Opportunities & Events

Call out for artists, photographers and writers

Location: Velindre Cardiff | Start Date: November 2022

Summary:

'Moving House' is a Velindre University NHS Trust project  that will record the transition of staff and facilities from the old Velindre Hospital to the new site. It's a project to record and celebrate the people, stories and buildings of Velindre Cancer Centre. 

Content:

BACKGROUND: Velindre Cancer Centre serves south east Wales providing non surgical cancer treatments, usually on an out-patient basis. As Velindre University NHS Trust prepares to commission a new building to house its expanding range of treatments and services, we are aware that we will leave behind the sites and places that have been a part of staff and patients’ lives for many years. While it’s exciting to move to new premises, there is always a nagging thought that something will be lost along the way. We can take our memories with us but the places we leave behind have been witness to our teamwork and friendships, our highs and lows, our hopes and ambitions. We want to capture the spirit of our Velindre in words and images so that we take that story with us when we move. This project has been developed by Velindre University NHS Trust as part of a number of projects surrounding the creation of the new Velindre Cancer Centre in north Cardiff.

 

PROJECT AIMS: ‘Moving House’ is a project that will record the transition of staff and facilities from the old Velindre Hospital to the new site. It’s a short
distance of a few hundred metres to the new building but the changes will be huge for staff and patients as their familiar workplaces change forever. An arts project could help acknowledge the tensions around the move and record the daily life of staff in the old building as a memory bank for the future.
Moving house is always accompanied by a mixture of anxiety, excitement and anticipation, and we want this project to help
us capture what is special about the building that we’ve been in for the last 66 years. We’d like this project to capture the spirit of Velindre and to depict this in both words and images so this could be a collaborative project between a writer and a visual artist / photographer, capturing people’s stories and
their workplaces so they can be celebrated and preserved for the future. The resulting material could be edited and published as a book as well as providing material for a display within the new building. Ultimately, the images, video and text should become a digital archive or a book to remind future generations of the
people and places that make Velindre special.

 

BUDGET: Writer / Artist’s fees for the interviewing /recording stage: £2,000 each
Collating, reviewing and editing: 2 x £800.
Total: £5,600

We have a total budget of £5,600 available for this project, which should include all fees and expenses, including time to edit the material.
The suggested breakdown would be as follows:

Fees will be paid in two stages: 50%/interim payment on at the midday point ('work in progress' invoice) and the remainder on completion ('final' invoice). There will be a separate budget for the realisation of the project as a physical book or display, or a digital production and archive.

 

TIMESCALE: We would like to start the project in November 2022 with a three / four month period within which to research the background to Velindre, record people’s stories and document the current Velindre estate. It may be that our artist and writer work closely together so that there’s a direct link
between image and text; alternatively, the two strands of text and imagery could be separate, being brought together to compare notes and also collaborating on the final edit. That’s a creative decision we’d like you to consider as part of your proposal at the outset. At the end of the three months, there will be an agreed period of time to review the collected material and edit it into a preferred format through consultation with Velindre’s Arts Steering Group.

 

WHAT WE NEED FROM YOU: We’re looking for a range of skills and experience for this project, including interviewing, writing, photography, drawing, video, audio or other means of recording. We don’t necessarily expect to find all these skills in one person, so artists and writers are encouraged to apply together, or
separately with the proviso that you must be willing to work collaboratively. In your application, please tell us how many days you can commit to the project and what strategies you’d use to encourage staff to engage with this project. We’d also like hear about any relevant project experience you have. You will need good interpersonal skills as you will be talking to a lot of people and may be required to give presentations about your work. While we’ve conceived this project as a one off, please bear in mind that we may want to add to the project in the future.

 

DEADLINE: The deadline for submissions is 5pm, Wednesday 2nd November.
Send your applications via email to: Sustainability.Velindre@wales.nhs.uk 
(total email size of no larger than 10mb).

 

USEFUL LINKS:-

Velindre Cancer Cancer: https://velindre.nhs.wales/velindrecc /
Velindre University NHS Trust: https://velindre.nhs.wales/ 
Transforming Cancer Services Programme: https://velindre.nhs.wales/transforming-cancerservices/ 
new Velindre Cancer Centre: https://velindre.nhs.wales/transforming-cancerservices/ 
news/tcs-news/acorn-consortium-on-board-to-develop-the-new-velindrecancer-
centre /