Creative Catalyst is a £10,000 Northern Heartlands artist commission opportunity, working in the communities of Coundon and Witton Park County Durham. Northern Heartlands are looking for two artists to work alongside to explore practice that ignites curiosity and wonder.
To find out more about the commission, or about Northern Heartlands, visit: https://www.northernheartlands.org/artist-call-outs. The closing date for proposals is Monday 29 April 2024.
TeesDance are offering four different MoveAhead artist commissions for 2025 activity across the Tees Valley. The commission in Darlington is supported by £5,000 from Darlington Borough Council’s Heritage and Culture fund (Creative Darlington) budget. IApply by Monday 29 April 2024 at 10am, with more information at https://teesdance.org.uk/moveahead. Those shortlisted will be notified by Tuesday 7 May 2024 and interviews for these commissions are expected to be held in the week commencing Monday 13 May 2024.
TeesDance and Darlington Borough Council are seeking proposals from dance artists or companies to develop and deliver a new piece of indoor work to be showcased as part of the Stockton and Darlington Railway Bicentenary Festival 2025 in Spring – Autumn 2025. View the Darlington commission brief in full by clicking here Microsoft Word – DBC TeesDance Commission Brief .docx (squarespace.com). TeesDance is committed to creating conditions in which dance artists can thrive locally including making new work within the region with the opportunity to export work nationally. Their ambition is for the commission to be co-produced with Darlington Hippodrome. Depending on the scale of the commission, the fee can be used to leverage other funds and TeesDance can support this process.
If Theatre Hullabaloo are successful in raising £5,000 in donations by Tuesday 26th March 2024 the Big Give Arts Fund will match this total and this money will ensure their creative play programmes remain free for families in Darlington for the rest of 2024. Theatre Hullabaloo hope this campaign will provide vital funds for their Creative Children, Stronger Families offer, including creative play programmes, installations, workshops and activities at The Hullabaloo. You can find out more at: Creative Children, Stronger Families (biggive.org).
WRITERS’ BLOCK offer a year-long programme of workshops, mentoring, author masterclasses and meetings with agents. There are 14 places, including 4 reserved for working class writers. Apply here: https://www.writersblocknortheast.com/2024
You can also book for a FREE Taster Workshop, Saturday 23rd March at Darlington Hippodrome, 1.30-3.30pm. Places are limited, so to book your place on this taster workshop please email WRITER’S BLOCK at wbne2020@gmail.com
From May 2024, Periplum is launching a brand-new outdoor arts training programme for Tees Valley creatives, leading to paid employment, professional development, shadowing and participation opportunities.
Are you an artist from any discipline who is looking to make work for the outdoors for the first time? Are you already working in outdoor space but want to develop your skills with an internationally-renowned company? Are you interested in exploring imaginative ways of engaging with audiences, working collaboratively, sharing ideas and developing them across a focused week of training alongside 20 other Tees Valley artists?
If this sounds like you, we’d like to invite you to apply for a place on the Creating Outdoors programme.
Applications are now open. Deadline 25th March.
Click here to find out more: https://www.periplum.co.uk/content/outdoor_training/.
Creating Outdoors is funded by Tees Valley Combined Authority and Arts Council of England to support growth of the local cultural sector.
Ginny’ Whittle intends to run a Watercolour Painting Class at Hummersknott Academy subject to enrolment, details as above. Booking is required, it’s aimed at beginners and improvers and costs £150 for ten weeks. Participants will need to bring their own materials and equipment. Please contact Ginny to check the course if running before purchasing any of these items:
Ginny has run watercolour classes since the 1990’s, including leading courses at The Bridge Centre for Visual Arts in Darlington. She is Fine Art trained with a Post Graduate Teachers qualification, and has exhibited her work in the North East and in London. She advises the course offers a ‘rewarding, creative, environment, which will stretch your ideas of ” art ” developing specific watercolour techniques, through a series of flower and landscape paintings, alongside looking at both historic and contemporary watercolour painters for inspiration’.
