Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA) is inviting applications for up to 3 student or alumni collectives or groups to become part of our new Residents Programme, starting in autumn 2021. It’s an exciting initiative developed to broaden the voices, relationships, and lines of inquiry of the CCA.
Overview of Residents
Residents will see up to 10 community and student groups take up residence in the John Garcia Family Foundation Gallery (the first gallery as you enter the building) over the long-term. Each will use the space on a regular schedule – either weekly, fortnightly, monthly – to host their activities, as an additional resource for their core work. Residencies will last 1 year (reviewable depending on emerging needs and priorities).
Residents will proactively increase community links and voices within the CCA, allow us to share our resources, encourage conversation, and examine potentials for collaboration and partnership. The project grew from the conversations instigated by the Black Lives Matter protests, and reflection on how the gallery runs.
In preparation for Residents, the John Garcia Family Foundation Gallery at the CCA is being redesigned as a multifunctional learning and engagement space to support different needs. It will be able to host activities ranging from talks, to events, performances, screenings, reading groups and educational visits. The re-formulation of the space will be led by an architect or designer (still to be appointed) and co-designed with resident groups themselves. The design process is starting in summer 2021 and will run into the autumn.
Residents will begin with a small number of groups (developing and strengthening pre-existing community links, and instigating new invitations), and grow as we fundraise in order to be able to expand upon and work with new and additional communities in the future.
Background and aims
At Goldsmiths CCA learning with and from our constituent audiences is a key part of how we want to grow and develop as an organisation. We are a relatively new space (having only opened in September 2018) and are committed to reforms and new initiatives which embed anti-racist approaches and practices.
Through Residents, we want to create conditions for different communities who make up the local ecosystem (with a focus on those under-represented at the CCA and other cultural spaces), to benefit from and share in our resources.
Our ambition for Residents is to develop as a site for collaboration, and to be open and relevant to different local communities and where artistic, academic and experiential forms of expertise can intersect.
Presently, some of the groups involved include A Particular Reality, Alchemy, The Ambient Jam Collective, BlackGold Collective and St James Hatcham Primary School.
Through Residents we aim to:
• Open up the university’s resources to local artists and community groups/practices
• Demonstrate the relevance of art to everyday life
• Understand what cultural forms and modes of practice feel most relevant and pressing to the daily experiences of people in our locality, and learn from these as an organisation
• Support, amplify and extend work in our locality to change outcomes for marginalised and under-represented communities
• Enable many more people to access and benefit from art, culture and creative learning
• Encourage the exchange of ideas between invited groups with possible unexpected outcomes beyond the scope of the gallery itself.
The space
The Residents space will be on the ground floor of the CCA. It is lined on one side with large windows letting in natural light. The space is in close proximity to both the gallery entrance/front desk and the Café. Five toilets are located on the floor below, accessible via stairs and a lift, and have a baby changing facility. The re-design process will ensure that it is possible to black out the space and change the environment if privacy is needed. Equipment such as a projector, laptop and speakers will be available. Groups will be involved in the development of the space to relay needs and input ideas into the process.
Your involvement
We are looking to support a range of different groups. Perhaps you are part of a discussion group, or a studio group? It could be a collective established to support LGBTQI+ practices, or to look at a specific issue or idea you and your peers are interested in. Maybe you want to start a reading group or a crit club, or a have a research practice that needs support and opening out to an audience? It can be an established group or collective, or maybe you wish to form something new. Perhaps you have a desire to partner with students from a completely different part of the university, or graduates who have left and are working in another field.
Application
We are looking to select up to 3 student/alumni groups to join the project in its first year via open call. To be eligible as an alumni group you need to have graduated within the last 2 years.
To apply email a statement of interest to goldsmithscca@gold.ac.uk answering the following questions:
• What is the name and membership of your group?
• How would you describe your purpose and core activities?
• How would you want to use a regular space at CCA and what would you propose doing?
• How would being a Resident extend or add value to your core activity as a group?
• How often would you want to use the space and at what time(s) of the week?
• What spatial conditions would you need in order to do your work (room set up and equipment)?
• Would you need any additional funds to realise your proposal (we have up to £1500 per group per year available)?
Applications can be made via text or by video. Please ensure that written applications are no longer than 500 words and video applications are no longer than 5 minutes.
We are interested in hearing from groups and communities of practice from across the University – all disciplines welcome. In applying please consider how regular use of a space at the CCA, and a relationship with us as an art gallery, can support your own needs and aims as a group.
The deadline for applications is midnight on Sunday 25th July. Successful groups will be notified in early August.
If you have any questions please contact our Engagement Curator, Trish Scott t.scott@gold.ac.uk .
Goldsmiths Design Blog 