Create Work and Stimulate Non-Digital Creativity

The online creative and cultural offering available online has been a positive way to stay connected during the lockdown. However, the Cambridge City Council’s Culture and Community Team recognised some households, where digital access is limited or non-existent due to lack of income, did not benefit from this cultural lifeline.

Local creative practitioners were invited to apply for one of 4 micro-commissions to design an activity for a creative activity pack to be distributed to households in need, via the City’s Community Food Hubs.

Also, this created an opportunity to provide work for freelance creative practitioners whose livelihood has been affected by social distancing measures.

Cambridge City Council designed the application process to minimise the amount of labour for each applicant. 

• Each applicant was invited to submit a maximum of 3 ideas. Each idea could contain up to 3 uploaded files (images and/or videos) and a short proposal
• A panel of 13 judges was invited to go through the applications.

Zealous supplemented Cambridge City Councils marketing by recommending the opportunity to the 1,200 artists based in Cambridgeshire on the network.

With the help of additional funding, Cambridge City Council extended their selection to 8 local artists. This doubled the positive economic impact of the project on local talent and allowed those receiving their activity packs a much richer experience.

Finally, the Council actively seeks to provide and communicate the breadth of opportunities for arts and cultural skills within Cambridgeshire. Zealous aligns with those values by recommending further opportunities to candidates based on their location and skills, regardless of the status of their application.