✴ Perspectives Cymraeg downloadable file ✴
✴ Perspectives English downloadable file✴
Perspective(s) - a commission and partnership project
St Fagans Amgueddfa Cymru / National Museum Wales & Ways of Working
We are looking for a Wales based culturally and ethnically diverse* Creative Practitioner working with art, performance, spoken word, writing, socially engaged practice or anywhere in the blurred spaces between.
Summary of the programme
Perspective(s) is a new collaboration between the Arts Council of Wales and Amgueddfa Cymru -
National Museum Wales, which seeks to bring about a step change on how the visual arts and heritage
sector reflects the cultural and ethnic diversity of our society. Over a two-year period, creative
professionals from culturally and ethnically diverse backgrounds will work with museums and visual
arts organisations, to platform untold stories, create artistic responses and act as an agent for change.
The programme seeks to challenge current ways of thinking by engaging with communities to explore
the visual arts and heritage sector through an anti-racist and decolonial lens.
“Cultural democracy - the right of everyone to participate in the cultural life of their community,
enshrined in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights - should be at the heart of everything we
do. In practice, this means moving away from traditional models of operating which ignore or exclude
a lot of the people we’re here for.”
Phil George, Chair, Arts Council of Wales (2016 - 2022) and Roger Lewis, President, Amgueddfa Cymru
Summary of organisations
Ways of Working
Ways of Working is an artist led social enterprise working with agendas of social, environmental, racial and community justice. Projects may explore how our streets function, making gardens, or understanding our food systems, to curatorial and commissioning projects. We believe that to work in culture at this time of increasing urgency it's necessary to create slow spaces, to dig where you stand and to invite new voices in to help shape the work we do. We work to explore the utility of the projects, supporting and exploring new collaborative practices, collectives and ecologies. We’re interested in building long term relationships which explore place and need.
Ways of Working is committed to anti-racist work and understands that this means advocating for andworking towards real-world change. This is ongoing and material work, consisting of learning, being and doing, which we are committed to building into our practice.
St Fagans National History Museum, Cardiff
St Fagans is one of Europe leading open–air museums and Wales’s most popular heritage attraction. Winner of the 2019 UK Art Fund Museum of the Year. The Museum stands in the grounds of St Fagans Castle and gardens, a late 16th century manor housedonated to the people of Wales by the Earl of Plymouth in 1948.
Explore the stories of the people of Wales – from the world of a 240,000-year old Neanderthal child to the present day. Over 50 historic buildings from all over Wales have been re-built at the Museum including a Victorian school, a mediaeval church and a Workmen’s Institute. The buildings show how the people of Wales have lived, worked, played and spent their leisure time through the ages. St Fagans is part of Amgueddfa Cymru-Museum Wales.
“[The task] was not to create a museum which preserved the dead past under glass but one which uses the past to link up with the present to provide a strong foundation and a healthy environment for the future of their people.”
Iorwerth C. Peate, Curator and Director of St Fagans 1948
Museum and collections as context…
In 1993 the artist Fred Wilson’s take over of the Maryland Historical society became a critical act of decolonising the museum, in this work he proposed the following set of questions (see below). Since 1993 many artists, activists and discourses have worked to decolonise our museums and collections, this is ongoing, unfinished work that keeps unearthing new tributaries, opening intersectional narratives which explore this and forms of oppression / silencing or marginalising.
Fred Wilson, Mining the Museum, 1993
INVITATION
Imagine you are walking around the St Fagans museum. It iss daylight, you have permission, but you are alone. There is nobody else there. What narratives are visible - invisible? You imagine a set of plays ordramas being enacted in the buildings, where are the clues to other places, other lives in these small theatre sets? How could we amplify what is silent to unearth the beginnings of trade, capitalism and other discourses? What objects or collections could play a role in a fictional re-reading as we begin thework of imagining and proposing new ways of working…? Above is a provocation, a possible ‘way in’ to the context you could be exploring working with us, but we are happy to support you in how you feel you would like to best work with this opportunity.
Creative Practitioner
The Role and responsibilities
- To be interested in creating an enquiry into what it means to be an agent of change.
- To challenge what we do as an organisation and also our partner museum. We want to support
you but also want to learn from you.
