Commission Outline

Arts and Culture is seeking a creative practitioner with a particular interest in organisational cultures (ie. how people work together in formalised settings, and how those cultures can be disrupted, adjusted and reimagined) to work with academics in the Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (HASS) at the University of Exeter to explore the following areas of interest:

Taking as your starting point the unique contribution of Humanities scholarship in contemporary UK universities, examine:

• The role narrative infrastructure plays across departments, networks and systems

• How interdisciplinary research cultures are being shaped by Humanities expertise

• How these practices collide with established or entrenched institutional norms

• How these practices benefit challenge-led strategic priorities in the sector

(See Appendix I for more information about this terminology).

The expectation is for new artwork to be created and shared with broader audiences, in a format appropriate to both the commissioned artist’s practice and the lines of enquiry followed during the commission period. The creative practitioner is required to spend time in person and online with relevant HASS staff with a minimum commitment of two days per month, occurring January-June 2027. Engagement can take a range of forms, such as but not limited to: 121 conversations; participation in team meetings, site visits and teaching; and leading workshops with staff, students, and publics. A small working group of academics from HASS will provide introductions to colleagues, insights into specific disciplines, and potentially collaborative input to the artwork.

Commissioned artwork, to remain the property of the artist, is to be completed and presented before the end of July 2027. The format will be dependent on the artform (for example, public performance, exhibition, reading or screening). A freelance creative producer will support the creation and presentation of the commissioned artwork.

A short film, documenting the process of the Arts Commission, will be managed by Arts and Culture. Footage will be collected at mutually agreed points of delivery during the commission, and lead contributors will provide interviews reflecting on the experience. Examples of previous Arts Commission films can be viewed on the A&C website and/or YouTube channel.

Commission Objectives

• Develop ambitious and striking artwork/s and experiences of quality and legacy.
• Bring creative practitioners into the work of the University of Exeter, devising collaborations across disciplines that value in-depth engagement and new perspectives.
• Build partnerships and reach new audiences, raising the profile of creative programming at the University of Exeter.

Stakeholders and Collaborators

The Arts and Culture (A&C) team is responsible for delivering the Arts and Culture Strategy for the University of Exeter. Our purpose is to create the time, space and opportunities needed for creative and interdisciplinary collaborations that, in turn, have a positive impact on student experience, staff satisfaction, the University’s profile and reputation for creativity, and its relationship with the regional cultural sector and creative industries. Our remit spans the four campuses across Devon and Cornwall (Streatham, St Luke’s, Penryn and Truro). Please note that while this commission will be managed from the Streatham campus, and this is where the majority of the activity will be based, we also have HASS colleagues at Penryn and some activity may also be based there. Find out more about Arts and Culture.

The Arts Commission is our annual flagship programme, where we invite creative practitioners to take inspiration from the University and develop new work. Every year the commissions take a different shape, and we have worked with a range of practitioners – choreographers, filmmakers, poets, sound designers, photographers, composers, musicians, designers, printmakers, and others. Find out more about the programme.

Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (HASS) is one of three Faculties at the University of Exeter, the others are Environment, Science and Economy (ESE) and Health and Life Sciences (HLS). It is comprised of ten departments, all of which undertake fundamental discovery research, as well as applied activity and skills development and reflect areas of economic, social and cultural importance. We believe that in a time of volatility, complexity and uncertainty, research and education across the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences are critical to unlocking human creativity, to engaging in a human-centred way with the world around us, and to building the inclusive understanding that will help us to co-create a better future. Find out more about the HASS Faculty.

Selection Criteria

We will be shortlisting applicants for interview based on the following criteria:

• At least five years’ professional experience as a creative practitioner, making work that has been recognised for its quality and reach
• Practical experience of delivering creative collaborations, either embedded in a higher education context or working with academics in other settings
• A track record of facilitating a range of different stakeholders – e.g. examples of creative approaches to workshops and public consultation
• A genuine commitment to the areas of interest outlined in this brief, illustrated through previous work that has explored at least one of the relevant themes (such as organisational cultures, research cultures, narrative infrastructure, and/or interdisciplinarity)
• Strong time-management skills, ensuring accurate budget keeping, documentation, and working to a fixed deadline.

Selection Process

Creative Practitioners are invited to submit a 1-2 page statement, addressing their interest in this commission and how they meet the selection criteria, as well as a CV, and 3-4 examples of their work that show suitability for this commission (images, videos, audio links, etc).

Submit to artsandculture@exeter.ac.uk, with e-mail subject 'Arts Commission 2026' by 5:00pm (17:00) on Sunday 29 November 2026.

A selection panel, made up of 3-4 academic and professional services staff in A&C and HASS, will shortlist and invite selected candidates to an online interview. All interviewed candidates will receive a £100 fee to acknowledge their preparation and meeting time.

Creative Producer

Some creative practitioners work regularly with the same producer, developing a professional shorthand that assists the making of the artwork.

Arts and Culture is receptive to recommendations for a preferred producer by the commissioned artist, and separate interviews will be conducted to ensure suitability of that producer for collaborating in the context of this specific commission.

Alternatively, when an established practitioner/producer partnership does not exist, Arts and Culture will select an established producer with skillsets and experience relevant to the artform of the commissioned artist to support the delivery of this Arts Commission.

