but only for the PV
Hackney Art in Empty Spaces Programme
Call for
proposals
2013/14
Please complete all areas of the form relevant to you or
your organisation(s). If areas are not applicable please place N/A. Incomplete
applications will not be considered.
Please note the
Council can only provide access to the space and cannot provide any funding for projects submitted under this call for proposals.
YOUR DETAILS
1.
Name of your
organisation(s):
Degrees of Freedom
2.
Address and
telephone number/email/website of individual or lead organisation
Degrees of Freedom,
c/o Rebecca Feiner, Mother Studio, 5th Floor, Queens Yard, White Post Lane,
Hackney Wick, London E9 5EN, 07905 325304
Contact email
address: ahmedfarooqui@hotmail.com
3. If this is a consortium proposal, please complete this
section. Please give us the names, addresses and full telephone numbers of all
individuals/organisation(s) involved with the activity.
Rebecca Feiner, 30 Riverdene, Highbury Quadrant, London N5 2SZ,
07905 325304
Ahmed Farooqui, 36 Ashley Road, London N19 3AF
07981 014220
07981 014220
Roan Allen, 30 Leasowes Road, Leyton E10 7BE, 07946 508242
Graham Asker : 84
Station Road, Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, EN10 7AN 07595 369844
Esperanza Gomez-Carrera, 1b Ceylon Road, London W14 0PZ. 07879 601175
4.
Please circle one
of the options below to describe the status of you/organisation:
§ Registered charity (please provide your charity number)
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§ Company limited by guarantee (please provide your
company number)
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§ Company limited by shares (please provide your company
number)
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§ Sole Trader (please provide you Tax Self Assessment
Number)
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§ Other (please state): Artist Collective
5. Are you registered for VAT?
Yes VAT
number:
|
No
6. Please
describe (in no more than 200 words) the aims of your organisation/consortium
and how it is organised in terms of roles and responsibilities:
We are the Degrees of Freedom Artist Group, a collective of 5
artists working in a variety of mediums including sculpture, video and
installations.
Our aim is to
interrogate what it means to live in a free society.
Freedom is not
given, it has to be negotiated in each situation.
Freedom has limits,
and we must consciously decide what we want these limits to be, otherwise
others will decide it for us.
Our interventions
aim to investigate, make conscious and challenge the contours of freedom in
specific situations.
7. Please circle the category that most closely
describes you/ your organisation:
§ Artist/ organisation – professional
§ Artist/ organisation – amateur or voluntary
§ Community or voluntary organisation
§ Educational establishment
§ Health group or organisation
§ Trust or foundation
§ Youth group
§
Other (please
state): Artist Collective
YOUR ACTIVITY
8. What is the name
or working title of the activity you would like to deliver?
The Free Republic of Gillett Square
9.
Please give us a
description (in no more than 500 words) of the activity/installation you are
looking to carry out in Gillettt Square, please include detail of why you think
the chosen area is suitable for your activity e.g. location, size,
accessibility etc. Please use a separate sheet if necessary.
Tell us if your activity has any particular focus. Please include how
you intend to promote your activity and detail how you plan to engage with
Hackney Residents.
Gillettte square is an open and publicly accessible space, close
to shopping areas, well served by public transport, and small enough to be
managed with limited resources and has hosted many successful activities.
Its open layout promotes a “fairground” type of intervention
with many different activities happening adjacent to each other. The small businesses that exist in the huts
would naturally become part of any such intervention without interfering with
their business in anyway.
We believe that Gillett Square is not being used to its full potential
as a public space. At the moment it feels like an isolated, grey and
unwelcoming space not conducive to social activities. It is cut off from the vibrancy and utility
of Kingsland Road and Ridley Road market and is used mainly as a cut through to
other places. There is little to attract
or hold families or children or young people so nobody hangs around apart from
the drinkers who have nowhere to go. The Square itself is festooned with signs
prohibiting this, that and the other.
So in mid summer 2014, for one day only, we
will declare the FREE REPUBLIC OF GILLETT SQUARE and invite people to take-up
citizenship and enjoy the amenities that we will create.
