SPAN Arts invite artists and creative practitioners to send their ideas for new work as part of their Love Stories to Nature commissions.
All ideas need to respond in some way to the prompt of The Environment.
SPAN is open to any art forms from visual arts and crafts, creative writing and poetry, theatre, drama, dance, sound, sculpture, and 3D work, time-based and digital work and purely participation-based practice.
They welcome ideas that take place in person, inside or outdoors, hybrid or digitally as part of this commission.
They expect to see some element of community/public engagement within the commission, be that central to the creative process or as part of a sharing/show/exhibition/performance. They are as interested in the process as they are in any end product.
In coming up with your idea they ask you to think about the legacy of your work, and what difference it will make. This could be the impact on the people directly involved, including you as an artist, or it could be how it influences how people think, act, engage or feel about the environment.
SPAN hope to continue and evolve the Love Stories commissions next year and would be open to ideas that have the potential to grow and develop through that process. Though this is not a necessary requirement.
What do SPAN mean by Environment?
They embrace this word in its widest possible context:
- It could be inspired by or in response to our natural and built physical environment be that urban or rural, mountains or coast, fields, or forests.
- It could be macro or micro, from the global context to microbiology.
- It could be the climate emergency we are all facing, from a global challenge to personal everyday actions.
- It could be our relationship to the environment, its importance, impact or value on a personal, community or societal scale.
- It could be any or none of these things, we ask you to define what it means in relation to your idea.
SPAN invite you to submit ideas from the 1st of June 2023 and we will make decision in community led panel meetings at the beginning of July, September, and November. The Love Stories to Nature commission budget is currently £9,000. Though we are fundraising with an aim to increase this. In each panel meeting we hope to award up to £3,000.
Open sessions will take place on Thursday 22nd of June, Tuesday 22nd of August and Wednesday 20th of September. These will be group sessions aimed at artists and creative practitioners and hosted by the SPAN team.
For more information and to download the brief visit the SPAN Arts website.