Background The Americas IN Britain 2018 The Caribbean Edition Open Call for Caribbean-based curator British Council and National Portrait Gallery Instagram Residency Collaboration 2018 The Caribbean and the UK have been inter-connected for centuries. Four significant anniversaries (The Windrush, the NHS, the Notting Hill Carnival and Black History Month) are being marked in Britain this year, testimony to the impact the Caribbean diaspora continues to have on contemporary British society. The British Council strives to create spaces in which open dialogue between cultures can flourish, by bringing together innovative minds to explore shared ideas and connect diverse cultural identities and artistic expressions. Working closely with Caribbean and British partners, the British Council, in partnership with the National Portrait Gallery, is creating an opportunity for one Caribbean curator to collaborate with one National Portrait Gallery curator, to co-develop and showcase work selected from the National Portrait Gallery s archive which will be placed in dialogue with contemporary Caribbean practice, through an Instagram residency that responds to the anniversaries. The suites of images will appear on the National Portrait Gallery s and British Council s Instagram platforms from June through August 2018. The Instagram residency aims to question what these historical moments in Britain s history mean in its multicultural, pluralistic society. It also looks at its meaning within the Caribbean, a region still grappling with brain drain to highly developed industrialized nations while simultaneously impacting the Global North positively through the power of its creative force evidenced in its contributions to music, literature, film, dance, performance and festival culture. By marking these different moments, the project will explore, through the arts, the subjects of migration, health and the presence of the Caribbean in Black British culture and carnival. About the British Council The British Council is the UK s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities. We create friendly knowledge and understanding between the people of the UK and other countries. We do this by making a positive contribution to the UK and the countries we work with changing lives by creating opportunities, building connections and engendering trust. We work with over 100 countries across the world in the fields of arts and culture, English language, education and civil society. Last year we reached over 65 million people directly and 731 million people overall including online, broadcasts and publications. Founded in 1934, we are a UK charity governed by Royal Charter and a UK public body.
About the National Portrait Gallery Founded in 1856, the aim of the National Portrait Gallery, London is to promote through the medium of portraits the appreciation and understanding of the men and women who have made and are making British history and culture, and to promote the appreciation and understanding of portraiture in all media. The Gallery holds the most extensive collection of portraits in the world. The Collection is displayed in London and in a number of locations around the United Kingdom, including several houses managed by the National Trust. The Gallery aims to bring history to life through its extensive display, exhibition, research, learning, outreach, publishing and digital programmes. These allow us to stimulate debate and to address questions of biography, diversity and fame which lie at the heart of issues of identity and achievement. The National Portrait Gallery aims to be the foremost centre for the study of and research into portraiture, as well as making its work and activities of interest to as wide a range of visitors as possible. Project Description The British Council and the National Portrait Gallery are looking to hire a Caribbean curator who will collaborate with a National Portrait Gallery based curator on an Instagram residency to launch the Caribbean edition of the Americas IN Britain project. Together, the two curators will work in partnership to collaboratively respond to four significant anniversaries, historic moments and their legacies which mark Caribbean-British people as signifiers in contemporary British society. The project team will also include the Head of Social Media at the National Portrait Gallery and Regional Arts Manager Americas, British Council. The project will span a 5 month digital programme (June-October 2018) and take full advantage of the visibility of National Portrait Gallery s digital platform (which has 600k followers) supported by a robust social media campaign and mark the launch of the British Council s Regional Arts Instagram account with this residency. The programme will be launched with one Instagram story (prepared by the NPG in consultancy with the BC) plus one post announcing the BC and NPG partnership. Following this, each anniversary will consist of an Instagram story and 2 posts (one from the NPG Curator and one from the Caribbean-based curator showcasing a gallery of Caribbean artists responding to the NPG s image), with the Instagram story being featured on the main National Portrait Gallery Instagram page. Each set of posts (1 Instagram story, 2 posts) would be featured on the four anniversaries, marking the events from June through October, hosted on NPG s Instagram channel (www.instagram.com/nationalportraitgallery) and supported by British Council s digital platforms (via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and country sites) with extensive captions, hashtags and partner tagging and reinforced with a parallel digital campaign.
