrace culture as a city and as a society, and champion how art and culture can play a part in educational experiences for all people, and vitally in extending what we might learn together, and how. 

The deadline for applications is: 12 noon, Tuesday 30 November 2021

Shortlisted applicants will be notified by: Wednesday 8 December 2021

Interviews will take place on: Monday 13, Wednesday 15 & Thursday 16 December 2021

Please let us know if you have any access requirements that we can help you with during the application process. To get in touch with us you can email leslie@castlefieldgallery.co.uk or telephone 0161 832 8034 Tuesday – Sunday between 10am – 6pm