Ginny is also offering a ten week evening Watercolour Painting Class, with sessions running from 4.30pm – 6.30pm at Hutton Magna Village Hall, Dale House, Hutton Magna, Richmond, DL11 7HH, running from Tuesday 16th April to Tuesday 25th June (no class on Tuesday 15th May 2024) priced £100 for ten sessions,
Booking for these courses is required and those interested are advised to check with Ginny whether these courses will run before purchasing any equipment you may need to participate. To find out more please contact Ginny at whittleginny@yahoo.co.uk
Places limited so early booking recommended https://tinyurl.com/yrzn5xmh
Place, People & Living Memory – a public exhibition in the Art Gallery at Darlington Library exploring a new order of social justice carried forward from radical non resistance in the 19th Century by women of and from the North East of England, including Elizabeth Pease, Josephine Butler and Harriet Martineau, who were associated with Darlington, Northumberland and North Tyneside respectively. Each is known for advocacy, original thinking, activism and support for the cause of women’s political inclusion and emancipation. The work on show extends a time line into the 1930s, 1960s and 1990s when resistance and dissent to stark new forms of oppression give significance to the activist work of Frances Perkins (USA), Marta Kubišová (South Bohemia) and Jo Spence (UK).
Pease, Butler & Spence – Radical Non-Resistance & the Art of Transgression takes its lead from an artwork at the National Portrait Gallery, London, titled: ’The World Anti-Slavery Convention 1840’, made by the history painter and diarist Benjamin Robert Haydon. The inclusion of Elizabeth Pease in the delegates depicted warrants further consideration of her central role and advocacy for abolitionism. Born in 1807 into a Quaker family of wool merchants in Darlington, the entitlements and civic values of her time permeate the radical eloquence of her tireless campaigning for female emancipation and social justice. This exhibition unpicks a few threads from the storehouse of this history to trace the slow turn of change and reformation in human affairs then and since.
Place, People & Living Memory, includes: an extended photo-essay; current practice in painting; photography; AV film, sound work and participatory events with the intent to show rather than tell. The artefacts on show serve to explore the shifting status of civic pride in the township of Darlington; celebrate the legacy of locally driven radicalism for social reform; the close alliance of Pease family ancestry with activist figures operating regionally, nationally and internationally; the sense of belonging borne of working together to invigorate the commonality of social justice; and reveal the lived experience of collision between privilege, oppression and transformation
Artist practitioners presenting work in the show are: Dave Allinson (AV Film); Pip Dickens (Painting); Alec Gatenby (Print Media & AV film); Claire Grey (Photography); Bridie Jackson (Docusong); Karen Melvin (Photography); Pat Naldi (Essay text & Film); Alicia Paz (Painting, Photography & Print) ); Nicky Peacock (Sculpture); Jo Spence (Photography); Tereza Stehlikova (Film); and Ikuko Tsuchiya (Photography).
EVENTS PROGRAMME
The exhibition is accompanied by an extensive events programme, details below, all events are aimed at adults, free of charge and are held in the Art Gallery at Darlington Library, open Monday – Saturday during standard Darlington Library opening hours.
Place, People & Living Memory Exhibition Tour & Talk – Phil Gatenby, Curator
Darlington Library, Gallery, Monday 5th February 2024, 2.00pm – 3.30pm
Phil Gatenby, Curator, will outline the story behind the show, why so? and other questions this might raise.
Place, People & Living Memory Exhibition Tour & Talk – Phil Gatenby, Curator
Darlington Library, Gallery, Thursday 15th February 2024, 2.00pm – 3.30pm
Phil Gatenby, Curator, will outline the story behind the show, why so? and other questions this might raise.
Place, People & Living Memory Exhibition Tour & Talk – Ikuko Tsuchiya, Exhibiting Artist
Darlington Library, Gallery, Tuesday 20th February 2024, 2.00pm – 3.30pm
Ikuko Tsuchiya will talk about her current photography work with the NHS & Health Care.
Place, People & Living Memory Exhibition Tour & Talk – Karen Melvin, Exhibiting Artist
Darlington Library, Gallery,Tuesday 27th February 2024, 2.00pm – 3.30pm
Karen will talk about her work as a fine art based photographer.
