Sensory Artist

Yes, it means, ‘what is your approach to including people who face barriers to the arts’ or how do you include people?

Yes! You can submit your application in text / written form, in video format, in audio format or as a combination of text & video or text & audio.

If you are completing the text – please observe the word counts.
If you are completing the video / audio – please make sure you’re aiming at a maximum 10 minutes.

(This is our best guess at how long this might take. We haven’t tested this and if you need more time, please do let us know).

Yes. An image or two would be welcome and may help you demonstrate your point, catch the reader’s eye or help communicate your work / practice effectively.

Please don’t send us more than 2 attachments though. Include your image in the word document or in your video.

You don’t have to be based in Edinburgh.
You don’t have to be based in the central belt or in a city.
You can be based in a rural area.

Ideally the artists will already be based in Scotland and working in Scotland.
We will prioritise artists based in Scotland already (though there may be exceptions).

What is useful is, if the artists are in commuting distance of each other so there are regular opportunities for the team to come together with the producer & Associate Artist and Mentor.

No. The artists need to collaborate and co-create with each other and with the people / participants from the target groups we’d like to reach. So we would like the artists to make themselves available for this.

The working days and hours of the contract can be taken flexibly (you could think of the total contract as a budget or allowance of days – and consider how they are spent across the 15 months of the project). Flexibility will be required from IAP as employers and the artists as employees / freelancers.

Our job packs are based on salaried roles which often have better terms, pay and conditions (than artists usually receive). We want artists to benefit from those same terms etc but also have the flexibility that freelancers often require as they juggle multiple projects, work priorities and home life, etc.

It really depends on the skills, experience and needs of the artists, producer and the participants. Sometimes artists are quite heavily involved in recruiting & liaising with participants, sometimes this is managed by the producer or IAPs core team, sometimes this is managed by working with a third party organisation in a collaborative way. There’s no fixed way for all projects.

Access budgets in post: there is (approximately) a £5,000 access budget available to each artist for artists, their collaborators and participants.

If successful applicants are able to apply to Access to Work, we will encourage them to do so. We this can be problematic for lots of disabled and neurodivergent people and this comes at a time of enormous cuts.

We aim to work with all applicants to meet their access needs and we ask everyone we work with to look after themselves, communicate their needs where appropriate and work collaboratively to find accessible ways of working for everyone.

Recruitment: we do not have access budgets available to applicants for support in completing an application.

For each artist there is:

• up to £5,000 towards project costs
• up to £5,000 towards access costs for all involved
• up to £1,000 towards professional development & training costs
• the above outline budget (£11,000) must also include travel and practical costs as well as the headings above.

Please note that the wage / fee outlined in the job packs is a wage/fee for the artists to live on. It is not a budget for them to spend on materials, etc.

Our experience as a company is mainly in performance (theatre & storytelling) but in the last Sensory Collective we had 6 artists. 2 artists were from a theatre / dance background, 2 from music / sound background and 2 from visual arts background. The mix of artforms worked well and we didn’t set out to work with artists from any fixed artforms.  

The key focus is how each artist works with the other sensory artists and participants to take a multi-sensory approach to co-creation of new works. 

Given our background, you might not want to use language that might only be understood by people who have studied your artform. We’re a big fan of plain and simple English here. 

Lots of ways. Usually the Lead Artist(s) on a project help guide the way a project is documented, defining what is or is not appropriate for the participants we work with. For example, it may not feel appropriate or correct to bring a photographer into a session where participants or staff might be feeling vulnerable.

We need to:

– Record what happened in our activity and share this with IAP’s staff, board and funders. A version of this is also published on our annual accounts and reports.

– At the minimum there is usually a written record – descriptions of what happened, with who, etc – how many people were there, what did it feel like to be a participant or an artist. Where did they travel from etc.

– We aim to create visibility for the socially engaged artistic work that makes up the programme. Some participants love to have photos & videos taken. Some would rather take a back seat. But this might also be in the form of illustrations or artistic creations from sessions or some less direct methods. We always seek consent from staff & participants.

Sometimes we share the work that it is done through conversations and interviews with the artists who are making the work possible.

We don’t decide. Generally the artists will get to know each other quite quickly through the residencies and peer working they do.

The purpose of these roles is to co-create artistic activity with the target groups we have mentioned, so collaboration with them is key.

The artists will work together as a team to deliver up to 3 projects. This might look like 2 pairs of artists working on 2 different projects, or 3 artists working collaboratively to produce 3 different projects. That is not defined or decided yet.

Working with individuals, small groups etc does not need to lead to an output (a thing, a book, a show, an image or exhibition, etc).

There is a professional development budget for each artist of around £1,000. This could be used for mentoring, coaching or hands on support. It could be for attending a class or accessing reading materials, in-person or online course.

Previous training has included:

• Safeguarding training (this will be provided by IAP)
• Trauma informed practice (some courses have been geared towards somatic, embodied practice)
• Training on participatory arts practice on working with people with different types of dementia or particular presentations of autism
• Non-speaking communication
• Attendance at conferences or events
• First Aid or Mental Health First Aid

We’re hoping to work with the original Sensory Collective artists to create some masterclasses (or less gendered term of expertise sharing) for the new SC team and hopefully to open out to practitioners in the sector too.

Yes they can. We’ll need a ‘plan b’ in case of wet or extreme weather, but we can work that out together.

We have a broad definition of disability, and this might include people who are D/deaf, blind, neurodivergent, learning disabled or who have a long term illness or mental health condition. This may also include people who are labelled as having complex needs. If you are unsure, please ask.

Up to 3.
This is limited due to administrative / producing capacity within the organisation.

It may be that:

• all 4 artists work on 1 project
• 2 pairs of artists work on a total of 2 projects
• 1 person works on project A, 1 person works on project B and 2 people work on project C

We do offer 1-to-1 meetings but these are really limited and only available to those who cannot successfully engage with the job packs, questions, this FAQ etc as we have very limited time/space for these.

If you are struggling, please email your questions in the first instance and we can talk about how best to share that information with you.

– Artists working in Scotland.
– Artists from the global majority.
– Artists who have lived experience of being neurodivergent, disabled or sharing an identity or deep connection with the target group / people we aim to work with.

This lived experience is expertise and we value people who can bring this expertise to their work.