We’re turning up and turning out for Turner’s Big Prize and the 250th anniversary of artist J.W.Turner. We’re showcasing the best of Bradford-made visual arts. OUR TURN is planning to be bold, experimental and authentically Bradford. From print to paint, sculpture to stitch, district-wide, emerging and established.
We are currently conducting a period of research and development to realise this ambitious festival, led by Alice Withers (Director, South Square Centre), and we need your help to make the case to funders to help us shape and realise this ambitious and much needed opportunity to celebrate the visual arts.
Conversations about Bradford’s first district wide visual arts festival have sprung from the news that Bradford will be hosting The Turner Prize as a part of Bradford 2025’s year of celebrations as UK City of Culture.
During 2025, South Square Centre, Bradford Producing Hub, and Bradford 2025 want to support people working in the visual arts to shine a light on what they do that helps make Bradford a thriving and compassionate creative district.
We have developed a series of micro grant opportunities, will help us demonstrate the breadth and quality of visual arts in the district. Developing the case for funding and showcasing a sample of what will be to come next year. This work crosses over into the work we are doing with the Visual Arts Festival Steering Group– a panel of visual artists and organisations based in Bradford, designed to make sure the festival maximises its reach, and is as representative, inclusive, and diverse as it can possibly be.
OUR TURN
Do you want to help us test what a new festival in Bradford could look like and make the case to funders that OUR TURN, Bradford’s Visual Arts Festival, 2025 needs to happen, and it needs to happen now?!
Are you already working on something that would work well sitting within a visual arts festival context?
Maybe it’s through an event, an open studio, a new zine, a critical talk, an online happening, a mini print portfolio, a new piece of work, a series of paste-ups, or an artist-led community workshop? But don’t let us stop you there- it could be anything that works for you! We are keen to show what is unique about artists living and working in our district, show the excellence of our visual arts scene and present how many things can come together as a festival.
We’re making five quick-fire micro grants available to activate your ideas in October and November, 2024.
All we ask in return is that you submit:
· One image (or a set of images if you’d prefer!) of what you did (might be a photograph, video still or artwork).
· One side of A4 about what you did, who got involved, and why you’re helping us make the case for OUR TURN, Bradford Visual Arts Festival 2025.
· One quote from your activity or process that reminds you why you do what you do!
We’ll use this information to make a series of digital OUR TURN Postcards. Testing out our ne brand with your fabulous visuals, and getting people talking about the amazing Bradford-Made visual arts that are going on in our district. We will submit these to our funders, with your feedback, so we are all helping to make the case for OUR TURN, Bradford Visual Arts Festival, to happen in 2025.
These Micro-Grants will:
· Help us to make the case to funders for OUR TURN, Bradford Visual Arts Festival, to happen in 2025.
· Demonstrates the breath and diversity of the visual arts sector, a sample of what could be included in the festival in 2025.
· Help us to understand and develop our model for commissioning for the main festival, making sure the language is right, and it is an inclusive process that can be used for open calls, and targeted campaigns.
· Form part of the visual identity for the festival, making sure it is representative of different artforms, expertise, and creative communities across the district.
· Provide selected artists with an attractive digital postcard, that helps make the case for the festival in 2025.
· Demonstrate if there is potential in quick-fire opportunities for grant-making in the future, as a part of the main festival.
Why is this such a limit-time opportunity?
Normally for a commissioning opportunity, you would expect to have more time to develop new work, but the time constraints for this Phase One are to get the festival established, ahead of delivery in Autumn 2025. This means the brief will be very open, and new work will be created rapidly, exploring what impact this has on practitioner’s process.
Our approach is to quickly test, experiment and research how we mobilise a few things across the district that help build a case for creating a new festival in Bradford. The festival itself, if successful in fundraising plans will open a wide range of opportunities beyond short research activity.
We recognise that this approach will not work for everyone, and that the fee of £500 is prohibitive for some visual art practices, and some individual’s circumstances.
We recognise that speedy decisions can leave a lot of people out of the conversation, so we are working with a Visual Arts Festival Steering Group (made up of visual artists with a broad range of specialisms, from across Bradford) throughout the micro grants process to ensure we evaluate this test-bed approach to ensure the festival is representative, questioning, and relevant to our co-operatives and communities of practice.
This is a learning opportunity for all involved with great potential!
This fringe festival programme aims to support Bradford’s visual arts sector by:
- Utilising The Turner Prize to platform and elevate Bradford’s visual arts sector
- Trialling the first district wide visual arts festival in Bradford, with the aim of it becoming a Biennial event.
- Creating a series of small-scale commissioning opportunities for visual artists (micro-commissions)
- Promoting and enhancing audience engagement with the Bradford’s visual arts community through active participation, conversation and sharing.
- Developing freelancer, co-operative, and organisational relationships within the local creative sector.
- Developing a talks and training offer for Bradford’s visual arts sector.
Selected artists must:
- Be living or working in a Bradford District postcode
- Be an artist/creative individual with a committed practice to visual arts and/or crafts
- Be able to work to the tight programme timetable
- Have a desire to communicate their practice to an audience
- Want to see their work on a set of digital postcards
How to apply
Submission process
Submissions can be in written, audio or video format and should address all the points
in the application form.
Background information: What is a Fringe Festival?
Follow this link to the online application form
Support
If you would like support in completing your submission form, please email Alice Withers on: alice@southsquarecentre.co.uk And there is no such thing as a silly question- if you don’t know the answer, we can guarantee someone else doesn’t know it either!
Selection process
Five representatives from the Visual Arts Steering Panel will meet to select five applicants to take forward. This decision-making process will be supported by non-voting project curators, Gemma Hobbs and Alice Withers.
Fees
The visual arts collective or organisation selected to complete their proposed micro-commissions will receive an upfront fee of: £500
Any payment will be subject to the terms and conditions of the contract, paid after receipt of an invoice. Please note that final contractual arrangements will be determined through discussion with the commissioned creative practitioner.
Commission timeline
30th October – Application submission deadline
31st October – Visual Arts Steering Group review submissions and selects five artists to be commissioned
1st November – Selected artists notified
= Four weeks to complete work =
29th November – Commission hand in date
Project funded with generous support from Arts Council England and Bradford 2025.