Place, People & Living Memory Exhibition Tour & Talk – Phil Gatenby, Curator
Darlington Library, Gallery, Tuesday 5th March 2024, 2.00pm – 3.30pm
Phil Gatenby will talk about the photographic work made by Jo Spence, the art of transgression and the impact of her work in her lifetime and its influence since.
Place, People & Living Memory Exhibition Tour & Talk – Learning Curator, Mima, Claire Pounder
Darlington Library, Gallery, Tuesday 12th March 2024, 2.00pm – 3.30pm
Claire Pounder, Learning Curator at Mima will talk about her approach to people powered stories, posing the question: who is Elizabeth Pease?
Place, People & Living Memory Exhibition Tour & Talk – Exhibiting Artist, Nicky Peacock
Darlington Library, Gallery, Tuesday 19th March 2024, 2.00pm – 3.30pm
Nicky Peacock will talk about art-making, isolation and bodily autonomy
Place, People & Living Memory Exhibition Tour & Talk – Phil Gatenby, Curator
Darlington Library, Gallery, Monday 25th March 2024, 2.00pm – 3.30pm
Phil Gatenby, Curator, will outline the story behind the show, why so? and other questions this might raise.
We hope you enjoy exploring the exhibition and events if you can make it to Darlington Library!
Booking is open now for three free and family friendly sessions for ages 8 years plus which are fast approaching at Darlington Library with all materials provided. Early booking is recommended.
Date: Saturday 27 January 2024
Time: 1.30pm – 3pm
Grow Your Own Creativity Paper Craft Workshop with Cabinet of Curiosity Studio: Make a Paper Palace
Click here to book your place on this session.
Join artists Caroline and Edmond of Cabinet of Curiosity Studio in making a paper architecture model of a glass house based on the Crystal Palace. The Crystal Palace inspired the Victorian fashion for greenhouses and was the creative catalyst for Darlington designers Richardson and Ross whose glass constructions were renowned across the UK and Europe.
This is a free family friendly activity suitable for ages 8 years plus. All materials will be provided, including the flat sheet paper toy model to make, alongside opportunity to customise your model using paper collage material.
Funding for this project has been provided by Arts Council England and Creative Darlington.
Date: Saturday 3 February 2024
Time: 1.30pm – 3pm
Grow Your Own Paper Craft Workshop with Cabinet of Curiosity Studio: Make Your Own Tunnel Book Art
Click here to book your place on this session.
Join artists Cabinet of Curiosity Studio in making ‘tunnel book’ art. Using a variety of paper and paper crafting techniques, you will learn how to make your own tunnel book inspired by nature that will give the illusion of depth and perspective through a series of paper scenes.
This is a free family friendly activity suitable for ages 8 years plus. All materials will be provided including templates to help get you started.
Funding for this project has been provided by Arts Council England and Creative Darlington.
Date: Saturday 10 February 2024
Time: 1.30pm – 3pm
Grow Your Own Creativity Paper Craft Workshop with Cabinet of Curiosity Studio: Roses and Crowns
Click here to book your place on this session.
Join artists Cabinet of Curiosity Studio in crafting floral and regal motifs inspired by the ornamentation found within the architecture of Darlington Library. There will be the scope to create a mobile incorporating your paper creations.
This is a free family friendly activity suitable for ages 8 years plus. All materials will be provided.
Funding for this project has been provided by Arts. Council England and Creative Darlington.
As part of their close down The Bridge Centre for Visual Arts (Charity Reg No 1170869, Company Reg No 10034251) are looking to sell off various assets. One is an Abig Presse ungeared printing press with a 40 x 70cm print bed, model 170400 which they own. Further details of this model are available from the Abig website at https://www.abig.de/en/products/printing-presses/170400-printing-press-with-printing-plate-400x700mm-incl-printing-felt.
Included with the press currently owned by The Bridge Centre for Visual Arts are a set of cloths and the trolley with lockable wheels The Bridge Centre for Visual Arts currently use it on, as per picture above. They store the handle, bed and cloths separately and are prepared to consider any reasonable offers for the press and these as one lot. If you’re interested in finding out more about this opportunity of making an enquiry please contact Chris Clark, Director of The Bridge Centre for Visual Arts at chris@thebridgedarlington.org.uk
