Calling all local artists – exciting opportunity to help us tell our story!

Greener Kirkcaldy is a community-led charity and development trust working on a local scale to benefit people and their environment. We would like to see a future where everyone is able to heat their home affordably, eat well, and tread more lightly on our planet. We work towards that by delivering projects to meet the needs and aspirations of local people: tackling fuel and food poverty, protecting and enjoying the environment and bringing the community together.

Working in Kirkcaldy since 2009, we purchased our community building at 8 East Fergus Place, Kirkcaldy with funding from the Scottish Land Fund in 2017 and refurbished it with the help of a grant from the Big Lottery Fund’s Community Assets programme. We opened the building, which houses our new Lang Spoon Community Kitchens, as well as our office and an events space, to the public in April 2019.

We have an exciting opportunity for a local artist (or collective) to work with us to creatively and visually tell our journey of community ownership and its impact on our organisation and community.

This is part of a new project by Community Land Scotland and The Stove Network – Urban Journeys. Urban Journeys aims to dig down into individual stories of ownership for urban landowners, their communities and for others who are inspired to learn more about the impact community ownership can have for our local places. Artists will work closely within their commission to creatively tell and find active ways to share these stories to inspire and be a resource for other groups and communities in exploring the possibilities of ownership for themselves.

Our Commission

Our commission is for an artist (or collective) experienced in mural work and other forms of visual representation to create and produce a mural that tells our story and can be permanently installed on the internal walls of our main event space, as well as shared via online platforms (this could be through digitalisation or animated imagery of designs for example). The commissioned artist(s) will work collaboratively with us, engaging groups and individuals over a period of 6 weeks to research and understand our journey of community ownership and its impact for our community. The artist will use this exploration, along with research and archival material, to design the mural and digitalised works. We are particularly keen to communicate the work we do in tackling the climate emergency and bringing our community together.

We are interested in hearing from artists who have explored multiple outputs for the work they create, through documentation of process or digitalisation, so that the story can also be shared more widely and outside of the internal space. This is a creative commission to work in inclusive and creative ways, to ensure that the genuine story of Greener Kirkcaldy is told and is accessible to non-arts and diverse audiences. We are interested in proposals that have a consideration of how the final work will reach more marginalised groups, address accessibility needs and can be shared widely across multiple platforms.

Commission Details

This commission is to work directly with Greener Kirkcaldy, with support from Community Land Scotland who will be the contracting organisation. The commissioned artist(s) will receive a fee of £2,000 (inclusive of all materials and activity costs). There will be additional budget to support particular accessibility needs that can be accessed on agreement.

The artists will be expected to work for a 6-week period between November 2020 and February 2021. Proposals for engagement/production will be developed collaboratively between the commissioned artist and Greener Kirkcaldy with an Activity Plan for work submitted to Community Land Scotland by mid-December. Activity will then commence early January with final works created by the end of February. We expect this process will involve elements of research, online and direct activity, engagement and creation of final work.

How to apply

Community Land Scotland would like to hear from creative practitioners/artists with an initial response to the project and a short proposal to the brief (see brief below). We are interested in processes that are responsive, demonstrate a commitment to collaborative working and give a clear idea of the creative skills, local knowledge and tools they bring to developing this (see Criteria and Working).

Applications and questions should be submitted to Community Land Scotland – contact Kristina Nitsolova by emailing: kristina.nitsolova@communitylandscotland.org.uk. Deadline for applications is midnight on Sunday 8th November. Interviews will be held on Monday 16th November.

Find out more about the project, how to apply and criteria and working:

Urban Journeys overview (PDF)

Greener Kirkcaldy brief and application (PDF)

Criteria and Working (PDF)

You can find out more about the whole project, including the other urban landowners and commissions involved on the Community Land Scotland website. Community Land Scotland will be the commissioning body for the project, but are working with The Stove Network to support selection and coordination/management.