Depending on the nature of the artform and preferred working practices, the creative producer may work as a close collaborator for the duration of the commission (starting in February 2027) or may serve the commission best for a shorter, more intensive duration to realise creative outputs towards the end of the commission (starting in April-May 2027).

Timeline

• Callout for Artists – w/c 9 November

• Shortlisting – w/c 30 November

• Interviews – Thursday 10 December / Monday 14 December

• Producer recruitment – interviews if existing, callout if not – w/c 11 January

• Shortlisting – w/c 25 January

• Interview – w/c 8 February

• January – Artist introduction to Working Group, A&C Team, set up meeting/visit schedule

• February – Producer onboard, liaising with Artist/A&C on initial direction of travel

• March-June – continuing meetings, workshops, site visits, teaching etc. Developing outputs, preparation format for sharing event and publicising

• July – Completion of artwork, public sharing event, wash-up and evaluation

Budget

A fee of £14,000 (including VAT) covers the creative practitioner’s time to deliver the commission, as well as travel, subsistence and accommodation as required.

A separate budget of up to £4,000 (including VAT) is available to cover production and presentation costs, such as technical and collaborative support, materials, transport, venue hire, hospitality, etc.

Arts and Culture will manage the budget for the freelance creative producer and their associated costs, as well as documentation, evaluation and reporting.

Appendix I - Further information about terminology

The unique contribution of the Humanities
Humanities is a diverse field that explores all aspects of human culture - the forms it takes and our relationship with our surroundings (human, non-human, and more-than-human), drawing on histories to interrogate contemporary events and inform the future. Its unique contribution is through how this study is undertaken, applying methods and lenses such as interpretive inquiry, aesthetics, semiotics and critical discourse to ethical, social and civic contexts over time. It is a task of meaning-making, and develops skills in critical thinking, adaptability, imagination, and democratic agency - a crucial contribution in our age of omnicrises and disinformation. www.exeter.ac.uk/faculties/hass/

Interdisciplinarity
Universities in the UK are tasked by Government with addressing complex challenges. For example, the University of Exeter’s Strategy 2030 goals are to: lead meaningful action against the climate emergency and ecological crisis; make key breakthroughs to transform human health and wellbeing; and lead the progress towards creating a fair, socially just and inclusive society. No single discipline can address such interrelated challenges.

There are many ways of working across disciplines (and definitions vary and blur) – ranging from multidisciplinary, where each area of expertise maintains its own methodologies, to transdisciplinary, where new forms of collaboration evolve beyond disciplinary borders, incorporating non-academic stakeholders. Interdisciplinarity falls somewhere between the two, where disciplines are maintained but with an active interest in pooling knowledge and practice from other disciplines to find new perspectives and solutions.

At the University of Exeter, Institutes and Research Networks are two institution-level ways of choreographing interdisciplinary work, and there are many Faculty-level structures, such as Research Centres and working groups that also facilitate these practices. In HASS, the newly launched Tamar Institute will be a fundamental vehicle to undertake this work.

• Institutes- www.exeter.ac.uk/research/institutes/

• Networks -www.exeter.ac.uk/research/networks/

• Research Centres - www.exeter.ac.uk/research-centres/

Research Culture
Major research funding bodies, such as UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), are encouraging universities to focus on not just the challenges to be addressed, but the nature by which the research is undertaken, specifically the research culture that shapes how academics, technicians, professional services staff and publics create new knowledge. Positive research cultures, for instance, are scaffolded by strong skills development, career progression, ethical processes, and robust HR guidance.

The Research Excellence Framework (REF), managed by Research England, provides a periodic assessment of research quality in UK higher education institutions and the results have an impact on funding. The REF is one lever by which the value placed on research culture can be heightened. For REF2021, ‘Research Environment’ held a 15% weighting in the assessment; for REF2029, the modified category of ‘Strategy, People, and Research Environment’ holds a weighting of 20%.

• Research Culture - www.exeter.ac.uk/research/researchculture/
• Ref 2029 - www.2029.ref.ac.uk/

Narrative Infrastructure
The first use of the concept ‘narrative infrastructure’ in academic literature is often credited to innovation specialists, Jasper Deuten and Arie Rip (2000), in their paper, Narrative infrastructure in product creation processes. A recent article by Yuval Dror (2026) unpacks the term and examines its component parts - story-telling, narrative and micro-stories - in organisations, coining the evocative phrase, ‘polyphonic story systems’ (p.11). As with interdisciplinarity, there are many nuanced definitions available of narrative infrastructure; we are drawing on Dror’s text as a useful starting point for engaging with this commission.

Dror (2026) argues that “organizations do not merely use stories. They are also continuously organized through stories. More specifically, they are organized through streams of small, situated, and often incomplete stories that travel across meetings, units, interfaces, and memories. These narrative forms matter because they connect experience, interpretation, and action at the level where organizational life is actually lived”. (p.3)

References

Deuten, J J and Rip, A (2000) Narrative infrastructure in product creation processes. Organization, 7(1), 751-770.

Dror, Y. (2026) Narrative Infrastructure: Micro-Stories as the Constitutive Medium of Organizational Life, SSRN, posted 1 April 2026.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6392100