Opportunities and Commissions
Children's Creativity Project
The new Redwoods Centre, Shrewsbury
ARTISTS' BRIEF
Background
The Redwoods Centre is a new facility for Shropshire and Telford currently being built to support mental health services in the county and beyond. The project is part of South Staffordshire and Shropshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust - to support mental health services and to improve facilities for the forthcoming years.
The building will replace Shelton Hospital.
We are inviting children from local schools to be part of an exciting project to create a large number of artworks to be displayed in the new facility. We are partnering with Speight of the Art (www.speightoftheart.co.uk) plus Telford College of Arts and Technology (TCAT) and Shrewsbury College of Arts and Technology (SCAT) and we are looking for a number of professional artists to be part of this project.
The workshops are due to take place in April or May of this year at both TCAT and SCAT sites - artists will need to be available for the following dates to carry out the workshops:
Monday April 23rd, 30th and May 7th and 14th - Shrewsbury (SCAT)
Friday April 20th, 27th, May 4th and 11th - Telford (TCAT)
All workshops from 10am to 2pm with a break for lunch.
The outcomes
- To create a large number of artworks to use as enhancement for the bedrooms and corridors in the new Redwoods Centre.
- To create artwork that is uplifting and colourful and takes account of the sensitivities of the people we are aiming to benefit from this project.
- To exhibit all artwork created centrally in a separate location for all children and young people involved to celebrate before the work is installed in the centre.
- To engage with young people to distil some of the myths surrounding mental health and to broaden their understanding of the new centre and the people we are supporting.
The themes
'The new Shrewsbury Redwood Centre for Mental Health - a new dawn in the year of the 2012 Olympiad.'
We are looking at both the Olympic/ ParaOlympic themes of empowerment, respect, friendship, inspire and achieve linking into and relating to the five ways to wellbeing (give, learn, be active, take note and connect)
Who we are looking for
We are looking to engage a range of artists who can support this exciting project by facilitating a number of workshops for children of all ages (keystage 2 up). The artists must be practicing artists and have some experience of delivering children's workshops in a range of settings. The workshop activity will need to be one that can be carried out in one day. And all finished artworks would need to be 2D.
All artists will be expected to have a current enhanced CRB certificate plus public liability insurance.
We are looking for proposals from artists - a description of what kind of workshop you could run, what kind of materials and equipment you would need and what you envisage as an end product of the workshop.
A current CV plus examples of previous work (and similar workshop delivery) will be helpful.
Fees
A fee of £200 per day is offered for this project to include travel. There will be a separate budget for materials and presentation costs.
All resulting work by the children (facilitated by the artists) will need to be created onto canvas or foamboard - if the work requires framing, we would need to ensure that the frames are very light to comply with installation requirements at the new centre. The sizes of the finished product has not yet been decided but it is likely to be either A3 or A2 or a mixture of both.
Please send information to: Jessica Kent, Arts for Health Co-ordinator, Shelton Hospital, Bicton Heath, Shrewsbury SY3 8DN. Deadline Monday February 20th 2012.
For more information or an informal chat - please contact Jessica on 07814 752783.
Many thanks
Jessica Kent
Arts for Health
SSSFT