Art Residency Management Masterclasses

Tender description

The British Council seeks a course leader to develop and deliver art residency masterclasses during Nov 21-Jan 22, following a poll/survey with local art entities to best meet their needs and aspirations. The programme content can be determined depending on the survey/poll results, in consultancy with the British Council, and delivered online. This may be in collaboration with a local partner such as the Ministry of Culture.The audiences for this project are arts organizations, art galleries and artists who are interested in enhancing their knowledge and experience about art residencies. Lot 1: Saudi Arabia has been going through a period of rapid change in response to the country's Vision 2030, one of which is establishing the Ministry of Culture (MoC) in June 2018. Since then, the MoC has launched its vision and strategy for the future and worked rapidly to achieve the Kingdom's Vision by announcing a series of initiatives. Among those initiatives is the first country-wide MoC-led residency programme. There is also an interest from arts organizations and artists to develop infrastructure to support artists' practice and skills through artist residencies. Throughout 2019, the British Council supported a series of scoping visits for Saudi artists to learn about opportunities in the UK and for Saudi cultural organizations to meet with and find out more about the practicalities of setting up a successful residency programme in the UK. To continue the conversations and encourage further collaborations, we undertook an open call in 2020 to select UK organizations interested in continuing discussions with their Saudi counterparts to pilot a scheme in the next financial year. Through the learnings of the delegations, we realized that the need to develop art residencies both locally and internationally through partnerships is vital. Art residency programmes are substantial for artists as they offer artists space and time to reflect, research, practice, exchange skills and build professional networks. They are also international cultural exchange in the long term and the links and networks between art residency organizations and individual artists enrich the cultural discourse and strengthen the creative economy.