Artists Callout and Practice Sharing Day

Artist Callout and Practice Sharing Day

CUH Arts is expanding its network.

With the aim of developing our live and participatory programmes and public engagement activity, we want to grow our network of arts practitioners/facilitators. We are looking to work with artists with experience of delivering high-quality creative outputs for public benefit, of developing work through co-production with arts organisations, and of working to a brief or commission.
Context
CUH Arts is Cambridge University Hospitals' award-winning arts programme, dedicated to shaping care through creativity. We strive to humanise health, inspire hope and promote wellbeing by providing excellent creative and cultural opportunities for patients, staff, visitors and wider community.

Embedded within one of the world’s leading hospital trusts, our diverse, person-centred, multi-disciplinary Creative Health programme of live, participatory and visual arts is facilitated and managed by a specialist team of arts professionals in collaboration with artists and cultural partners.

Our mission is to:

Humanise health with a person-centred programme that recognises and addresses the individual, and celebrates our healthcare community.

Inspire hope with positive, uplifting content that empowers, distracts, and celebrates life and the world around us.

Promote wellbeing with a rich variety of creative invitations, available to all staff and patients.

The CUH Arts Programme has three main strands, each enabling engagement opportunities for our population of patients, staff and the wider public:
- Art collection, exhibitions and commissions
- Live and participatory arts
- Future hospitals

We are currently looking to develop and expand our offer, and have room to bring in new artists for one-off and longer-term opportunities on the following programmes:
Staff Wellbeing
Our creative wellbeing programme for CUH staff includes creative workshops, social wellbeing sessions and online resources. We have been working with partners across the hospital to ensure creativity is embedded in the CUH staff support strategy.
CUH Creates
CUH Creates offers participatory art sessions enabling patients, visitors and staff the opportunity to spark their imaginations and curiosity with a variety of creative tools and processes. This includes everything from painting to calligraphy, printmaking to textiles, delivered in small workshops or in one-to-one sessions by the bedside with patients.
Dance for Health
Dance for Health is CUH Arts' flagship project; bespoke 1:1 and sometimes group-based creative movement & music sessions for our patients, led by expert practitioner Filipa Pereira-Stubbs. The programme aims to improve the hospital experience for our inpatients so that they can regain confidence, overall wellbeing and physical strength, and avoid readmission to hospital. 2024 marks ten years of Dance for Health at CUH. In this year we are celebrating a diversity of dance with a festival, staff sessions, and public events.
Future Hospitals
There are plans to build two new hospitals on the Addenbrooke’s site – Cambridge Children’s Hospital and Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital. As part of our work developing arts strategies for these hospitals, we are working closely with the communications and fundraising teams to deliver a variety of creative engagement opportunities for staff, patients and the wider public. Examples of recent projects include a series of workshops in partnership with the University of Cambridge Museums, a presence at Luton Carnival, and drop-in activities at Cambridge Festival.
Commissions
As we grow our team and the remit of our work, we are developing commissions into our built environment. Working alongside our capital and estates colleagues, we will be seeking to commission artists to work on new building projects and refurbishments as we develop our hospital estate for the future. Creating calming, meaningful, healing spaces which are designed in consultation with staff and patients, and that reflect the exceptional quality of care given at CUH.

CUH Arts Team
We are team of six arts professionals, responsible for the strategic planning, delivery and evaluation of CUH’s arts-in-health programme. With professional expertise across art forms and specialist skills in programming, curation, commissioning, creative engagement and producing, we work collaboratively with artists and cultural partners to devise and facilitate creative opportunities with and for our hospital community.
We are active members of the National Arts in Hospitals Network and the Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance, supporting the development and advocacy of arts-in-health on a national level. Our programme is evidence-based, and draws upon a rich body of research and evaluation that underpins the sector.
Our work with Artists
Artists working with CUH Arts receive set day rates based on the A-N industry standard.

Healthcare settings can be challenging environments in which to work. We want our artists to feel safe and supported in the work that they do with CUH Arts. We welcome dialogue about any concerns or questions that may arise in the project development or delivery. We’ll also want to talk through your experiences of a session after it happens; sharing and supporting each other’s practice is how we start to practice well, and maintain the positive energy we need to do this work.

Expressions of Interest & Practice Sharing Day

We welcome expressions of interest from arts practitioners in a range of disciplines (visual arts, dance, theatre, writing, film, etc…) interested in delivering participatory activity including, but not limited to: one-off patient/staff facing project activities, courses of 6-8 weeks, commissioned briefs (predominantly within visual arts practice).

Please submit via Zealous:
• Three examples of previous projects you devised and delivered
• Your CV
• A cover letter, which outlines where your practice sits within the CUH Arts programme, your professional experience of delivering high quality outputs, co-production, work with arts organisations and working to a commission brief. Plus public engagement experience.

We will invite selected applicants to attend a Practice Sharing Day at Addenbrooke’s Hospital on Tuesday 23 January (10am – 3pm). This will include a tour of the site, meet and greet with members of the CUH Arts Team, sharing examples of practice, and conversations with artists currently working with CUH Arts. This is a free offer of professional development for selected individuals. There is no fee to attend.

We will then invite successful candidates to join the CUH Artists Network. Please note that joining the Network does not guarantee an offer of work.

Key Dates & Timeline
• Application deadline: Midday, Wednesday 3 January

• Notification of outcome: Friday 12 January

• Practice Sharing Day: Tuesday 23 January (selected candidates only)

Questions?
Any questions prior to submitting interest may be emailed to: cuh.arts@nhs.net

For more information visit https://www.zealous.co/cuharts/opportunity/Artist-Callout-and-Practice-Sharing-Day/