The Creative Knowledge Project | Artist in Residence
Deadline: Tuesday, August 27, 2019 – 10:00
The Creative Knowledge Project is a 12-month artist residency based at the new Lakeside Centre, Thamesmead. This year-long residency – with accommodation and studio space – is a rare and exciting opportunity for an artist to live and work on the water’s edge of one of the most iconic Brutalist estates of the 1960s, working with the community to explore the potential for their new library building.
The Project
A new state of the art library is being built in Thamesmead by Peabody and the London Borough of Bexley as part of London’s largest regeneration programme. The Creative Knowledge Project aims to empower the existing communities of Thamesmead to question what a library can be during the library’s building phase, shaping the future of the building through creative processes. The project will be led by the London Borough of Bexley and Peabody, and will involve two local cultural organisations: Bow Arts, who will commission an artist in residence to open up local discussions on the library; and fine art makers Rima & McCrae who specialise in custom interior and bespoke surfaces. The project is funded by Arts Council England through a grant to London Borough of Bexley.
The building of a new library space in the current climate is a feat worth celebrating, and the project opens up questions about how communities and public learning spaces interconnect today. The artist in residence will work for 12 months during the design and build of the library (due to open spring / summer 2021). The resident artist will be based at a residential flat at Bow Arts’ newly opened Lakeside Centre, which sits opposite the new library site across Thamesmead’s Southmere Lake. The Lakeside Centre will house artist studios as well as a café, training kitchens, nursery and roof terrace – which boasts an incredible panoramic view of the iconic Brutalist towers across the beautiful Southmere Lake.
Residency Content
The residency will be community focused, with the aim of engaging local residents in the new library and its future-planned activity. The residency includes accommodation in the Lakeside Centre, studio space, an artist fee and materials budget (see full breakdown below). Bow Arts will manage and support the residency and the artist will also have the opportunity to work with the library architects and fine art makers Rima & McCrae.
The residency should include:
• Participatory workshops with local residents to form content for tangible outcomes.
• Ways of engaging local communities into thinking about what a library in the 21st Century means to them / what they want from their local library.
• Open studio events that invite residents into the resident artist’s space.
• A residency legacy / output (bearing in mind the spaces between the Lakeside Centre and new Library).
It is open to all media and approaches, though the residency should leave a lasting legacy that reflects local input.
Residency Fee
The residency will provide:
• A live / work residential flat in the Lakeside centre for 12 months (equivalent to £9,920 to cover rent and utilities)
• Use of a dedicated studio space in the Lakeside Centre (equivalent to £8,958 to cover studio rent and utilities)
• £10,000 artist fee, to include all time across the 12 month period.
• £6,000 materials and equipment budget
• Up to £10,000 outcome budget, for all costs associated with any production, fabrication or tangible outcomes of the residency.
The residency length is 12 months and would preferably start with the Lakeside Centre launch in October 2019, though the start date could be flexible to accommodate the resident’s needs.
Deadline: Tuesday 27 August 2019
Stage 2 Invitation to interview & produce proposal
A shortlist of applicants will be invited to interview and produce a more extended proposal for the residency. You will be notified of this invitation by Tuesday 3 September, with interviews taking place the week commencing 16th September. A fee of £150 will be offered to all shortlisted applicants to produce a more extended proposal.
For more information and to know how to apply: https://bowarts.org/whats-on/exhibitions-and-events/the-creative-knowledge-project-artist-in-residence.
