VACANCIES & OPPORTUNITIES
VACANCIES & OPPORTUNITIES
CO.DURHAM
C0-CREATED
COMMISSIONS
6x £4000 Commissions available
Deadline: Thurs 4th December 2025, 10am
CO. DURHAM CO.CREATED COMMISSIONS
These commissions are designed to bridge our current period of activity with the ambitions of our 2026–2029 programme. Taking an action-research approach, we’re looking for work that shows ambition, experimentation and bravery, testing how we might work differently across our programme and with the people and places of County Durham.
Below are four provocation areas for targeted commissions. Each focuses on deepening connection, redefining ownership and extending reach across County Durham.
Each of the provocations within the brief build on a specific element of our practice that we want to interrogate further as we prepare to enter our next phase of activity.
Your commission proposal should respond to ONE of the four provocations below.
6x awards of £4000 are available.
1. Get to Know You
Themes: Trust-building, relationship-deepening and creative connection with under-engaged communities.
This strand supports artists and creative practitioners to build relationships in places or with people who remain less represented in our current programme - particularly young people, global majority people, queer people and men.
Intent:
To develop trust and connection in places across Co. Durham.
To trial creative approaches that open new ways for people to engage with art and culture.
To identify barriers to participation and co-develop ways of addressing them.
We’re as interested in the process and fact-finding as we are in the artistic output. This strand is inspired by Lizzie Klotz & Luca Rutherford’s work at Quaking Houses Village Hall - https://nomorenowt.org/whats-on/lizzie-and-luca-x-nmn
This strand doesn’t need to happen in a traditional community centre context - we’re open to any format that builds meaningful connection. With this strand, we might work with you to identify and build relationships with willing partners, but the stronger applications will have a clear idea of who their participants might be.
We are open to engaging with a wider local area where links can be established across place - such as three spaces in one town.
We are particularly interested in work surrounding those with whom we have engaged less, as mentioned above. If you’re applying under this provocation, tell us about the times you’ve facilitated, the communities you’ve worked alongside, and also the communities with whom you identify.
We anticipate that this work might take place over the course of a month, but are equally open to shorter, concentrated bursts of relationship building.
2. Redefining ‘Local’
Themes: Public ownership, hyper-local pride and redefining where and how culture happens.
This strand explores what happens when art truly belongs to everyone, in a small geographic area - not just in name, but in process, place, purpose and visibility. This strand will keep culture rooted in the communities and stories that inspire it, with particular interest in the villages, hamlets or even cul-de-sacs scattered across the county. What would a collective creative experience look like without it being a mural or mosaic? What purpose can art serve within communities and how does function and message connect and compliment?
We would expect a collective artwork to emerge with the community, though we’re very open to what form this might take - it need not be tangible, but should have some legacy beyond the commission. It might be a gathering, a song or book! This provocation is as much about the journey as the end product.
Intent:
To explore how best to work deeply with smaller villages, hamlets, rural and hyper local communities.
To test focused models of engagement that can come to fruition in local contexts.
To flatten hierarchies of ownership, ensuring work made with and about a place remains visible and accessible to that community.
To reimagine public and non-traditional venues - from fields and high streets to bus stops and village halls - as cultural stages.
To use art as a tool of connection and joyful defiance, resisting division and celebrating shared pride in place.
A strong applicant for this strand will have a very clear idea of where their work might take place, even if the end product is currently relatively nebulous.
This strand is specifically inspired by Jamie Holman’s work with East Durham Communities - https://nomorenowt.org/big-projects/above-below-beyond
3. From Real to Digital (and Back)
Theme: Linking dispersed communities through digital creativity.
This strand will explore how digital practice can connect people who are geographically isolated or disconnected from traditional cultural spaces, experimenting with a feedback loop where IRL experiences inform digital experiences.
Your work should begin with the public, looking at who you might engage with, before tailoring a digital product or experience that will engage the individual from afar.
We would like our commissioned artists to focus on exploring an overarching narrative, designed to compliment or counter those that already exist within the communities and across our County as a whole.
Intent:
To commission artists experimenting with hybrid approaches that translate between physical and virtual space.
To build skills and confidence in digital creativity among local participants.
To test how digital storytelling and participation can amplify new place-based narratives across County Durham.
To develop trust and connection in places where we are not yet well known.
We’re open to approaches that use technology playfully and accessibly - from podcasts and social media takeovers to immersive projection or online collaboration - with an emphasis on connection rather than technology for its own sake. We take an expansive approach to the definition of ‘digital’ work, so long as the work involves some form of digital-based element in its design, creation or presentation, then that is relevant enough. It might be sharable at scale, or it might be presented digitally to a few select participants - we’re open to all!
4. Peterlee: The Place To Be
Theme: Peterlee and Place-Based creativity.
This strand continues the Place Lab approach through a new Peterlee-focused commission exploring local identity, participation and public space.
Building on the success of Place Lab Peterlee, this commission will invite artists to work directly with the people of Peterlee to co-create a bold, celebratory piece of work that captures the town’s energy, humour and sense of community.
It will connect local stories to the wider themes of belonging, pride and the future of our towns - a chance to celebrate Peterlee as “the place to be.”
