NewBridge Gallery is now closed until Friday 16 October.
You can join us on 5 September and 3 October for Saturday Social. You can still shop NewBridge Books throughout the weekdays!
Five creative practitioners will be selected to form the Programme Committee and will be supported to develop a public programme at The NewBridge Project! Apply by Monday 8 January, 5pm.
Join our programme committee!
Apply to our paid Programme Committee and work with a small group over 15-months from February 2024 to April 2025 to develop a series of public exhibitions and events.
Five creative practitioners will be selected to form the Programme Committee and will be supported to develop a public programme at The NewBridge Project.
Each committee member will receive:
Key dates
Deadline for applications: Monday 8 January 2024, 5pm.
An open day to find out more about the programme: Tuesday 12 December 2023 (either online or in-person). If you can’t make this, do get in touch via email instead.
Please note NewBridge will be closed to the public between 17 December and 2 January, so if you have any questions, please get in touch sooner rather than later via email or the open day.
Selection: January 2024 (with possible interviews held week beginning 15 January)
The 15-month Programme will take place from February 2024 to April 2025, including:
On the Programme Committee you will have the opportunity to explore ideas with others in a supportive environment, to learn together and create a public programme with our experienced team.
You will gain hands-on, tailored, practical and paid experience – exchanging ideas and research in a small group, planning how the programme will be structured and creating the framework for public activities, its content and how it engages audiences, as well as evaluating the activities alongside communities and audiences when they are complete.
Together with the other Committee members, you will be able to create a public programme that includes exhibitions, workshops, events, new commissions, screening programmes, readings and other forms devised by the Committee. We take an expansive and open approach to curating, programming and creative practice, welcoming diverse forms of art to be explored.
We encourage all applicants to think actively about our context and the intersecting communities that we work with. Our home is in the Shieldfield Centre, nestled at the edge of a residential area. We are an active studio with space and workshops for artists and creative practitioners, a social space for many different people locally, a gallery with a small cinema, a Reading Room, and a bookshop.
We also encourage responses to our organisational values, which centre on being experimental in approach, artist- and community-led, creating the conditions for collaboration and building solidarity, and responsive to social, political, and civic life.
To apply you need to submit a 2-page PDF (or a 2 minute video/ audio recording) via email to applications@thenewbridgeproject.com by 8 January 2024.
Please add title ‘YOUR NAME_Programme Committee Application’ in the PDF and email subject line.
In the application we would like you to tell us a bit about you, your interests, initial ideas and starting points.
Whether written, recorded or filmed, please respond to the guidance below, including:
1. Personal details
Identify any barriers you have experienced to pursing your creative or programming practice – these maybe social, mental, physical or along an axis of class, race, gender. A few lines will suffice i.e. “I have caring responsibility and have not had time/ space to participate in development opportunities before”.
2. Tell us why you would like to join the Programme Committee in 2024 (in up to 400 words)
This could include:
3. A short proposal (up to 500 words)
Here you can outline your interests and initial idea/s for an exhibition or public activity. We’ve included some prompts, but please do suggest things beyond these.
This could include:
We welcome ideas along a spectrum from the notional and vague to the more fully formed and concrete. There is space for both leading on ideas and supporting others. The full programme will be developed by the Committee in a cooperative and collaborative manner.
4. Equal Opportunities and Diversity Monitoring Form
We encourage applicants to complete our Equal Opportunities and Diversity Monitoring Form, which helps us monitor the diversity of our organisation and our work. Your responses will be treated with full confidentiality. If there are any questions you would rather not answer, please just tick ‘prefer not to say’ or skip to the next question.
Who is it for?
We are interested in hearing from people who are:
We welcome applications from artists, curators, producers, organisers, and other creative practitioners who are keen to develop public activity at NewBridge.
You don’t need to have lots of experience or a track-record. NewBridge will nurture the committee throughout, and we will identify with you any areas for training or development that will support you to take part.
At least three of the five places will go to residents in the North of Tyne region (Newcastle, North Tyneside, and Northumberland).
At least two of the five committee places will be reserved for anyone who has experienced barriers to pursuing a practice in the arts sector.
Selection Process
This year’s selection panel will include Grace Denton (artist and studio holder), Rebecca Huggan (Director), Dan Russell (Artist Development Programmer), Frances Stacey (Director, maternity cover).
Selection will be based on your enthusiasm for working as a group and with others, openness to other people and their ideas, imagination and potential of the ideas proposed.
We will select people with a range of backgrounds and experiences to have a dynamic, complimentary mix on the committee. At least two will face barriers to involvement in the arts and at least three will have North of Tyne postcodes (as reiterated elsewhere). We will also prioritise those that are committed to working together in person.
Get in touch
If this Open Call appeals to you, if you have an inclination you’d like to apply and have some ideas, then read the guidance and FAQs, come to an open day, ask us questions, and apply.