Everyone who enters
will be offered a Free Passport which will entitle them to participate in the
activities described below. Citizens
will collect stamps on the basis of their participation in our activities or
attendance at the various cafes and other businesses in the square. Six stamps will entitle them to a “treat” at
a Rewards tent.
Giant welcome mat
installations will greet people at each of the 3 main entrances.
The Square will be
festooned with flags, pennants and symbols of the Free Republic of Gillett
Square.
The Square itself
will be divided into a number of areas identified by distinct colourful matting
and other objects. So there may be a
beach, a garden, a ballroom, a pavement....
Each area will be governed by a set of playful rules set out on giant
sized boards. These rules will describe
behaviour that is either compulsory or prohibited for occupants of those spaces
(eg: you can only cross the pavement using hopscotch or a pogo stick, dance only with a hula hoop in
the ballroom, only cross the beach balancing a beachball on the nose etc ). Volunteers
in crazy “uniforms” will facilitate each space, encouraging people to get
involved. A PA system will broadcast
successes.
We will connect Gillett
Square to the adjacent heavily used spaces of Kingsland Road and Ridley Road
market by creating colourful footsteps on the pavements or string colourful
wool to lead people into Gillett Square. Selected stallholders from Ridley Road
market will be invited to occupy the centre of the square to add to its
amenities.
Engaging the public
is critical to the success of the project. We will invite participation from
the wider Hackney artistic community to work with us to manage the proposed
activities in the space. We will ask
schools in the neighbourhood to design the flag, passport and other symbols of
the new country of Gillett Square and to think about some of the rules that we
could have for it. We will get the local
press enthusiastic about the transformation of the square from a dramatic and
human interest point of view. And finally we will connect the Square with the
more vibrant parts of the borough through our footsteps and woollen trail installations.
10. Please indicate how long you would require the space
for and whether you would like to create a installation/event, a
series of events or a regular residency.
We will create a single one day event,
preferably on a Sunday between July and September when the weather is more
dependable. We will require one day
before the event to set up and a day after the event to clear up.
Please give details of the
participants and potential audiences involved in the project.
11. Approximately how many people will benefit directly from the project?
Tick all relevant boxes.
Individuals who will
gain employment through the activity
|
0
|
Volunteers
|
15-30
|
Participants
|
2-300
|
Audience (live- if Acts)
|
1-2000
|
Audience (broadcast, online, in writing)
|
30-50,000
|
12. Is your
project targeting a specific part of the community? State ethnicity, gender
and/or age if applicable:
The neighbourhood of Dalston. The aim is to bring in a mix of people that
genuinely reflect the area culturally, age, and background.
13.
Please tell us how this project will benefit the local
community and add value to the neighbourhood. Clearly state the
outputs and outcomes of your activity. You may continue your answer on an
additional sheet of paper, if necessary (max 500 words).
The project will
have a number of community benefits:
It will help people see the Square in a
different way. Our tongue in
cheek declaration of independence will bring Gillett Square to the
consciousness of Hackney residents in a positive way. It will give the Square an unfamiliar and
exciting identity, even if it is for just a day. The Free Republic of Gillett Square could
become a new brand for the Square focused on civic freedoms, participation, and
enjoyment of a public space.
The Project will help change attitudes
towards the Square. By issuing passports we will make people who regularly
use the Square as a short cut to pause and see it as a socially occupied space
where entry has to be consciously negotiated.
The project will bring a different mix of
people into the Square:
young people and families; those who want to spend time in the square instead
of just passing through. This will
benefit the businesses which are already in the Square.
The project will reclaim the Square for a
social purpose: The various
fun activities we organise will establish it as a social space and expand the
amenities, particularly for children, young people and families, in an amusing
way.
We will help integrate the Square with the
rest of the neighbourhood by
linking the Square with other parts of the immediate neighbourhood for the day
via our installations (footsteps and coloured wool trails) and by inviting
selected traders from Ridley road market into the square.
By directly involving local artists, schools,
and local businesses in the design and management of aspects of the event we
will enhance community engagement with the Square and ownership of the space.
