Audience Engagement Consultant job

RENAISSANCE STRATEGIC SUPPORT FUNDING ARTS COUNCIL ENGLAND

Access All Areas: Harrogate Museums and Arts, Culture/Tourism/Sports, Harrogate Borough Council

Invitation for expression of interest. 
If you are interested in this project please email your CV and an expression of your interest in the project, saying why you think you would be suitable, to diane.taylor@harrogate.gov.uk by 5pm on Monday 22^nd April 2013.

Interviews will be held at the Mercer Art Gallery, Swan Road, Harrogate on  Monday 29^th April 2013 with a start date as soon as possible afterwards.

Project Title:              THE PEOPLE’S CHOICE: MERCER ART GALLERY EXHIBITION 2013

Length of project:      6 months

Dates:                          May to October 2013

Commission:               Audience Engagement Consultant

Fee:                             £8,500 FTE paid in 6 monthly instalments

Supervisor:                 Diane Taylor, Audience Development Officer

Project Description:
The purpose of this project is to involve our local communities, including the Friends of the Mercer Art gallery and and the Friends of Harrogate District Museums, local councillors, young people, local celebrities, community groups and local organisations in the making of an exhibition of works of art selected from our own collection.

This is all part of Harrogate: Access All Areas, a wide ranging project, the aim of which is to bring more people of all ages into contact with our collections, and to develop a body of new research on the collections that will lead to new exhibitions, publications and other forms of interpretation.

The idea for The People’s Choice project is that people will be invited to choose their favourite painting, print or drawing from the collection to go on display. Then we will ask individuals to write or dictate a couple of paragraphs about why they have chosen this picture, or possibly draw their response.  Some popular pictures will be chosen by more than one person.

Individuals and groups will be invited to be involved in different ways including:

·         Selecting from the BBC Your Paintings website, which has all the oils and acrylics from Harrogate’s collection on it;

·         Selecting from works currently on show in our exhibition All Dressed Up;

·         Attending a special session or workshop with works on paper brought out from the store;

·         Being involved in an outreach session at their community venue using computer or printed images of a group of art works from our collection.

The project outcomes will include:

·         the exhibition and its interpretation in the Main Gallery of the Mercer 13 July to 15 September 2013;

·         a publication containing all the selectors’ statements about the art;

·         a programme of events throughout the exhibition’s run;

·         engagement with a wide range of audiences across the Harrogate district through a variety of methods;

·         evaluation of the community involvement to be carried out at the end of the exhibition.

The Harrogate Fine Art Collection
The Mercer has outstanding early 20th century pictures bought in the immediate post-war period, including works by W R Sickert, Paul Nash, Christopher Wood, Edward Wadsworth and Ivon Hitchens. Harrogate’s most famous artist is the great Victorian painter, William Powell Frith, of whose work the gallery has excellent holdings. Other great Victorians in the collection include Leeds born Victorian Leeds landscape painter Atkinson Grimshaw, the Pre Raphaelite Edward Burne –Jones, landscapist James Buxton Knight, horse painter John Herring and pioneer photographer, Julia Margaret Cameron. Harrogate has many works depicting famous local picturesque sites, such as Fountains Abbey, Wharfedale, Nidderdale, and aspects of the built heritage in Harrogate, Ripon and Knaresborough. There are watercolours and cartoons by Rowlandson, Templar and others, plus prints and posters relating to the region’s long history of tourism. British women artists of the 20th century are particularly well represented in the collection, including Nina Hamnet, Anna Zinkeisen and Dame Laura Knight. There is a growing element of contemporary British art, including works by Alan Davie, David Mach, Tacita Dean and Andy Goldsworthy.

The People’s Choice Audience Engagement Consultant: Person Specification

·         You will have a first degree in an appropriate subject

·         You will have either:

o   a post graduate qualification in museum and/or gallery studies or an education specialism or

o   demonstrable experience working in the museum and gallery sector

o   demonstrable experience working in a learning environment or with different audiences

·         An interest in involving museum and gallery audiences  of all ages and backgrounds with our collections

·         Very good communication skills, plus very good writing, photography and computer skills.

·         A basic  knowledge of History of Art.

You will be provided with a lap top and camera to work on the project, plus the space to work at the gallery. It is anticipated that some work will be carried out at community locations around the Harrogate District.