The Big Picture World

The Big Picture World Record Attempt Artist Brief

The Brief
Audiences Central wants to appoint an artist or artist/design team to break the world record for the largest photo mosaic in the world, as the culmination of our ‘Big Picture’ project.

The current record is 94,392 photographs covering an area of 562.85m2 (6.058.46ft2). Both numbers need to be surpassed in order to break the record.

Background
The Big Picture is an exciting new arts project that aims to encourage attendances and participation from adults throughout the West Midlands in the C2DE Socio Economic Group by inspiring them to take, use, view and manipulate photographs

This region wide photography project is an accessible and relevant way for Midlanders to engage with, and experience, art at a very local and personal level.

Over a six month period (Jan-June 08) people throughout the region are invited to submit photographs, through The Big Picture website and/or participating arts venues, which they feel define their experience of living and working in the Midlands during 2008, building a detailed visual snapshot of the region, its people and communities.

Six participating galleries throughout the Midlands region are also running education, outreach and enhancement activities as part of The Big Picture. These activities ware being funded by the campaign and although they will be incorporated into the galleries regular programmes, they will specifically target the C2DE groups and fit in with the broad theme of The Big Picture.

Big Picture Activity
There are several ways that audiences will can engage with, and participate in, The Big Picture between Jan and June 2008, these are:

· Attend an event and/or participate in a workshop at an arts venue throughout the region
· Participate in a PR/marketing activity or campaign i.e. “In the Frame” launch roadshow
· Take, submit and/or manipulate a photograph on The Big Picture website.

All of these activities are very different, particularly those in galleries, as each one is tailored to meet the specific needs of each audience to encourage attendance and participation (which is the overriding aim of the project).

Unfortunately the end result of this targeted and bespoke approach is that there is no single region wide end result for the project which participants feel that they have contributed to (which we want them to do as part of the Taking Part Survey).

This world record aspect of the project was the main communication hook for the media when the project was launched w/c 21 January and resulted in over £550,000 equivalent advertising spend of media coverage in one week. The BBC is keen to continue promoting The Big Picture and Midlands Today in particular has committed regular coverage (subject to editorial decisions) to the project in order to help us break this record.

Objectives
The objectives of the world record attempt are:
To pull together all the regional, targeted activity undertaken as part of The Big Picture
To engage large numbers of people within the West Midlands with photography, and subsequently the arts.
To obtain extensive national, regional and local publicity for the project.

What is actually required?
Audiences Central requires an artist/artists to design and produce the world record photograph mosaic (montage) which will be larger in size than the current world record (as detailed above).

The successful artist/artists will work with images supplied via The Big Picture website www.inthebigpicture.co.uk, the galleries and in community workshops to design the mosaic and then produce this large scale artwork.

Audiences Central will provide support for the operational aspects of the project, e.g. the physical production of the individual photographs.

We are currently working with The New Art Gallery Walsall regarding the possibility of producing and displaying the mosaic vertically on the side of their building. If approved Audiences Central will source relevant material (inc scaffolding, safety equipment etc) but the artist/artists will need to be comfortable with working in this unique environment.

In addition this brief also covers 6 half day workshops to be run across the region during April and May which will involve producing small elements of the final mosaic.

This is a great opportunity for a local artist/artists to work on a large scale, nationally recognised project which is funded by Arts Council England and is supported by the BBC. The Big Picture has already attracted a great deal of interest from the arts and audiences region wide (and in some cases nationally and internationally) and the world record attempt will be a high profile culmination to this already much loved project.

The successful artist/artists may be interviewed/profiled on national, regional and local media. They must be available to undertake this aspect of the project, and enjoy being interviewed and working with the media. Audiences Central’s Big Picture PR consultant would liaise with the artist on this and other Big Picture media coverage. Depending on funds, there may also be the possibility of additional work to produce pieces of artwork which can be used to aid the legacy of the project.

World Record Rules
There are a number of rules that the successful artist/artists must adhere to in order for us to apply for the world record title. These are:

· The mosaic should be constructed of individual photographs and may be fixed to the floor/surface with an appropriate fixative
· The individual photos used for the mosaic can be any size
· The subject matter of the photo and the subject matter of the overall mosaic are irrelevant to the record as is the number of artists involved.
· The final overall image is one that should, in essence, be recognizable one when viewed in its entirety.
· The placement of the individual photos can be worked out by a computer, but the final mosaic must be created physically as the record is for a mosaic not for a digital image or massive computer print out.
· A qualified surveyor should officially measure the surface area.


The successful artist/artists, in conjunction with Audiences Central, Arts Council and the BBC will decide on the image that will be represented in the final mosaic. However to maintain the regional pride which has been initiated with this project it is recommended that this image is something recognisable as the West Midlands and/or The Big Picture project





Location
As this project is all about engaging people with the arts, it is proposed that the world record attempt will continue along this theme. The rules for the world record do not restrict the number of people working on the mosaic so it is proposed that the production of the mosaic would, where possible, involve members of the public (through the workshop part of this brief).

Timing
The Big Picture project finishes at the end of June so it is planned that the world record attempt will take place over the weekend of the 28 June. A detailed timing plan will be developed in consultation with the successful artist/artists however a brief outline of timings is as follows:

Activity
Date
Artist brief circulated
w/c 25 Feb
Deadline for artist brief
18 March
Artist interviewed and selected
25 March
Community venues selected
April
Community workshops start
April
Community workshops continue
April, May
Collating images, online preparation
June
World record attempt
28/29 June


Budget
The artist fee to include travelling costs for the world record mosaic and 6 half day workshops throughout the region (locations tbc) is £9500.

Materials for the workshops and world record attempt will be provided separately. If any additional work is commissioned this will also be funded separately.


Next Steps
Please provide a proposal outlining costings, background about yourself, initial thoughts on how you would approach this commission and examples of previous work that is relevant to this project (either in scale or style) to Kerry Endsor by Tuesday 18 March.

The short listed artists will be invited for interview on Tuesday 25 March.

Brief prepared by:
Kerry Endsor
Marketing Consultant working on behalf of Audiences Central
601 The Big Peg, 120 Vyse Street, Birmingham, B18 6NF
M:07811 949987
E: kerry@smartypantsmarketing.co.uk