Community Artist
Job Description

About Community Arts by ZK

Community Arts by ZK (CAZK) (https://www.communityartsbyzk.co.uk/) is an award-winning community interest company based in Pendle. At CAZK, we use art as a driving force to bring communities together from different age ranges, socio-economic and cultural backgrounds, with a strong emphasis on community cohesion, integration and wellbeing. We design and deliver art projects, activities, and workshops that value, encourage and engage people in the community, allowing them to express themselves more effectively and communicate their ideas in a creative way. Our workshops and projects cover a broad range of techniques, and we work with creative practitioners and artists from across the world and from a variety of creative disciplines. Examples include fine art, mixed media, photography, traditional and contemporary methods, textiles, environmental artists, installation, and sculpture.

- Location: Community Arts by ZK headquarters, Northlight Estates, Northlight Parade, Brierfield, Nelson, BB5 9EG

- Hours: 22.5 hours per week (Fixed term contract to Sept 2026 with potential to extend subject to funding)

- Pension: Workplace pension scheme with employer contribution

- Salary: £23,000 pro rata

What we are looking for:

As a key member of our Community Arts by ZK team, our Community Artist will continue to develop their strong relationship with community members across the course of the Healing Arts for All (HAFA) project. The trust and rapport they have developed with members of our community will be crucial when collaborating with Creative Practitioner’s so that their ideas and artistic programmes can be fulfilled to their greatest potential.

Project:

A project aiming to discover and document such personal and intimate histories as well as lived experiences today is not an easy task, especially when working with groups of society that are harder to reach. For an unknown Creative Practitioner to enter the community it will take time to win over its trust. Here, the Community Artist’s role will be to bridge this, allowing the creative programmes to hit the ground running.
With a strong understanding of creative and heritage practices (having BA Hons in History of Art), the Community Artist is well suited and deeply invested in the HAFA project goals. Coupled with their ability to bring out creativity in the members of the Pendle community, many having had limited arts and heritage engagement, the Community Artist will be an extremely valuable member of the HAFA project team.
Not only will the Community Artist, with a strong understanding of our community's needs, sit on steering groups, but they will collaborate with the Creative Practitioners helping to guide the strengths of their practices to meet the needs of the community. Throughout the creative programmes, and in workshops on a practical level, they will be helping with technical and creative issues, whilst acting as the main point of contact for community members.
The Community Artist will run the first phase of the HAFA project (facilitated by a printmaker for four workshops) using their knowledge gained through their degree in Art History to contextualise the research that the participants will be undertaking.
The Community Artist will work with the Project Coordinator to organise visit logistics for trips away. On project trips during holidays when participants' children will be attending, the Community Artist will be responsible for running engaging creative workshops that act as childcare.
Over the course of HAFA the Community Artist will be responsible for managing the volunteers and those on work experience, giving them engaging tasks to support the project and develop their skills. This is a crucial part of our work as it will run across the entirety of the project and will provide members of our community with incredible opportunities to develop creative and professional career skills by shadowing established Creative Practitioners and understanding how an arts organisation runs. This is a task that requires planning and must be overseen to work effectively.
The Community Artist will run the social media for HAFA, a job required across the entirety of the project. This includes downloading and selecting and editing images after every workshop for Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. They will need to use the Adobe Package including InDesign and Photoshop to place pictures in HAFA branded frames. They will need to create captions and schedule all posts. Additional regular story posts (Facebook and Instagram) will be needed to increase engagement and they will need to keep up-to-date with any engagement, making sure it is responded to e.g comments and direct messages to our CAZK accounts.
The Community Artist will be responsible for digitising collected material (e.g photographs and letters) as well as artworks created in the different creative heritage phases to go on the online archive. This will be carried out through scanning and photographing material and artworks. They will communicate with our Graphic Designer to carry out these tasks.

Experience:

An artist with experience in working with the diverse ethnic communities, so that they understand their needs and cultural sensitivities.
Relevant Artistic Degree.
DBS checked.
Ability to listen to the voices of our community, supporting those who are marginalised and from disadvantaged backgrounds.
An artist with experience in developing and implementing artistic or creative research methods.
An interest and enthusiasm for working as an artist in the context of post-industrial, multicultural town such as Brierfield.
Experience in using the Adobe Suite.
Experience in running creative workshops for children.
Experience in running creative workshops for children.
Ability to manage to people e.g supporting and leading volunteers and those on work experience.
Ability to use social media e.g scheduling posts and stories and responding to engagement.
Strong written-word skills to be used in social media posts, magazine, and newsletter articles all to promote engagement on the project.

Desirable:

Ability to work with a diverse range of people from a variety of cultural and socio-economic backgrounds/experience of working with communities.
Interest in working with a creative organisation.
Interest in heritage.

Outputs:

They will develop and support the community to create a final creative outputs in the first phase of the project that will be exhibited in a celebration event at the end of the first year of the project and will also be put towards the final exhibition at the end of the third year of the project.
They will support the project for the duration of the three years, assisting Creative Practitioners with all workshops, designing, and implementing activities for the children of the participants during the school holidays, and digitising all materials for the project archive.
Facilitating the community to pursue its research interests.
Portfolio of Community Artist’s own work to demonstrate their development over the three years.

How to apply:

Submit a one-page (maximum) expression of interest highlighting why you are interested in this role as Community Artist and include your CV.
A portfolio of previous work with relevant links.
Submit Expression of Interest and portfolio to info@communityartsbyzk.co.uk.

Deadline for applications: 14th January 2025

Community Artist Job Description​