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Radar: Arts Council England Small Project Grants

Cat Harrison and Michael Norton

A series of four intensive workshops over four days with Cat Harrison and Michael Norton, producers at Artsadmin

Illustration by Lily Kong

So, you’re a performance maker or live artist who has worked on a few projects and you’re getting a sense of how money and support would enable you to do more. You’ve got a specific idea for a project, and you’re ready to take the step towards finding funding from Arts Council England. Now what?

We’re here to help. We’re offering a series of free workshops focusing on Arts Council England’s small projects grants (under £15,000). Each session will cover a different section of the application: quality, engagement, finance and management. You can book for one session, or all four.

Throughout the week, we’ll also go over frequently asked questions about the application process, and cover what we’ve learned over the years applying for this fund. You’ll get a chance to work in small groups to develop your project application and talk with Artsadmin producers Michael Norton and Cat Harrison about the challenges and barriers you might encounter as you apply. Their expertise is in projects that focus on contemporary performance, interdisciplinary art and participatory performance, so our examples and materials will focus on these areas. 

Session 1: Quality
In this first session, we’ll focus on describing who you are, and what it is you’d like to make. We’ll offer exercises on how to describe your work clearly (and stay within the character count) and look at how your project lines up with the values and priorities of the Arts Council. We’ll practice how to explain what you do and how to start the story that your application is telling, and what you might want to include in the supporting document. 

Session 2: Engagement
In the second session, we’ll think about who your work is for, what these audiences or participants will experience, and how you’ll make sure they find out about your project. We’ll cover frequently asked questions around engagement for projects at different stages, like how to talk about R&D proposals and what to do if you don’t know who your audience or participants are. 

Session 3: Finance
In this session, we’ll focus on all the money questions around Arts Council England’s small projects fund. We’ll offer some templates for a budget and demystify some of the financial jargon like income, in-kind, expenditure, contingency and overheads. We’ll also offer some tips on inputting amounts into the application portal. 

Session 4: Management
In this final session, we’ll focus on who your partners are, what you’ve done already, activity timelines and the evaluation. We’ll consider what exactly a ‘partner’ means, offer some tips on what to ask for from them, and what to do when your project doesn’t seem to have any. We’ll also give some attention to the evaluation, one of the most important (but often overlooked!) steps of the application.

My name is Michael, and I use he/him or they/them pronouns. I am a queer person who has done lots of different jobs in the arts. I make my own performance and theatre work, I collaborate with others, I work for others as an artist, I’ve produced projects, I’ve been a dramaturg and a thinker on projects and I’ve also written critical texts about art and arts organisations. Most of my work has taken place in the UK, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium and the United States, and I work mostly in contemporary performance and theatre.

I work at Artsadmin part-time as a producer on Artist Support projects like Radar, the Artsadmin Bursary and Creative Support Sessions. Outside of Artsadmin I’m an artist and a creativity coach, working with all sorts of people who feel stuck or want to step up their creative energy.

My name is Cat and I use she/her pronouns. I’ve worked at Artsadmin for over a decade, producing many different sorts of arts projects for different artists. This has included organising UK tours of solo performances, managing presentations of installations all over the world, facilitating participatory works happening over several years, and more besides.

If an artist is making something a bit unusual, that has something to say, and reaches people in a fun and imaginative way, I’m interested! I’m also an artist myself, creating for an artist collective called Non Zero One. My work as an artist is all about asking people direct questions about themselves, usually through experiences that happen in spaces like museums, street corners and/ or digital platforms.

This workshop is supported by The National Lottery Community Fund.

The National Lottery Community Fund in black

  • Closed captions will be provided with Otter.ai
  • BSL interpretation is available on request. When you book, book a ‘BSL user’ ticket so we know if BSL is required, please allow two weeks’ notice of booking so we can arrange this.
  • The event takes place on Zoom. We recommend that you download Zoom on to your device prior to the event. Please see this easy read guide to Zoom put together by our friends Access All Areas.
  • We will have a guardian in the online workshop at all times, so if you ever feel unwell or unsafe, they will be able to support you.
  • Please email access@artsadmin.co.uk if you have any further access requests

Date and time

28 June – 1 July 2021
10.30am–12pm

Please note
This is now a past event.

Venue

Online

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