Application deadline:

16th April 2024

Key info:

Turf is Croydon’s homegrown art space; a registered charity set up and run by local artists to support creatives and our local community. Find out more about what we do, our team and our space, visit turf-projects.com/about-turf

Core aim of this role: 

Project manage the delivery of Turf’s main exhibition programmes and associated events.

 

Pay & terms:

Contract: Part-time fixed term freelance contract of 11 months – 1st May 2024 to 31st March 2025

Pay: £1968 per month (£164 per day in line with Turf’s flat pay structure)

Hours: 

• 12 days per month, delivered as much as possible between Wed-Sat (our opening hours).
• At Turf we all try to share Saturday working, and this role involves the planning & delivery of workshops which will sometimes need to take place on Saturdays, so occasional Saturday working will be needed. We aim for one day in 8 each. Our General & Workshop Assistant will help with the hosting of Saturday workshops under your instruction whenever this isn’t possible.

Location: 

• Turf Projects, Whitgift Centre, Croydon CR0 1UQ
• We have a general policy of up to 1 in 8 days working from home if desired.

Start date: 

• 1st May 2024 or ASAP after. We can be flexible on start dates and working patterns for the first month.

Application Deadline: 

• 16th April 2024

Interviews: 

• w/c 22nd April 2024; dates flexible.

Person spec:

• Personal connections to & active knowledge of Croydon are essential. Turf is fundamentally rooted in the borough, so we aim for our delivery team to be too.
• An affinity with Turf’s aims and ethos. We strive to be welcoming, kind, accessible and curious, conscious of our duty to the public and those we work with, and generous and collaborative in our working relationships.
• Experience of project managing medium scale arts & culture events. 

• Experience in managing medium-large project budgets. 

• Experience in artwork and exhibition production. 

• Well-organised, reliable, efficient.
  Our projects often involve many moving pieces so these qualities are absolutely essential. You’ll need to be able to plan 6 months in advance and manage multiple tasks in parallel.
• A clear communicator who’s great at facilitating and collaborating.
  You’ll need to communicate the above plans clearly and regularly to the team and collaborators to ensure an interconnected programme. You’ll be patient, kind and curious, a keen & conscientious listener and able to work with individuals and organisations from a wide range of backgrounds and levels of experience.
• An active interest in arts and culture, with an awareness of current arts and socio-political discourses (i.e. you like to interrogate things and ask questions!). Our programme explores themes of space and place – the breadth of this has encompassed community and archive engaged practices, belonging & environmental themes as well as more literal explorations of our local environment. Interest in such themes is beneficial.
• Strong digital and written literacy.
  We use Asana for project managing & managing tasks across the team. Letting us know what tools you’re familiar with would be great!
• Turf is primarily artist-led, so we’d love to hear about your artistic practice if you have one.

 

Key deliverables:

Coordinate the planning & delivery of Turf’s exhibition programme and external projects which focus on themes of space and place. 

Take a look at our previous projects here for an idea of what we do and here for the outline of our aims for our first years as an Arts Council National Portfolio Organisation.

The role will involve:

• x2-3 main exhibitions per year. 
  • These have taken the form of both solo and group shows. We’ve run projects both within our exhibition space and around Croydon. Our projects usually range in budget from £30k-£70k and are planned 8-12 months in advance.
  • Interest / experience in putting on projects in public spaces is beneficial as we want Turf’s programme to extend outside our space to meet people where they are. 
• 3 Fungus Press commissions per year.
  • Fungus Press is a public realm project, with five poster sites across central Croydon. Artists are invited to respond to Croydon’s public spaces through a series of billboard artworks. The programme of artworks is complemented by a series of other works, sometimes including; published texts, walking tours and an audio guide.
• Coordinate an associated events programme integrated into the above, to build on project themes and provide accessible routes into exhibitions and project content for new audiences.
• Ensure hybrid delivery where possible and thorough & creative documentation of events and projects. This is to make sure people can access them remotely and into the future.
• Programme logistics;
• Managing project budgets
• Writing artist contracts
• Coordinating and overseeing production, install & de-installs
• Managing funders, evaluation and reporting.
• Arranging H&S, materials, transportation, insurance etc for the above.

Curation as a whole is a teamwide process at Turf; we design our programme collaboratively and responsively. 

As such, in this role you’ll collaborate closely and transparently with other team members across our SOW & GROW strands. You’ll;

• Collaborate with and support Turf’s Learning Leads to make sure the main programme integrates work with local young people, schools and families.
• Work alongside Turf’s Access Lead to make sure projects & events have a creative approach to access from planning stages.
• Work with the Turf Projects team and key partners e.g Club Soda, SLiDE and Whitgift & Centrale shopping centres.
• Report to the Trustees and the Co-Director (Programme & People) to ensure delivery of NPO aims.
• Alongside delivering the above smoothly, coordinate with the whole team to plan projects into 2025, as we head into Turf’s third year as an Arts Council National Portfolio Organisation. You can read our written application and aspirations for the next 2-3 years here.

Essential things to know about working at Turf:

• Turf is a registered charity with a board of trustees. You’d need to align with Turf and the Charity Commission’s policies on finance management, code of conduct, conflict of interest, health and safety, equal opportunities & safeguarding.
• We have a flat pay structure, and this means;
  • We’re all paid equivalent to the same day rate. 
  • We have mutual accountability processes. We check in digitally with each other weekly and have both a team review and a board meeting quarterly held on site with hybrid options to attend where unavoidable. Key tools we use for transparent, accountable planning are; Google Drive/Sheets, Xero, Asana, Slack. You must be willing to actively engage with these as they are a core element of our mutual accountability processes.
  • We all share in front of house duties, though we also work in some working from home as possible. We also share in various space care tasks e.g restocking the loo roll!
• As an artist-led space, 10% of our time can be used as ‘Wiggle Time’. This is wiggle room to spend on activities which are of benefit to both our practices and Turf. It’s a bit like paid personal development time, but is designed to ensure our practices remain supported as an artist led space and are interwoven into Turf.

 

Apply:

Please apply by midnight on the 16th April 2024 to: info@turf-projects.com with the subject line ‘Job Application; Programme Manager’

We’re very flexible on how you apply. You could:

• Email us a CV & cover letter.
• Send us a video intro to you and why you’re interested.
• Another format!

We don’t have a format we prefer, and your format won’t impact our consideration of your application, so send whatever you’re comfortable with. We’ve found that applications which break down the person spec and key deliverables and how you fit them are often the most digestible for us!