FREELANCE CREATIVE PRACTITIONERS
Growing Knowsley’s Future – Celebrating Our Agricultural Past
PROJECT BRIEF
Location: This role is based in Knowsley and will be at a range of locations with travel within the region.
Anti-oppressive statement: Feedback is actively seeking to move through an anti-racist and anti-oppressive journey in every aspect of its work. We acknowledge that the environmental sector is less open to people from under-represented backgrounds, and we are strongly committed to identifying and correcting where we may be perpetuating patriarchal, white supremacist values and other forms of oppression in our organisational culture, partnerships, and community work. We especially want to hear from you if you feel that you have lived experience of power structures preventing you from accessing opportunities like this.
ABOUT US
Feedback is a UK- and Netherlands-based campaign group working for food that is good for people and planet. We want a world where:
- All people have secure access to delicious, culturally appropriate food that is nutritious and does not cause environmental harm
- Global supply chains, farming and fishing contribute to food sovereignty, good livelihoods, mitigate climate change and enable nature to thrive
- Communities have agency to create food economies that are inclusive, equitable, resilient and celebratory
To meet these objectives, we carry out the following activities:
- We delegitimize corporations
- We ideate and advocate for policy change and regulation
- We nurture community agency
- We widen our circle of allies
- We change culture and public discourse
Our current strategy framework can be found here:
https://feedbackglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Feedback-Strategic-Framework-2023-1.pdf
ABOUT THE COMMISSION
Feedback works for food that is good for the planet and its people.
We are commissioning freelance creative practitioners to support our project exploring the agricultural history of the borough of Knowsley. The project aims to explore how Knowsley has shifted from being predominantly agricultural to ‘food desert’ since the Second World War. We will be working with Knowsley Archives to investigate and catalogue previously untapped records, working closely with community groups across the borough to document and celebrate local history and traditions relating to food and farming, and working with artists and in partnership with local community colleges to share this work through an exhibition and online content.
Some of the project activity will take place at our base on the Knowsley Estate, where we will be able to hold workshops focused on craft, cooking and storytelling. This is undergoing some capital works to make the site more easily accessible. The project will involve people of all ages living in Knowsley, working with freelance artists and the core project delivery team.
The project is funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. We are looking for people who can help us reach the outcomes we specified in our project application; work on exhibition materials and create a legacy for the future. Consultants will have to work with NLHF’s guidance in mind for accessibility and inclusion in developing appropriate activities.
PROJECT TIMESCALE
Appointment of creative consultants: February 2025
Project activity: March 2025 – September 2025
Launch of exhibition: November 2025
Project completion and final reporting: February 2026
THE ROLE OF THE CREATIVE PRACTITIONERS
The Creative Practitioners will:
- Work with us to plan creative and engaging activities for the project.
- Design appropriate activities to deliver the main outcomes of the project, bearing in mind that participants will include children and vulnerable adults. We anticipate that the practitioners will work with our evaluation consultant to design resources which the project team can use to collect feedback from participants, with training as needed.
- Carry out historical research – we are keen to hear about your suggested approach to delivery of activities that reflect the outcomes and theme of the project.
- Work alongside our community officers to engage participants in the design of the activities and workshops.
- Support the creation of exhibition quality materials.
- Provide progress feedback at an agreed midpoint, and at the end of the project to our steering group.
Specific briefs. You may apply for one or several. Budgets are listed below.
- Telling Stories (£3,200). The freelancer will work to support the
documentation of oral testimonies within the project. They will work to capture people’s thoughts, knowledge and stories through different mediums such as audio and visual recordings. Our community officers will support this work, training groups of young people in techniques for capturing stories.
- The freelancer we engage will deliver videography and photography workshops for those participants.
- They will support with the documentation of interviews with older people and retired farmworkers which will be facilitated by the community officers.
- They will work on preparing, editing and producing documents or digital items produced by community members.
- We estimate this work will require 4 days delivery plus 4 days collation.
- Seeing the Picture (£8,000). This is the visual part of the project, using photography, mapping, films to capture the essence of where the farms were, what’s there now and how that might be in the future.
- Creating large scale maps showing Knowsley of the past, present and future (see appendix x) that will also be digitalised so can be accessed via our website.