This commission will mark the official end of Place Lab Peterlee’s second phase.
Intent:
To honour the social fabric of the shopping centre as a civic and cultural hub.
To explore what role artists can play locally, within a 21st Century High Street.
To develop our work in and with the Town Centre community.
It should be mounted at Castle Dene shopping centre in Peterlee, before the end of March 2025. We will work with the commissioned artist to deliver a piece of work that is appropriate for a shopping centre with an ever-changing set of meanwhile spaces. Consequently, your work will not be judged strictly by its ability to be mounted at Castle Dene, but we would expect your proposal to be flexible in its approach.
The model for Place Lab in Peterlee has centred around empty shopping spaces, where activity is built around a space where people are welcome to come and exist within a space without the requirement to take part directly. We have also found that conversations are key to a successful time in Castle Dene Shopping Centre.
This commission may well be a residency within the space - there need not be any tangible, long-lasting output, so long as there is a clear line-of-enquiry across the conversations. Previous activity has included welcoming people to talk about Nanas, Food and Peterlee. In these instances, we will work with the commissioned artist or organisation to shape, mount and deliver the commission. Successful Place Lab work has focussed on its response to Peterlee as a place, tying it specifically to that community.
COMMISSIONS INFO
COMMISSIONS OVERVIEW
The Commissions:
We are looking for applications that challenge the status quo, that are ambitious in their approach and that have a real impact of the emboldening of communities to gather around a collective sense of pride in their place.
Commission Details:
We anticipate awarding 6 x £4000 commissions.
ELIGIBILITY, SELECTION & NOTIFICATION
Applicants can apply as individuals, collectives or organisations.
Public Liability Insurance (up to £5 million) is required.
An enhanced DBS check may be necessary for work involving vulnerable adults, children, or young people.
Applications will be assessed on:
Alignment with the relevant provocation.
Artistic quality and ambition.
The ability to engage your community and celebrate them.
Feasibility and value.
Applicants will be informed of the outcome by 10th December 2025. Feedback will be available upon request.
BUDGET & DELIVERY TIMELINE
Each commission is £4000.
The budget must cover a minimum of 5 days of in-person contact time in your area, as well as R&D, materials, travel, VAT and other expenses. There is an access budget on-top of the commission award where required.
Activity will take place between January, February and March 2026, with all outcomes, reporting, and evaluation completed by 20th April 2026.
HOW TO APPLY & REQUIREMENTS
Submit your application as:
1 — An A4 PDF document, or
2 — A video/audio file (max 10 minutes) via WeTransfer to hello@nomorenowt.org
Deadline: Thursday 4th December at 10am
Application Requirements:
A description of your idea and approach (max 500 words), covering:
— Your core artistic idea and its response to the relevant provocation.
— Its relevance to the people, the future and the identity of the County.
— An estimated audience and participant number.
— Links to relevant social media or websites.
— A brief timeline, including participant contact days, planning and evaluation.
— An indicative budget including contingency.
— A further biography (max 200 words) of yourself.
Please complete the Equal Opportunities Form here: Equal Opportunities Form.
Please note that whilst we can support practical elements of your application, for example recommending potential community partners and places, we cannot advise individual applicants on their ideas, but are more than happy to take clarifying questions at hello@nomorenowt.org
If you have specific access needs to enable your application please get in touch.
A further access budget has been assigned to support you and your collaborators, so that access need not come from the main budget.
WHO WE’RE LOOKING FOR
We encourage applications from artists at all career stages, especially those with a connection to County Durham or a passion for working in public spaces. Diversity is central to our programme, and we particularly welcome applications from global majority artists, female-identifying or LGBTQIA+ artists, as well as those with lived experience of the challenges faced by communities like those in County Durham
MONITORING & EVALUATION
Successful applicants will collect participant data, including names, postcodes and ages using templates provided by No More Nowt. Monitoring and evaluation reports will inform our understanding of how creative practice can enhance public spaces and build pride of place. This can often be onerous, so please ensure that you build time into your delivery plan to accommodate for this request.
AGREEMENT & PAYMENT
Successful applicants will be issued with a letter of agreement in December 2025.
Payment will be issued across two installments:
Part 1 on signing the agreement and
Part 2 on return of monitoring and evaluation as agreed and set out in the agreement..
NO MORE NOWT
No More Nowt is a County Durham-based organisation working to engage local communities in creative activities as part of Arts Council England’s Creative People and Places Programme. Our work is informed by action research and a commitment to co-creating cultural opportunities in areas where involvement in creativity is significantly below the national average.
To learn more: https://nomorenowt.org/ | @nomorenowt
For questions, email hello@nomorenowt.org
COMMISSION PARTNERS
INTO THE LIGHT
Place Lab Peterlee is part of the Into the Light programme, a place-based creative collaboration that will drive long-lasting growth in County Durham. It will cultivate talent, widen access to creative education, enhance the skills of the cultural workforce, and break down barriers to working in the creative industries. The mission of Place Lab is to use the power of culture and creativity to catalyse change at a local level. Working in towns across County Durham each Place Lab will foster a community-centred approach to culture and regeneration.
To learn more: https://www.intothelightdurham.co.uk/ | @intothelightdurham
