Community Engagement and Public Art Assistant

Reporting to the Community Engagement Manager (Bloomsbury Campus) the Community Engagement and Public Art Assistant will be responsible for supporting the delivery and development of community engagement and public art activities across east London, and in Bloomsbury.

You’ll be working with: UCL East Community Engagement Team, Museums and Cultural Programmes Team, Bloomsbury Theatre team, UCL Widening Participation.

The purpose of the placement is to support the design and delivery of community engagement, public art and cultural programmes in east London through working with and supporting UCL Culture teams in the delivery of their work.

This role is offered as part of STEP

STEP is a training programme for young East Londoners local to the Olympic Park, who are ready to bring ideas, creative energy and perspectives to the creative and cultural sector. You must be:

Aged 18 to 30
Resident of Hackney, Tower Hamlets, Newham or Waltham Forest, and lived in the boroughs whilst at school or college

Through STEP, you’ll get paid London Living Wage over a 12-month training programme to develop a range of skills and creative approaches and build on your network across different organisations or departments. You’ll complete a work-based placement, grow as part of a peer network, take part in regular professional development workshops, and get a budget to produce a collaborative project. 

We’ll also connect you with a specialist industry mentor, provide careers coaching and continue to offer support as part of our community after the programme.  

UCL Culture is a multidisciplinary team committed to connecting the world with UCL through innovative programming and engagement activities. We use our assets in the form of collections, museums, theatre and most importantly our people to mobilise the UCL community, inspiring them to engage people with their research and their research with people.

We deliver an exciting programme of events, public engagement activities, public art, performance, exhibitions and permanent museum displays to create cutting edge cultural experiences. We collaborate, light sparks, disrupt and provoke. We use our objects, insights and expertise to reframe questions and surface new ideas. We believe in the power of open because open minds see further.

UCL will be opening a new campus, UCL East, on Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park starting in 2022 and our commitment is for it to be open, accessible and publicly engaged. We want to connect with local communities not only through our research activities but also through offering employment and development opportunities to the communities of east London. We also deliver a busy programme of cultural, public events and performances in collaboration with academics, students, artists and performers through our museums, the Bloomsbury Theatre and exhibition spaces on our Bloomsbury campus.

The internship will work with our Community Engagement and Public Art team working with us on a broad range of activities from artist-researcher collaborations, supporting exhibitions, east London school engagement activities and helping us to explore and create content to share the story of our work across the university and beyond.

This is an opportunity to develop event and exhibitions planning and delivery, communication and design skills as well as learn more deeply about the role of public art and community engagement with an experienced and dynamic team in east London. On the Bloomsbury Campus you will work with the Museums and Cultural Programme Team and the Bloomsbury Theatre team to develop skills and understanding in the delivery of exhibitions, public events and theatrical productions. This is a dynamic and exciting role in a busy department and the traineeship will enable you to develop a range of knowledge and skills in the delivery of cultural and public programmes that will be readily transferable.

As Community Engagement and Public Art Assistant you will get a chance to learn and develop across a range of areas, tasks and responsibilities including;

Communications

Production of Newsletters: gather appropriate content and produce regular newsletters to share latest community engagement and public art news, supported by the community engagement manager.

Production of Case Studies: support the community engagement team, to gather monitoring and evaluation reports and turn this into engaging case studies which share the story of what UCL is doing in east London.
Support the creation and development of social media content including website, twitter, and YouTube (where appropriate): resulting in an understanding of how to produce, generate and develop online content.

Exhibitions

Exhibition Planning: support the Exhibitions Manager to plan exhibitions which showcase the work of UCL and local communities resulting in an understanding of the skills, knowledge and processes required in the planning for the delivery of an exhibition.

Exhibition programming: work with the Exhibitions Manager to schedule, design and hang various exhibitions. Be part of a project team, resulting in the understanding of how to prioritise, schedule workloads and plan deadlines as well as experience of working within in a team.

Engagement and Public Art Programming

Planning and delivery of programmes: support the delivery of the Trellis Programme, which connects east London artists and UCL researchers, Community Engagement funding schemes and Community-University networking events. Resulting in an understanding of the steps and actions required to deliver a range of events and programmes.

Among other things this will include:

Arranging venue hire and catering.
Liaising with participants.
Minute-taking, and supporting follow up activities.
Delivery of events and Public Programmes: support the planning and creation of public programming activity for the Great Get Together. Be part of a project team, support project plans and meeting deadlines. Resulting in an understanding of the steps and actions required to deliver a range of events.

Assisting the team to create good links with various local community groups through marketing, attending events and meeting key local community professionals.
Supporting the work of other teams whose work aligns with the Community Engagement Team such as the School Engagement team: resulting in a broad understanding of engagement roles and the skills to work with a variety of stakeholders.

Personal Responsibilities

Personal Work Planning: resulting in the effective and efficient use and prioritisation of activities to enable the enable the delivery events, exhibitions and programmes including the use of Outlook and other digital planning tools

Please note this is just a guide, do apply if you have transferable skills and even if you do not meet every single requirement

Excellent team working skills, and the ability to work effectively as part of a multi-disciplinary team
Ability to plan, prioritise and manage a demanding and varied workload
Good communication skills, both spoken and written and the ability to work with a diverse range of audiences
Good interpersonal skills, and ability to develop good working relationships with a range of colleagues and external partners (including public and voluntary sector agencies)
A good understanding of east London, and the communities that work and live there

Ability to work creatively and innovatively to support the delivery of engagement activities
Experience of volunteer roles within cultural or voluntary sector organisations
Demonstrable enthusiasm and aptitude for a role in cultural engagement
Some working knowledge of Microsoft Office applications, including Word, Excel and Outlook or similar software applications

Applications have now closed.

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Community Engagement and Public Art Assistant

This role is offered as part of STEP

Employer

Location

Hours

Salary

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Please note this is just a guide, do apply if you have transferable skills and even if you do not meet every single requirement

Applications have now closed.

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