Target reached!
Due to the overwhelming support from backers helping us to reach our initial targets...
LOW PROFILE - Never Give Up
Plymouth, England, United Kingdom
Aim
To support the research and development of new participatory artworks over the next year.
Who are LOW PROFILE?
We are LOW PROFILE - Rachel Dobbs & Hannah Rose (nee Jones) - artists based in Plymouth (UK), who have been working together for over 14 years. Our arts practice takes many forms - including small-scale live moments, gallery exhibitions, books, videos, text works, sound works and large-scale participatory projects. We make work for (and sometimes with) lots of different types of people and audiences, often in specific places, responding to the contexts and situations we find there. If you’re new to what we do, have a look at our website to find out more >>
www.we-are-low-profile.co.uk
LOW PROFILE presenting their work at Artsadmin Bursary Showcase, Toynbee Studios, London in 2014. (Image Credit: Oliver Rudkin)
What is this crowdfunder for?
We are currently developing and testing some new ambitious ideas in the studio and we need YOUR SUPPORT to be able to achieve this. One of the ideas we are working on is DRUMROLL - a live performance where we will work with a group of local drummers to create an extended, on-going drumroll for an audience. To try out this work we need to:
- Hire a studio space
- Pay freelance drummers & musicians to work with us
- Pay a professional photographer & film-maker to help us make promo images & a video trailer
- Pay a mentor to work with us
- Hire equipment for staging the performance & work-in-progress showings
- Cover our day-to-day running costs (workspace, storage unit, childcare, website hosting etc)
After this research & development stage, we’ll be showing this idea to commissioners and organisations - pitching to get the work commissioned and shown publicly within the next 2 years.
We are bringing together some artworks from our archive (badges, books) alongside a BRAND NEW limited edition print (in collaboration with artist Sarah Smalldon ) of our work “Never Give Up” for this crowdfunder. It feels apt to us that the sale of our own artworks funds the development of new artworks and that we continue to take a DIY approach to making things happen. Thank you for helping us to keep going, it would be scary to stop!
Check out these top notch rewards...
Never Give Up - Limited Edition Print (2017) - Created for our solo exhibition ‘Against All Odds’ at Exeter Phoenix in 2013, this positive yet defiant message welcomed visitors and passers by to the gallery and projected a rally call/cry to all who face adversity in difficult times. Working with artist Sarah Smalldon, we are producing a limited edition print work of an image of this artwork especially for this crowdfunder.
Never Give Up (GOLD) - Super Limited Edition Print (2017) - We are producing a very short run of these limited edition, hand finished prints of our Never Give Up print with metalic GOLD lettering.
Would You Like This Badge? - limited edition badge artworks (2011) - In 2011 we were commissioned to produce a new badge series (6 badge designs) which were made available to the public at 5 of our favourite Plymouth pubs. We developed the text for the badges in response to our experience of living and working as artists in the city. The badges subsequently SOLD OUT! We have a few left from our personal store via this crowdfunder only.
Choose from the following designs:
- PLYMOUTH TWINNED WITH PLYMOUTH - UPDATE: ****sold out****
PLYMOUTH 3HRS 43MINS FROM THE CAPITAL - UPDATE: ****sold out****
PLYMOUTH BIGGER THAN REYKJAVIK - UPDATE: ****sold out****
MOVE TO PLYMOUTH - UPDATE: ****sold out****
Would You Like This Badge? - PLYMOUTH THE SPIRIT OF DISCO - COLLECTOR'S ITEM - UPDATE: ****sold out****
This badge was NOT sold through the pubs & was only available to the audience (limited to 30 people) who attended our one off pub-crawl-performance. You can have one of the LAST TWO of these highly sought-after badges for a pledge of £30.
PERIL - badge (2013) - Made to mark the opening of our solo exhibition ‘Impromptu’ and the opening of the new arts centre at ICIA, Bath, we produced a limited edition badge work to gift to visitors of the launch event. PERIL aims to offer hope to those who receive/wear it when dealing with the uncertainties of the future.
Worth The Trip - books & exclusive badge sets (2005) - commissioned by Newlyn Art Gallery to mark their extension & the opening of The Exchange Gallery in Penzance. LOW PROFILE took the gallery visitor books from a 3 year period & set ourselves the challenge of extracting & cataloguing words & phrases that crop up again & again. Here are some of our favourites presented as a limited edition badge set and book.