- To interrogate the decolonising of public spaces / museums / collections.
- To participate in networking events as part of the Perspective(s) project.
- To participate in community dialogue.
- To co-facilitate community events (workshops, performance, interactive spaces etc - to be
shaped with Ways of Working and Amgueddfa Cymru staff))
- To be involved in planning and evaluation of the project.
*To assess the impact of the Perspective(s) programme the following six building blocks will be used
in the evaluation process. Creative Professionals will be required to contribute to the planning and
evaluation process throughout the course of the programme.
Space - To decolonise public spaces, such as museums and galleries.
Community - To facilitate deeper and wider community engagement.
Learning - To use collections, displays and exhibitions as catalysts for learning, especially in relation to
colonialism, slavery and Empire.
Creative Practitioner Development - To facilitate the development of Creative Professionals from
culturally and ethnically diverse backgrounds.
Sector Development - To develop visual arts organisations and a heritage sector in Wales that is actively anti-racist and more intersectional.
Democratise and Decolonise - To develop processes and new ways of working that are democratic and intersectional working towards an anti-racist arts and heritage sector.
Personal Specification
We are looking for:
- a Wales based culturally and ethnically diverse* Creative Practitioner working with art,
performance, spoken word, writing, socially engaged practice or anywhere in the blurred spaces
between.
- a Creative Practitioner who is interested in working on a creative enquiry into the museum as a
space that holds stories/narratives. We want to explore who is missing from these stories and
how could these objects/collections be re-used to explore radical narratives?
- a Creative Practitioner who is interested in interrogating how St Fagans explores everyday
culture, marginalised practices, records, labour, gender and class divisions.
- a Creative Practitioner who is interested in exploring how working at St Fagans holds the
potential to explore a sense of fiction, alternative narratives, storytelling or scenography
What we offer
- A fee of £25,000 for 100 days of work split between St Fagans and Ways of Working to be
concluded by March 2025
- Support from Ways of Working artists in the form of mentoring, curatorial / creative
dialogue, facilitating public dialogue and conversations alongside planning and technical
support.
- A travel budget, a mentoring budget and a budget to create your work alongside your fee.
- We are keen to support new conversations between the Creative Practitioner and others
who may offer different forms of expertise and to also help vision the space for the Creative
Practitioner’s work after this opportunity ends.
- Wellbeing support and a budget to cover specific requirements that might emerge for our
Creative Practitioner. As an organisation we have a particular interest in Wellbeing and we
endeavour to create a safe and intentionally held space for the artists we work with.
- Support for the needs of a Creative Practitioner who may have caring responsibilities or any
other situation which calls for flexibility and care.
- An opportunity to work with an artist led organisation which is working on ideas of long term
change, long term relationships and critically engaged social practice, modelling and
empowering change.
Key Dates
- Call out closes Sunday 18 th June
- Interview dates 26th and 27th June
- 12 th July first networking event
- 19 th July – half day for the Creative Practitioners from all museum sites (virtual)
- All work to be concluded by March 2025 – end of programme.
How to Apply
Please send us information on your recent practice (no more than three A4 pages) detailing your
experience relating to the personal specification above and responding to the questions below to
info@waysofworking.org. Please include links to examples of your work in the form which best suits
your practice (can be on an additional page).
Q1) Tell us why you want to take part in the Perspectives program. What do you hope to gain or
achieve?
Q2) Please let us know your experience in working on the following:
· Anti-racist/decolonising projects
· Engaging with community groups/individuals from culturally and ethnically diverse
backgrounds
Q3) How could the role of the museum change in terms of its civic and political function in the future?
(In terms of climate breakdown, systemic racism etc)
Q4) How can you influence and explore a creative dialogue with WOW through this project?
Q5) What could be the legacy of this kind of work for future generations in Wales?
We are happy to receive any questions about this opportunity or If you need this information in any
other format please contact us on info@waysofworking.org
*We define ‘culturally and ethnically diverse’ as:
Anyone from the African, Asian, Caribbean, Hispanic, Latino, Eastern European or Middle Eastern
diaspora in Wales. Anyone who identifies as being from an ethnic group that is not exclusively White
Anyone from Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Communities
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