In addition to the four milestone posts, a collection of images from the Instagram stories will feature on the National Portrait Gallery s Instagram page during each anniversary period to assure the audiences will have enough chances to be exposed to the programme. In addition to the residency period, these images could also be used indefinitely in other platforms such as British Council websites in order to revisit the campaign and promote the content as needed, therefore copyright clearance for all images is a must. Each participating artist and curator will be required to write two (2) blog entries highlighting the experience and work process, which will be featured on British Council s country sites in order to reinforce the impact with a parallel digital campaign and promote different customer journeys. About the Curator The Caribbean-based curator will work collaboratively with two curators at the National Portrait Gallery, London: Sabina Jaskot-Gill, Associate Curator Photographs and Louise Stewart, Cross Collections Curator. This international cultural partnership will encourage deep engagement across the Collection and rich conversations resulting in dynamic digital content. Timeline Deadlines for submissions: May 18 2018. Selection of Caribbean-based curator: May 21 2018 Caribbean curator informed: May 22 2018 National Portrait Gallery / British Council partnership announced: Monday June 21 2018 Instagram residency 1 launched: June 22 2018 Instagram residency 2 launched: July 2 2018 Instagram residency 3 launched: August 26 2018 Instagram residency 4 launched: October 1 2018 Caribbean-based curator s report and budget: October 15 2018 Open Call for a Caribbean-based Curator Independent curators and those with institutional affiliations may apply. Applications from both established and emerging curators (3+ years of professional experience) will be considered. A selection team comprising representatives from the National Portrait Gallery, the British Council, independent historians and the chief curator of the National Art Gallery of the Bahamas will co-select the Caribbean curator to collaborate on the Instagram residency with the National Portrait Gallery curator. The successful curator will be informed by May 22 nd.
APPLICATION GUIDELINES: To be considered as co-curator for the 2018 The Americas IN Britain The Caribbean Edition Instagram Residency, a full application must contain the following: A brief bio of 500 words on your curatorial practice; A letter of approximately 700 words (1 page) describing the proposal for the Instagram residency. This should include a short summary on the reasons why this project is important in this moment, your curatorial approach as well as the names of any artists, curators, collections, archives, or institutions in the Caribbean the curator hopes to include or work with; A suite of 5-10 images of possible works with an image list. Given the collaboration with the National Portrait Gallery, the focus is on portraiture; A Curriculum Vitae (abridged to no more than 3 pages); Budget with allocation of grant Format: The required documents should be sent by email to andrea.dempsterchung@britishcouncil.org.jm and Silvia.Lunazzi@britishcouncil.org.br by 11:59 pm on May 18 th with The Americas IN Britain The Caribbean Edition in the subject line. The bio, letter, images and image file list, CV, and budget with allocation of grant, should be page-numbered and sent as one single PDF. Incomplete applications will not be accepted or reviewed. The grantee will receive a total budget of 4,000 which includes a fee for the curator and a fee for the artists. The grantee will be responsible for remunerating the artists whose work is included in the Instagram residency. On completion of the residency, a report of approximately 1,000 words on the outcomes of the Instagram residency is required, together with a budget outlining how the money was spent. This should also include a 500 word testimony which can be used for public consumption and shared through the British Council Caribbean website. For further information or questions, please contact Silvia.Lunazzi@britishcouncil.org.br andrea.dempsterchung@britishcouncil.org.jm or About the Four Anniversaries o 70th Anniversary of the Windrush Voyage (22 June 22 1948) On June 22nd 1948, the Empire Windrush made an 8,000 mile journey from the Caribbean and arrived at Tilbury Dock in London with 492 passengers on board from Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and other islands. This marked the beginning of post-war West Indian mass migration, part of Britain s attempt to recruit labour to provide employment in the public services for the NHS and the London Transport system, leading to the transformation of British society. Brixton fast became one of London s new West
