Call for Artists.

Commissioning £8m of itinerant & permanent work over 10 years

Call for Artists.

The City of Sunderland, in the heart of the North East of England, is undergoing an extraordinary transformation. The remaking of an entire industrial city is underway that will see in excess of £1.5 billion invested in physical projects over the next 12 years.

This radical regeneration, being undertaken by the Government’s regeneration agency Sunderland arc together with Sunderland City Council, has already drawn in leading international architects, engineers and urban designers.

As a result, over £8 million will be levered in from the private sector to be spent on art. Uniquely this commissioning fund is in a single pot, the Cultural Masterplan, which means it can be spent across the entire city in order to realise and contribute to the cultural regeneration of Sunderland.

Sunderland believes that the early involvement of the creative industries in this process is of fundamental importance and provides artists with a challenging and above all exciting opportunity to be engaged in this transition.

Over the initial three years there will be a strong impetus on itinerant and temporal pieces that will focus on heralding the impending change of a particular site and to animate or activate spaces that have previously been left dormant. In addition to this, a series of physical and integral works will also be commissioned.

Sunderland believes in, and will support, bold and challenging work from all types of creative practise, be they professional artists or nuclear physicists.

This international call for artists is a request for those who would relish the opportunity to involve their creative practise, whatever that might be, in the transformation of a city, to register their interest in being considered for a commission.

The blueprint for this programme, devised by Civic Works Ltd, is The Cultural Masterplan.

Click here to view The Cultural Masterplan for Sunderland.

What?

The Cultural Masterplan is the blueprint for a regeneration project of extraordinary scale and ambition in Sunderland and a bold new model for involving art and artists in the regeneration of a city. This website is a call for artists to register their interest in being considered for commissions, both temporary and permanent over the next ten years.

Who?

Not only practising artists, but experimental engineers and scientists, cosmologists and clock makers, thinkers and makers, these commissions aren’t only about artworks they are as much about involving artists in the regeneration of Sunderland. So by artist we really mean any professional practice where there is an interest and ability to creatively influence physical projects in the city.

Scale?

There are three commission scales for both itinerant (temporary) and permanent commissions:

• £500 - £25,000
• £25,000 - £100,000
• £100,000 and over

How to register interest?

Its simple and you can do it online, now.

Chose six images of your work, write a caption for each image and then a text of up to 150 words about your past work, and what you might be interested in developing in the future. Its that simple. Click here for the registration page.

The commissions.

Sunderland has attracted £1.5 billion of investment over the next 10 years to reshape the city. Wherever possible the city would like to involve artists in both the thinking and making for these new building projects, so that each new project is transformed by something innovative that engages the people of Sunderland.

Both itinerant and permanent works are being commissioned. The principal criteria for commissions in years one to three are that commissions will engage either with a specific building project or area to be transformed, and the artists are being called upon to undertake works that will transform a space and place and will engage people in Sunderland.

Each time the Cultural Masterplan is ready to commission an artist the panel of 3 (the lead artist or cultural master planner for Sunderland, Sunderland Arc and the City of Sunderland) will select 3 artists from this call for artists for interview.

One candidate will then be given a contract and fee to come up with a design and costed proposal in collaboration with the design team.

Registration.

To register go to the registration page of this site.

After you register your images and text will be posted on the site for six weeks.

The Cultural Masterplan curators will then select some of these registrants to stay on the site for possible shortlisting in the rolling programme of commissions.

CallForArtists.org is a free and an open access public resource, being shared with curators for other projects internationally.

Updating your Registration.

You can update the text and images on your registration by completing a new registration using the same email address and details and this will subsequently replace your old registration.

More.

The backbone of all of this is a programme called The Cultural Masterplan. Here's a quote,

“A regeneration project of extraordinary scale is underway to regenerate Sunderland (population 280,000). The Cultural Masterplan defines three mechanisms to embed projects within this physical regeneration programme and to effect cultural regeneration through physical regeneration.”

Click here to view The Cultural Masterplan for Sunderland.