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ALL REWARDS INCLUDE UK POSTAGE & PACKAGING - we will carefully pack and dispatch all rewards in early December 2017 which means you should receive them well in time for xmas (handy if you are giving your rewards to lucky loved ones as gifts!!!). If you live outside the UK, please contact us for extra postage costs + estimated delivery times.
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What will we do with the money we raise?
We have set ourselves a series of ambitious targets that we urgently need your help to reach. To give you an idea of what we can achieve with your support...
If we reach:
- £300 - we break even on the costs of commissioning & producing the new “Never Give Up” print (that you receive as a reward for a £20 pledge
- £750 - we are able to spend 6 focussed days working on a new piece of work (with the costs of childcare covered)
- INITIAL FUNDING: £1250 - we are also able to work with two drummers & a filmmaker to create a short trailer of our newest ideas (to show to programmers)
- STRETCH GOAL: £2000 - we are also able to work with a photographer & an illustrator to make new promo images and a text piece (to accompany the new work)
- STRETCH GOAL: £3250 - we are also able to work with a whole team of professional drummers on rehearsing & finalising the new performance work, ready to present to a public audience
- STRETCH GOAL: £4750 - we are able to do all of this, and stage a live performance with multiple drum kits, staging & lighting (in partnership with an arts organisation)
- STRETCH GOAL: £6000+ - we are able to do all of this, and cover our overheads for 1 year (and pay for 1 day extra per month for childcare) which means we get to MAKE MORE ART for you guys and everyone else to enjoy!
We have set our INITIAL FUNDING GOAL at £1250 so that we can get started on making this new work (and then apply for extra funding or fundraise again later), but the more money we raise during this campaign, the quicker DRUMROLL can become a reality.
Our project schedule:
end Sept 2017 -1st Nov 2017 - Crowdfunder campaign
Early Dec 2017 - LOW PROFILE post out all rewards to backers
Spring 2018 - Planning for our R&D period - booking space, hiring equipment, securing mentor & specialists. Rehearsal & testing in studio - working with a mentor, development of film trailer
Summer 2018 - Present work-in-progress to peers/mentor. Prepare proposals for programmers, curators & open calls
What is the deal with Plymouth?
You may have noticed that lots of our rewards in this project relate to Plymouth - the city in where we live and have chosen to base our arts practice over the last 12 years or so… We are keen advocates for culture in the city and have taken a lead role in investing in DIY culture & artist-led project throughout our time here. See: PL:ay (2007), Come To Ours (2011), Would You Like This Badge? (2011), LOCAL (2017) & Jamboree 2018 (forthcoming).
This crowdfunding campaign is a chance and an invitation for you to also invest in our city, to support us to work with more local performers, musicians and creative people & professionals in the development of this new artwork. By backing the project you will also be helping to support the sustainability of LOW PROFILE - helping us to do more in Plymouth (and beyond), helping us test out & develop our new DRUMROLL piece with local audiences, artists & peers here.
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How else can you help?
Every pledge and contribution is really valuable to our project, but we know that people don’t always have money to spare. If this is the case, there are lots of other ways that you can help us to reach our targets...
- Your recommendation - If you like what we do, be sure to tell your friends, family and colleagues about our work. If you can personally reccomend this crowdfunder to just one or two people you know who would LOVE it, we'll get our work out to lots more people than we could ever reach by ourselves.
- Sharing our crowdfunder on social media - By sharing and reccomending our project to your friends, followers & contacts you can help to boost the number of people our project reaches. Crowdfunder reckons that each share on social media can equate to around £20 in pledges, so your shares could make all the difference!! Be sure to include a personal message for the best results.
- Write / blog / shout about our work - If you are excited about the work we make and our approach, please do tell the world! Blogging about our projects and artwork helps to spread the word and support our practice by introducing new people to our work. Make sure to share links with us so that we can retweet & share your writing with our networks too - you'll find us online at @LP_LOWPROFILE on twitter and fb.me/LOWPROFILE.UK on facebook.
This project successfully funded on 2nd November 2017