Bristol Music Trust/Colston HallCall for proposals

1. Summary

Bristol Music Trust seeks an artist or artists to help us devise, create and run a community-based project with an artistic output to explore Bristol’s relationship with the name Colston and Bristol Music Trust’s position within the debate. This work would have two strands:

Exploring responses, issues and future actions around the name Colston in the city and around Colston Hall’s name change and;

Working with communities to create a reciprocal dialogue about the role of the Hall in the community and what an inclusive concert hall should look like

2. Background to Colston Hall

Colston Hall is Bristol’s largest concert hall, presenting concerts and entertainment by major names in rock, pop, jazz, folk, world and classical music, stand-up comedy and light entertainment, as well as local choirs, orchestras and schools.

Our audiences have been enjoying music here since 1867 and the building remains at the heart of cultural life in the city. We have hosted music from the likes of Emile Sandé, John Grant, Richard Hawley, Robert Plant and Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra; comedy from Harry Hill, Jimmy Carr and Billy Connolly; as well as being a key player in many of Bristol’s wider events including the Bristol International Jazz & Blues Festival, Slapstick Festival and Doors Open Day. Some of the world’s biggest music and comedy stars have performed on our stage, including The Beatles, David Bowie, Elton John, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Motorhead and Bob Dylan.

Bristol Music Trust, the organisation that runs Colston Hall, is spearheading a major project to transform Colston Hall’s auditorium and historic foyer areas to those of international standard. The Hall will close in Summer 2018 and will reopen in Spring 2020.

We have a thriving education arm, Bristol Plays Music, whose inspiring work reaches over 30,000 young people across the city every year. BPM will open the UK’s first Centre for Inclusive Excellence for young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities in 2020.

;3. The challenge of the name Colston

Bristol Music Trust are making strides in improving inclusivity in the venue, especially with work through its education arm Bristol Plays Music. Colston Hall’s artistic programme has changed significantly since the formation of the Trust in 2011. We now programme work that attracts and works with artists and audiences to develop and champion inclusivity.

However a barrier to this ambition is the name Colston, which effectively commemorates and celebrates Edward Colston, a renowned 17th century slave trade, and is seen by many as a flag under which they cannot associate themselves. This has an impact on participation and engagement - our BAME attendance are below the Bristol population (6% of our audiences are BAME compared to the city 18%) and some BAME artists and civic leaders choose not to be associated with us because of the name.

The barrier of the name also impacts on our ability to recruit more diversely and we have under-representation of BAME groups on our staff and board.

The association with the name Colston is a fraught and difficult one. Edward Colston is supported by many in the community as integral to the history of the city and representative of Bristol’s merchant past, and the impact of Colston’s philanthropy on the development of the city can’t be ignored. However Bristol Music Trust and Colston Hall have become the lightning rod for negative feelings around the name Colston.

Instead Bristol Music Trust and Colston Hall want to be a driving force for change and to be part of the solution and we hope that this project can be part of this wider conversation throughout Bristol.

4. Bristol Music Trust’s position

BMT’s senior management team and Trustees are united in feeling that a name change is the right thing to do. The name Colston does not reflect our values as a progressive, forward-thinking and open arts organisation. We can’t achieve inclusivity artistically, for our audiences or staff without the name change.

We want to own the issue and move forward in a positive way, engaging with community and interest groups in a way that is beneficial not negative. We believe that as a leading arts organisation in the city we have a role to play in addressing the impact of past actions on our future city and we want to be central to these conversation, enabling the city to move forward.

5. The creative approach to a way forward

We want to work with an artist or artists to help us navigate the issues around the name, slavery and the city, and explore with the community what the issue means to us all.

Bristol Music Trust believe that the city’s cultural heritage should be reflected on our stage, and we feel that by working with an artist we can sensitively and creatively explore an artistic response to this issue. We want to take positive action to become more engaged with our diverse communities, using this issue as a catalyst for conversations and creative thinking.

We want to work together with an artist to develop a response that is creative, challenging and forward looking.

