Civic Imaginaries of Frome: Creative Collaboration Call

We are looking for a creative practitioner to work with us to creatively reflect our research experiences, data and findings in Frome and to produce a work that will provoke conversations, thinking and action.

Across our case-study neighbourhoods we are experimenting with different artistic forms to:

• Advocate for the value of imaginative practice in addressing civic challenges
• Develop creative ways of evoking, representing or embodying the civic imaginary
• Communicate a broad spectrum of thoughts, ideas, and alternative worlds, that can provoke audiences’ understandings of the civic imagination’s multiple affects, resonances and contradictions

The outcome from this and similar commissions in our other case-study neighbourhoods will complement our more traditional academic outputs (journal articles, policy papers and reports). They will showcase the unique potential of arts-research collaborations and enable collective thinking and imagining to challenge, test or solve real world issues.

What / Who we are looking for

The key task is to interpret, translate and synthesise our research into an artistic / creative work that has relevance for Frome’s communities and represents the civic imaginaries of the town.

We understand ‘artist’ in the widest sense to include all media and forms of practice. You might be a visual artist working with textiles or digital media, a musician, sound artist, poet, playwright (or anything else). Your practice might be socially engaged and participatory – or you might work on your own in a studio, workshop or greenhouse. If our project and this brief speak to you, we are open to all suggestions. We only have one exception which is that we are already working with film on the project. So, on this occasion, we are unlikely to fund an idea where film is a primary method or outcome.

Frome

Frome has a national reputation for its uniquely independent political culture. Over the past twenty years, it has contributed significantly to the development of new models of local governance and community engagement. We hope to learn about the kinds of imagining and agency that Frome has nurtured and if it is possible to transfer these to other places and contexts. Between November 2025 and March 2026, Michael and Ellen (the project researchers), will live and work in Frome and have co-designed the research foci and activities with partners from Green and Healthy Frome, Edventure’s Future Shed and Frome Town Council Communities Team. You can read more about how we are approaching the research in Frome here.

Factors to consider

1.The final work should be for the widest possible audience. However, as the research progresses, the artist/s may identify the need to engage a specific group (by age, gender, profession, whatever it may be) and we are open to this. The only stipulation is that target audience/s are Frome residents.

2.Our funder requirements mean that all outputs adhere to Open Access principals, including Creative Commons copyright licences. Our previous artist/research collaborations have involved CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licensing, though we are open to discussing alternatives.

3.If appropriate, the making process will be documented on our project website, and depending on the form of the final piece, we will work with our project partners to ensure the finished work can be publicly displayed or installed and be accessible to local communities.

4.The outcomes and documentation of this collaboration may also be used by the research team and partners for local and national policy influencing (e.g. policy briefs, calls for evidence), academic and industry conferences and publications, resources for other place-based arts/research collaborations.

Timeline

Sunday 2nd November – midnight (00:00): Deadline for responses to this call. Expressions of Interest will be reviewed by the research team who will contact shortlisted candidates to discuss proposals. We will write to all applicants to let them know whether they have been being shortlisted or not.

Week beginning 10^th or 17^th November 2025: Meetings with shortlisted candidates

Mid December 2025: We expect the contract to be in place by the second week of December, at which point we will invite the artist/s to attend a half-day briefing meetings where we will share our research materials with you.

December 2025 – February 2026: We will meet with the artist/s at least twice to update on our research findings and co-develop the final brief for the creative work.

March 2026: We anticipate the making period to start nearer the end of our fieldwork (Feb/March 2026). Depending on your practice, availability and the scale of the work it could be earlier or later.

Mid-July 2026: Deadline for completion of the work when it will be presented at a research dissemination event in Frome alongside the outputs of our other research activities.

We anticipate hosting an exhibition in Glasgow in 2028 where we will bring together the creative outcomes from all our case study collaborations. Should we request the selected artist/s to contribute after July 2026, we will negotiate additional fees in good faith.

Fees

The maximum award is £11,000 (including VAT) to include:

*Labour, including making/designing and research*

*Materials, equipment and studio costs*

*Attending briefing meetings and the research dissemination event in July 2026*

Depending on the responses to this call, we will consider funding two projects circa £5,500 (inc. VAT) each, depending on scale, materials and timelines etc. We will discuss this with shortlisted proposals, and the agreed commission/s will be at the maximum available.

How to respond

Please follow this link to an Expression of Interest form, where you will be asked:

-Your name and contact details

-Any websites that document relevant works/practice

-To briefly describe how you understand your practice as ‘place-based’, or how this funding could enable you to develop a place-based approach

-To briefly describe your connection with Frome. It’s important to us to work with someone who has a good understanding of the town

To briefly describe any previous research-based collaborations. Who were they with – what did you do – what were the outcomes? If you haven’t worked on a research collaboration before, please describe how you would approach one. What challenges and opportunities might there be for you and your practice?

-To briefly describe how you might respond to this brief and what direction might you take it

-To briefly describe your availability between November 2025 and July 2026. We can be flexible with dates for meetings and activities

-To briefly describe what you might need from us to help you make your best work – such as accessibility needs or considerations relating to communications and work patterns

We are happy to meet informally before the deadline to discuss the research project and to answer any questions you might have about this collaboration. To be as fair as possible at this stage, we will not comment on early ideas. Please email Michael Howcroft at michael.howcroft@glasgow.ac.uk