- Produce printed versions for the exhibition and for Knowsley Archives to have post project. Our community officers will work alongside practitioners with experience in psychogeography, filming and photography to run 12 engagement workshops and practical activity such as walking the bounds of a former farm.
- We will offer two training sessions in the use of different mediums such as filming and photography, plus two curation sessions afterwards to look at all the materials and select material for inclusion in the exhibition.
- The freelancer will work with our digital agency to deliver the digital mapping content.
- We estimate this work will require 16 days delivery plus 4 days collation.
- Eating Knowsley (£6,000). The edible heritage of the project exploring what used to be available or grown in Knowsley, creating a menu for the celebration event. Our preferred freelancer will design and deliver sessions and projects which enable participants to engage through taste, with the Farming Heritage in Knowsley.
- Work with participants to explore some key ingredients such as potatoes which were grown in Knowsley and supplied Liverpool markets.
- Deliver a potato planting workshop in containers at Stockbridge Village Primary School.
- As part of a team, organise and deliver a visit to the National Trust property Speke Hall for an Apple Day, a celebration of heritage apples on the 28th September. We have funding from the King’s Coronation Fund to run this event and cover costs of including transport.
- Drawing on the memories of participants (see project plan tasks 11a and 11b) to reproduce and research heritage recipes and methods for preserving food such as pickling, jams, chutneys; using apples; baking breads made from flours of heritage grains previously grown in the area and potato scones.
- Deliver 10 cookery workshops to share how to make these recipes and 4 planning sessions over what works for the celebration event (see project plan 11f).
- Attendance at Apple Day. Link also to project plan 11e and the crafting activities.
- We estimate this work will require 15 days
- Craft Creativity (£6,800). Deliver a participatory project mobilising creative and craft practitioners within our community.
- Building on research conducted by project staff, mobilise the local community to engage with, reinterpret and disseminate key learning from the research project though both heritage and contemporary crafts.
- Examples might be working with textiles, making banners, embroidery or knitting.
- In addition to the methods agreed by participants, work with the community to produce potato printed tablecloths or napkins that can be used at the celebration event (project plan 11f).
- We estimate this work will require 13 days delivery plus 4 days collation.
- Building on research conducted by project staff, mobilise the local community to engage with, reinterpret and disseminate key learning from the research project though both heritage and contemporary crafts.
Our priorities are to:
- Deliver high quality experiences of participation that support learning, engagement, celebration and inclusion for all.
- Create opportunities for participants to codesign and shape the project focus.
- Ensure we meet the National Lottery Heritage Fund’s four priority outcomes: saving heritage; protecting the environment; inclusion, access and participation; organisational stability.
- Support participants’ wellbeing, engagement in learning and pride in place.
- Support participants’ interest in heritage and sustainability issues in their community.
- Succeed in making the project as accessible as possible to local people and reach our priority audiences (identified in our NLHF application as communities facing economic and educational disadvantage, young people under 25, older people over 65, and agricultural workers).
- Identify successful approaches which could be replicated in future projects and provide recommendations for further community activity engaging with local food heritage.
The project team will support the collection of data and take responsibility for ensuring that material is provided in a timely and appropriate format to the evaluator.
A copy of the project plan, and press release is attached for information.
BUDGET
Telling Stories – practitioner fee £3200
Seeing the Picture – practitioner fee £8000
Eating Knowsley – practitioner fee £6000
Craft Creativity – practitioner fee £6800
Please note it is our practice to pay fees 50% on acceptance of contract, 30% at the halfway point and 20% on completion. Invoices will be required. Expenses incurred as budgeted below will be settled within 2 weeks once receipts are provided.
There is an overall budget of £9250 for materials, travel and food costs for the practitioners to access.
There is an additional £16,000 set aside for exhibition materials and printing.
Both these budgets are at the discretion of the Senior Project Manager and must be discussed and authorised before incurring expenditure.
TO APPLY FOR THIS CONTRACT
Please provide a CV plus an outline of your approach to this tender (no more than 2 pages) setting out:
- which piece(s) of work you are interested in and why
- previous experience of delivering similar projects
- your suggested approach to this piece of work
- details of 2 people we can contact for a reference
- Please note a DBS check will be a condition of contract.
Tender documents should be emailed to:
lucy@feedbackglobal.org no later than 5pm on 3rd February 2025If necessary, interviews will be held in the week commencing 10th February 2025