Thrive: Artist Call-Out

Are you a professional artist looking to develop your community practice? The Middle Floor can help!

Thrive is a  programme for 3 artists across a diverse range of art forms, to be mentored and deliver weekly, community focussed,  sessions at our arts centre in Leeds. We are excited by the opportunity to meet new creatives, expand our pool of community arts practitioners and encourage cross art collaboration.

At The Middle Floor, we feel passionately about supporting artists through our work. While our current programme predominantly supports dance, through the Thrive programme we will be able to expand our work to new artistic disciplines. The Middle Floor is run by experienced artists with backgrounds in community focussed practice, who have first-hand insight into the challenges faced by emerging artists. We are a grassroots organisation aiming to practically support artists and directly tackle the challenges they face.

Through Thrive, The Middle Floor will support three Leeds based artists across disciplines. This could be:

• Music

• Fine Art

• Photography

• Theatre

• Live Art

• Zine Making

• Book Binding

• Crafting

• Knitting

• Circus
  

Have an artistic practice? We want to hear from you!

This funding is for non-dance professionals. We have other programmes to support dance artists and you can see how to get involved through our For Artists page here.

What will you receive through Thrive?

• We will provide training and mentorship for the selected artists to deliver community focussed sessions in our venue, once a week from the beginning of January until the end of March. These sessions will be delivered one evening per week at our studio in Leeds city centre and artists must be able to commit to this in order to be accepted onto the programme. 

• We will ‘match-make’ between emerging community artists and established community arts practitioners to deliver and design a programme of mentorship that works for them, as well as 4 skills-based training workshops for the emerging artists covering: community teaching practice, marketing, business set up and safeguarding. These sessions will also be available for the wider professional arts community to attend. 

• By the end of the programme, the artists will be confident in the design and delivery of their creative community sessions, will have benefited from bespoke support and development for their creative practice, and will have built an audience for their work that will enable them to continue delivering their class beyond the programme. 

This is a paid opportunity:

You will be paid to attend the 4 workshops, for planning sessions with mentors, and for the weekly sessions. 

• Attendance at the 4 workshops paid at £126 per day.

• £35 per weekly hour long class.

• Up to 5 days of planning and mentoring at £126 per day.

Key Dates:

• Deadline for applications is 30/11/2024

• Shortlisted artists will be invited to interview on the 6th December

• Workshops will run from the 16th to the 19th December, these workshops will take place between the hours of 9am to 5pm and you must be available to attend all 4 workshops.

• Initial mentor sessions will take place either the 8th, 9th or 10th of January.

• Classes will run from the 13th January to the 4th April. 

How to Apply:

• Please complete this form by the 30th November.

• If you would prefer, you can complete a Video Application here.

• If you require an Easy Read application, please download here and send to middlefloor.leeds@gmail.com by 30th November.

FAQs

What is ‘community practice’?

Community Practice is a form of artistic activity that involves a community, and is often characterised by interaction and dialogue with the community. Community art can be created in any media, and often involves professional artists collaborating with people who may not normally engage in the arts. The class that you propose to us must be aimed at non-professional’s. 

I want to work with children, can I apply?

Unfortunately all class proposals must be aimed at 18+. 

I am a dance artist, can I apply?

This funding is for non-dance professionals. We have other programmes to support dance artists and you can see how to get involved through our website here

My practice isn’t listed above, can I still apply?

Yes! We want to hear from as diverse a range of art forms as possible

I want to run a fitness class, can I apply for this?

We will take this on a case by case basis. Send us an email on middlefloor.leeds@gmail.com with a short sentence about your class and we can have a chat. 

I have never run a class before, is this suitable for me? 

Yes, the purpose of this programme is to help an artist with an established professional practice develop a community practice. If you have never run a class before this programme is definitely for you!

What do you mean by the question ‘How is your proposed class idea different from other classes being delivered in Leeds?’

We want to know if you understand the context in which your practice sits. This can be done through a quick google of other classes in the area and then thinking about how what youre offering might fill a gap.

For example, you might want to offer a life drawing class and you can see that the only ones being delivered are at 10am on a Tuesday, and these are mainly aimed at retirees. Therefore, you would want to run YOUR life drawing session on a different weekday evening so that people aged 20 - 30 can join in their spare time.