Outputs:
- Managed events in the Square
- Games, rules, props
- Installations: Welcome Mats, Footsteps/coloured wool
trails
- Flags, signage, “passports”
- Publicity materials: leaflets, press releases
Outcomes:
- Positive change in public attitude to the Square
- A different and “fun” identity for Gillett Square
- Greater community ownership of the public spaces in Gillett
square
- More trade for traders in the Square
- Greater community pride in the Square
- Increased usage of the Square by groups that don’t
currently use it
- Achievement of cultural identity aspects of the school
curriculum
14.
Please give us a breakdown of how you aim to
finance the project?
Material costs the
project:
Materials for games and props £750
Materials for the installations £150
Printing costs £600
“Treats” £400
Total estimated costs £1,900
Labour costs of the
project
250 hours of design time
200 hours of delivery time
150 hours of marketing time
Total 600 hours @ £8.80 (London living wage) = £5,280
Funding sources for the
project:
The Labour costs of the project will be met by the Degrees of Freedom
Artist Group and their supporters in the Hackney Artist community who will
donate their skills, ideas and time to the project on a voluntary basis.
We are approaching both the Calleva Foundation and the New Neighbours
Fund for funding to cover the cost of materials for the project.
As far as possible we will be using recycled materials for the
installations and props to keep costs down and for sustainability.
15.
How will you monitor and evaluate your
activity?
We will keep a count of the number of people engaging with us
and the various activities in the Square. Feedback sheets. We will document the
event and undertake a debriefing with the volunteers to evaluate the event.
16.
What experience does your organisation have in
delivering similar activities?
Degrees of Freedom as an artist group has been in
existence for just a few months.
However, the individuals involved come from all walk of life and bring a
wealth of experience not limited to art practice and organising art events.
Ahmed Farooqui is a practicing sculptor and installation
artist with a background in public sector project management, working with
diverse community groups and events management.
He has worked for the Citizens Advice Bureau Service in Lambeth, the
Co-operative Development Agency in Tower Hamlets, the Refugee Council and
Hertfordshire County Council. In various
capacities he has raised funds for projects, set up services, organised
consultation events, promoted and marketed events, projects and services. He has experience of curating shows and
public arts project in a number of London venues.
Rebecca Feiner has experience of working in private and public,
community and education sectors, involving fundraising, community consultation and
PR. She co-founded an eco community garden project, worked for CRISIS, St Mungo's
and Single Homeless Project. Since 2012 she has worked as freelancer in PR,
project and brand management for both legal and artistic projects, including
award winning St Vitus studio creation, Salt Licks, a building made of salt to
illustrate coastal erosion in Lincolnshire. She is a practising artist and
curator based in Hackney Wick who has exhibited and curated both in the UK and
Europe.
Roan Allen has
experience in engaging with a diverse public, giving various artist talks as
part of the E17 Art Trail. His surveying and promotional work on behalf of
Artillery helped gauge both public and business responses to proposed art
projects. As well as an artist he has experience of curating shows, the latest
one at the Espacio Gallery in Shoreditch.
Graham Asker is a
chartered mechanical engineer with a masters degree in fine art and has
considerable experience in the areas of: design; construction and digital
technology. This experience has been used to support the establishment of two
art spaces. The basement space in “The Foundry”, Old Street and “The Bank Gallery”,
Whitechapel High Street.
Esperanza Gomez-Carrera
has worked in the organisation of cultural events in Spain and the United
Kingdom. She was the co-ordinator of visual arts in the 1st International
Congress of Brilliant Minds (‘El Ser Creativo’). ‘El Ser Creativo’ was held in
Málaga,during which events were held at the Picasso Museum and at the Centre of
Contemporary Arts. For many years she acquired sponsorship for the
International Festival of Music and Dance of Granada. She is a member of MALAGON,
an organisation of artistic events where various projects of cultural exchange
take place. Whilst living in London during the past years she has organised an
array of expositions in different locations throughout the city.
Date: 31st January 2014
completed application to olga.vandenbergh@hackney.gov.uk
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