Contact Frances Stacey via email on frances@thenewbridgeproject.com if you have any questions.
Application Packs are available for you to download in either Word or PDF format. All documents are provided in large print. These Packs contain all the information found here on the website.
The NewBridge Project is an active artist-led community that supports artists, curators, and communities through the provision of space for creative practice, curatorial opportunities and an ambitious artist-led programme of exhibitions, commissions, artist development and events. NewBridge moved in 2021 to the Shieldfield Centre, Newcastle upon Tyne.
NewBridge’s building houses an art gallery, artists’ bookshop, The Reading Room, over 100 artists’ studios and workspaces: hot desk space, hireable project spaces, and workshops: dark room, ceramics workshop, wood workshop, a print workshop with Risograph Press.
NewBridge’s Programme Committee is a vital part of our artist-led approach to programming, ensuring that many voices, interests, and practices are represented through NewBridge’s exhibitions, commissions, and events. Past committee exhibitions include Hidden Civil War, Deep Adaptation, Overmorrow, Blazing New Worlds, Staking the Claims on the Distance, and Socially Awkward.
A supportive, paid, and hands-on opportunity. That will include space to get to know one another and space to identify shared values and ways of working. You will get to know our context and our team, try ideas out and be nurtured to realise the Committees ideas.
Each committee member will receive a fee of £5760 (this is based on the rate of £12 per hour for up to 60 days’ work over 15-months).
The budget for exhibitions and projects is £30,000 (based on £6000 for 5 projects). There is additional budget for marketing, access (for committee members and audiences), documentation of the projects, and development opportunities.
You are expected to work with the Programme Committee for 15 months from February 2024, based on one day per week (up to 60 days in total).
Prioritise the important dates listed above, including the initial workshops and monthly programme meeting, as they will be vital for setting the scene, getting to know one another, and establishing the collaborative approach. We appreciate applicants will be working around other commitments and the rest of the Committee time is flexible, based on one day a week over 15 months.
Aside from attendance on the listed key dates, we expect the committee to be curious, eager to learn, open and committed to working with others. You will be expected to develop and deliver a public programme, but you will be provided lots of support to realise your ideas as a group.
Due to the conditions of our funding and desire to support the local scene, at least three places on the programme will be awarded to residents based in North of Tyne area (Newcastle, North Tyneside, and Northumberland).
We’ve broken the application process down, providing hints and tips within the ‘How to Apply’ section. If you respond to these points, then you will include all we are looking for. Don’t feel like you need to be restrained to just these prompts – please do give more information where appropriate.
Specificity and detail are important for us: this might take the form of you having an idea in mind where you can – for example – name artists you’d like to work with OR it might be giving us as much information as possible about a less tangible idea e.g. outlining an area of interest that you’d like to use this opportunity to learn more about, research further and so on.
It’s alright not to know everything, if you give us starting points and are keen to learn with others or learn through public activity.
Great! Whatever suits you. You might like to use voice-notes or film yourself using something like Zoom. You might have other more sophisticated methods – all are good with us. We recommend making some notes so you hit the main points outlined in the ‘How to Apply’ section, and you might like to have a practice run. Record the practice run in case you nail it first time!
Support will be provided by NewBridge staff, your peers on the Programme Committee, and invited guests. Our team have lots of creative and practical skills in making exhibitions, events and programmes happen, and will support you to realise your ideas together. This will include the initial getting-to-know one another activity; establishing how to work together; researching and developing ideas; producing activity and exhibitions; documenting, reflecting, and evaluating; managing budgets; commissioning artists and practitioners and many other things that will become apparent during the 15 months. Learning-by-doing in the supportive NewBridge environment will be supplemented by specific training and skills development related to your needs and ideas.
We have additional funding for access and to support people for taking part in the committee.
We will be inviting everyone who takes part in the committee to complete an access rider, which helps us to understand any access requirements that will enable you to take part in the committee. An access rider can also tell us about the conditions in which your work best. We
See this guide from Access Docs for Artists for help on how and why to make an access document or rider and further information on Disability Arts Online.
You will have the opportunity to create an exhibition or public programme with a budget and tailored support.
You will get paid work with others in small committee of five practitioners.
A chance to meet new people and invite people to the city.
A chance to develop ideas in a group.
Workshops and development opportunities to learn new skills and build confidence.
Resources to test out and explore ideas through exhibition making and events programme.
The funding and support to commission other artists or bring artworks and ideas into dialogue with one another.
The chance to learn about hosting events, bringing together groups of people, thinking about audience and who gets to take part in art making.
The NewBridge Project is a charity, registered charity no. 1173849.
We are grateful to our funders, including Arts Council England, Newcastle City Council, Garfield Weston Foundation, Jerwood Foundation, Community Foundation North East, Newcastle University and the The North East Mayoral Strategic Authority.
We are proud to be a Gallery of Sanctuary.
