Paid artist mentorship with Curious

Curious (Leslie Hill and Helen Paris) warmly invite emerging London and Norfolk-based artists to apply for a paid mentorship to work on Wild Longings and Uproot, a new performance and workshop project for 2019. The fee will be £1000.

Wild Longings is a new performance for gardens and Uproot is a creative community workshop, both of which celebrate survival, diversity and interconnectivity in this current moment of upheaval and change. In Uproot and Wild Longings, Curious employ rooting and uprooting as metaphors for personal and botanical stories at a time when 65 million people are displaced worldwide.

Curious are looking for artists:

• Who are based in London and Norfolk
• Who connect strongly with either of the project’s main themes (conservation and/or immigration)
• Who are interested in socially engaged work and would like an apprenticeship experience working with Curious
• Who are ‘rooted’ to their local community – or would like to use this as an opportunity to become more rooted to their local community

The mentorship will be an applied, paid apprenticeship, working on Wild Longings and/ or Uproot as best fits your practice, determined in collaboration with Helen and Leslie – this could involve performance, design, foraging, cookery, flower arranging, playing a musical instrument etc. for the Wild Longings performance and/or teaching, editing, podcasting, design or gardening for the Uproot workshops and community garden project. 

As mentors, Helen and Leslie can offer their experience as artistic directors, mentors and experienced teachers, specializing in artistic research. Find out more on the Curious website.

As a queer, women-led company, Curious welcome (but not exclusively) applications from women and the LGBTQ community. The celebration of non-heteronormative sexualities and sensualities in plants and trees is one of the wider themes of Wild Longings.  

Wild Longings and Uproot are commissioned by Norfolk and Norwich Festival and supported by grants from Woods Institute for the Environment and Arts Council England. Both projects are produced by Artsadmin.

To apply

Please send a written, filmed or audio application, consisting of no more than 2 sides of A4 or 5 minutes worth of audio or video material to Jo Bligh (jo@artsadmin.co.uk) by 13 February.

In the application please include…

1. Why you would like to engage with the project – the reasons why the issues are important to you and any relevant life or artistic experience.
2. Why you are interested in community engagement and what excites you about the community you live in.
3. Your previous experience/training. Curious are looking to support artists at any stages of their careers, so please don’t let a brief bio put you off!
4. A statement to tell us what you are looking for in artist mentorship and why it would be meaningful to you at this particular moment.  
5. Which location you are based in (London or Norfolk)

We aim to be as inclusive as possible and work to accommodate all access requirements. We will openly discuss and tailor how we do things to support you as best we can.

Wild Longings will be presented as part of 2 Degrees Festival 2019.