Visual Arts Commission for Children’s Capital of Culture

The brief

We are looking for four visual artists to work collaboratively with pupils within local schools to create four large, eye-catching and visually impactful public artworks that celebrate and promote Children’s Capital of Culture.

These artworks must effectively promote Children’s Capital of Culture, either through utilising our overarching brand and visual identity or by directly responding to one or more of our programming themes. Ideally these art works will provide children and young people with a lasting, imaginative and inventive invitation to play.

The artworks that are created must be created and sited safely, in accordance with health and safety guidance, and must be suitable to be sited in an outdoor space on a permanent or semi-permanent basis.

The artworks must be inspired by the pupils’ ideas and co-created by the children and young people working with the artist. Ideally, they will be invitations to play.

As such we are looking to work with artists who can demonstrate significant experience of working collaboratively with children and young people, and who will support them to develop confidence and visual art skills through the co-creation of amazing pieces of art.

Over the course of the commission, each visual artist will be appointed a school to work with and deliver visual art workshops. Artists must be available to deliver creative workshops at times within school hours, at the time when the class they’re working with have their usual lessons– though we will work with our commissioned artists to ‘match’ them with schools and classes that best suit their schedules.

Role

• Plan, resource and deliver visual arts workshops with children and young people between 19th May 2025 and 23rd July 2025. The amount of delivery sessions/hours you anticipate will be needed should be mentioned in your proposal.
• Ensure that planning and creation involves children and young people as genuine co-producers throughout, including identifying appropriate opportunities for children and young people to take a lead on the creation of the work.
• Through this co-production process, design and finalise a large-scale outdoor artwork that will be sited on the participating school’s grounds; the artwork must be safely installed by 1st September at the latest.
• Ensure all materials used within the ideation and creation of the artwork are sustainable, environmentally-friendly and safe.
• Ensure that the finish artwork is created and/or installed in accordance with all relevant health and safety guidance.
• Create and manage risk assessments as appropriate.
• Work collaboratively with the Children’s Capital of Culture team to effectively deliver a creative, professional, and co-produced project.

Fee

A total fee of £3,500 will be awarded to each successful applicant. This includes all aspects of project delivery, including planning and delivering workshops, and creating the final artwork.

This fee is inclusive of all materials’ costs, travel and expenses, including DBS checks if relevant.