These! Indian communities while the UK was witnessing the biggest wave of non-white immigration comprising a half million West Indians, themselves citizens of Britain, who enriched and transformed the country culturally and became Black British. o The National Health Service (5 July 1948) Since the 1930s, successive British governments recruited doctors, nurses and other health workers from overseas to work in UK health services with the first mass recruitment of nurses from the Englishspeaking Caribbean. Recruitment was aimed at three main categories of worker: hospital auxiliary staff, nurses or trainee nurses, and domestic workers. Senior NHS staff from Britain travelled to the Caribbean to recruit, and vacancies were often published in local papers. In 1949, the Barbados Beacon advertised for nursing auxiliaries to work in hospitals across Britain; applicants were to be aged between 18 and 30, literate, and willing to commit to a three-year contract. Over the next two decades, the British colonies and former colonies provided a constant supply of cheap labour to meet staffing shortages in the NHS, and the number of women from the Caribbean entering Britain to work in the NHS grew steadily until the early 1970s. By the end of 1965, there were 3,000-5,000 Jamaican nurses working in British hospitals, many of them concentrated in London and the Midlands. It has been estimated that by 1972, 10,566 students had been recruited from abroad, and that by 1977 overseas recruits represented 12 per cent of the student nurse and midwife population in Britain, of which 66 per cent came from the Caribbean. 1 nurses brought their culture with them and contributed to the transformation of British society. o o 60th Anniversary of Notting Hill Carnival - (August) This is the largest public street festival in Europe and the second largest Carnival celebration in the world, after Rio. Notting Hill Carnival began in 1966 with a group of 500 individuals from the British West Indian community and today it attracts about one million people. In 2006, the UK public voted it onto the list of icons in England. Marking the anniversary of this Caribbean cultural festival provides a great opportunity to explore different art forms, including masquerade, steel bands, calypso, reggae and sound systems. The roots of this carnival came out of a Caribbean Carnival in 1959 which was responding to race tensions in the UK. In 2017, the Notting Hill Carnival held one minute s silence over its two days of festivities in tribute to the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire, connecting back to the roots of its incarnation. The Notting Hill Carnival is a refashioning and reinterpretation of the Trinidad Carnival and represents the most iconic signature of the Black presence in the UK. This event encompasses the extremes of performance culture. It is not a singular art form but an integrated framework for live performances in public spaces that are rooted in a diversity of art forms involving the human body, space and time. 2 30th Anniversary Black History Month (June-October) Black History Month provides the British Council with yet another opportunity to connect Caribbean and UK artists by celebrating the contributions of Caribbean diasporic populations to the UK. Black History Month was refashioned to give meaning and teeth to the Race Relations and Equality Acts in the UK. 3 The National Portrait Gallery is launching a campaign in June around the 100 Great Black Britons event which will be revealed in October and our involvement in and contribution to this will be an effective wrap up to the Instagram residency. http://www.blackhistorymonth.org.uk/article/section/opinion/maureen-roberts-come-le-talk/
Chronogram May 2018 June 2018 June 2018 Selection and announcement of Caribbean curator to collaborate with National Portrait Gallery to codevelop the project. Initial meeting with British Council, National Portrait Gallery + Caribbean curator, National Portrait Gallery Head of Social Media & Regional Arts Manager Americas, British Council Instagram Take Over 1 July 2018 August 2018 October 2018 Instagram Take Over 2 Instagram Take Over 3 Instagram Take Over 4 1 http://www.historyandpolicy.org/policy-papers/papers/immigration-and-the-national-health-service-putting-history-to-the-forefron 2 3 http://www.blackhistorymonth.org.uk/article/section/bhm-intros/black-history-month-uk/ http://www.blackhistorymonth.org.uk/article/section/bhm-intros/black-history-month-uk/