Straight Talking: Out in the Open
Deadline: November 24, 2014, 5:00 pm
The Dudley Office of Public Health, Dudley Stop Smoking Service and Creative Health CIC would like to commission a visual artist working in any medium to produce three semi-permanent artworks that respectfully and positively promote being smoke free around children.
Developed following a wider second hand smoking awareness initiative Straight Talking, the aim of Out in the Open is to make the school entrance smoke free by encouraging parents, family members and friends not to smoke when they drop off and collect children from school.
The artworks are to be installed at the entrance areas of three Dudley Primary Schools. The selected artist will take an artist-led, participatory approach involving children from each school in the design, development or making of the final artwork.
Background
The Dudley Office of Public Health has developed a wide range of smokefree initiatives targeting different groups of the population. They identified a need to try and influence the smoking behaviours of families living in Dudley and the Straight Talking initiative supports children to feel more confident, informed and able to discuss smoking behaviours within their community and family units. The Straight Talking message equips children with the knowledge and confidence to respectfully challenge people who smoke around them.
Following a recent tour of Straight Talking to 20 Dudley primary schools, the children told us that they wanted areas regularly visiting by children and other people who are vulnerable to the effects of second hand smoke - parks, playgrounds, hospitals and schools gates - to be smoke free.
Essential Information
The final artworks need to communicate in a positive and respectful way to parents, family members and friends who smoke. The project is not a marketing campaign or a signage project but needs to take a thoughtful and creative approach to communicating smoke free messages. Visual artists working in any medium are welcome to apply. The work will be semi-permanent and expected to last a minimum of 3 years.
The selected artist will work with Creative Health to choose the three schools they would like to work with, taking the physical characteristics of the schools’ entrances into account, assessing the spaces for appropriateness and practicality for their work, and for maximum impact of the smoke free messages.
The project is to be artist-led and participatory. The artist will work with Year 5 & 6 children from each school and were possible, their parents, on a selected stage of the project most appropriate to their participatory practice (for example the ideas stage, design and development stages or the final piece).
Essential Requirements - Interested artists should have the following:
- Experience of delivering high quality innovative public art work
- Ability to inspire and develop public visual art projects that take a participatory approach
- Experience of working with children
- Experience of delivering work within budget and timescale.
Budget
There is a total budget of £7,000 available to cover all costs including fee, travel, materials, workshops, install and launch event.
Timescale
The project will start in January 2015 and will run through until April 2015 when the final pieces will be installed.
To Apply
Submit an expression of interest by email to Katy Sadler [email protected] by 5pm, Monday 24 November 2014, including the following information:
• CV
• Links to examples of previous work undertaken of a similar nature.