The process might include:

exploring and usefully harnessing ‘emotion’ to identify the main and underlying issues around the name Colston and how we recognise this part of the city’s history

helping Colston Hall navigate celebrating the Hall’s musical history within the context of the name Colston

helping Colston Hall and city stakeholders identify and make contact with key stakeholder groups in Bristol’s communities

enabling stakeholders to explore their emotional response to the issues

; developing the connection between the impact of the name and the art Colston Hall produces and

considering how we can make more positive changes in our future artistic processes and strategies to ensure that inclusivity is at the heart of what we do

helping Colston Hall and city stakeholders to explore the implications for change helping Colston Hall and city stakeholders create creative messages for change helping Colston Hall explore a way forward to name change creating an artistic response to the project that could have a permanent display in the new building creating an artistic response that can be a tool for on-going debate and discussion helping us to create a plan for on-going communications with all community groups exploring the creative response at a key moment in Colston Hall’s closure plans in June 2018.

We welcome ideas for how the artistic response to this issue will manifest itself. Ideally as a music venue there will be a musical response, although there are many media that would be appropriate and may become more obvious during the process of this project. There is the potential to create space within our building for a visual artwork or for a work sited within the community for example.

Suggestions for a new name are a likely outcome of this project but not integral to this brief. We anticipate that engagement with local communities around this subject will act as a conduit for their views and perceptions.

6. Project management

We would expect the artist to manage the project, ensuring timetables are met and community groups are contacted and managed. The project lead at BMT will be Sarah Robertson, Communications and Special Projects Director. Our Marketing team will also be available to work with the artist to promote and support the project.

7. Partners and others involved

Bristol Music Trust is effectively taking the lead on this issue for the city, however we know that other organisations are undertaking similar reviews and conversations are underway which may form part of the development of this element of the project.

Community involvement

Community involvement will be key to this project – the brief is to directly talk to our audiences and local communities to gauge their needs, desires and views. We anticipate that these insights will contribute to the conceptual development of the artwork

We would work with the artist to identify and make contact with groups at the outset of the project and anticipate that the artist would undertake some work in this area as part of the project. We are looking for creative approaches to this with clear and identifiable ways that this can be achieved. Your proposal will need to demonstrate relevant experience in undertaking similar kinds of activity.

Our understanding of ‘communities’ is broad and open to interpretation at the start of the project. We want to engage with the many and diverse viewpoints and explore responses and ideas about how we can move forward as a city on this issue and continue to develop conversations about how our music and education programmes can further embed inclusivity. This specific project will act as a focal point for these discussions during the 2 year refurbishment.

8. Timescale

Ideally the project would start at the beginning of November2017 with the artists output delivered in time for Colston Hall’s closure in June 2018. This is a timescale that can be discussed on appointment – it could be

;that the project is staged with some output taking place in June 2018 with ideas and explorations developing after this time.

On appointment the artist will work with the project team to set a realistic timeframe based on their proposal.

Proposals received by Friday 13th October 2017

Interviews (in-person or Skype) beginning Monday 30th October 2017

Refinement of ideas and research –from mid November 2017

Commencing engagement and implementation of art project – end November 2017

Public engagement and activity to take place between December 2017 – February 2018

9. Budget

The budget for the project is 10k. This would include a minimum of 3 project team discussion and planning meetings, public engagement activities/events, and project development and being present/orchestrating relevant parts of the events.

Travel and accommodation can be provided in addition to this 10k.

Additional funding will be provided for presenting/producing the artistic work, and will be in the region of 8k.

10. Evaluation process

Evaluation is important to us. We would like to build in an evaluation process throughout the project and would work closely with the selected artist to develop appropriate and robust evaluative measures and work them into the planning. We would be interested to hear how you might contribute creatively to the process.

11. Artist selection and interview process

Interested artists should apply to Sarah Robertson, Bristol Music Trust’s Hall’s Communications and Special Projects Director, on sarah.robertson@colstonhall.org, by Friday 13th October 2017 with the following information:

CV Portfolio, former and current projects (print or web link) One page proposal concept with initial detail on how you would respond to the brief and in what

form the artistic response will take Brief outline of your motivations for involvement in this project Outline budget including artists fee

We are keen to work with BAME artists, those from Bristol and those working to a musical output. However, these are not pre-requisites. We are open and excited to hear from those with an appropriate and creative approach to the brief.

Interviews will take place week commencing 30th October 2017.

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