Our friends at COMMON are supporting The Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society to find creatives, presenting work at the Edinburgh Fringe 2019, who are interested in taking part in the pilot of their innovative ‘Like Like a Local’ programme.
The ‘Live Like a Local’ project seeks to match local residents, who may experience loneliness or social isolation and would therefore enjoy and benefit from having an artist stay with them, but who may not know where to start, with artists taking work to the Fringe.
Call-Out for Creatives at the Edinburgh Fringe Who are Seeking Accommodation:
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society would like to offer artists, who do not yet have accommodation for the Fringe, the exciting opportunity to participate in the pilot of their ‘Live Like a Local’ programme.
“We know that the cost of accommodation in August has been cited as one of the key barriers for artists attempting to participate with the Fringe, particularly those from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds, and therefore self-funded artists are finding it increasingly difficult to present work at the Fringe.
The ‘Live Like a Local’ project seeks to match local residents with artists taking work to the Fringe. The hosts will have, in the main, been identified by local charities who the Fringe Society already works with, who may experience loneliness or social isolation and would therefore enjoy and benefit from having an artist stay with them, but who may not know where to start.”
Because this scheme will be designed to some-way tackle social isolation and loneliness, there is an expectation the artist would spend a pre-agreed period of time each day talking to, or in the company of, the host.
There will also be an agreed amount paid to the host by the artist, a suggested fee in the region of £100 per week to cover the costs of hosting that they incur, however the Fringe Society’s main interest in this project is not purely about the financial transaction, but as an experience which is mutually beneficial to both the hosts and artists.
The Fringe Society encourage a curiosity about the other person and the social and societal benefits of building this relationship, and as such they are ideally looking for artists to stay with their hosts for around 3 – 4 weeks – or the duration of the Fringe – to allow a sustained relationship to be built with, and to build confidence in, the host.
The Fringe Society have only just received support to pilot this programme in a small way in 2019, and are currently in the process of identifying hosts. They hope to have encouraged some hosts in the next week or so, and will ideally start with 5-10 hosts for this year
If you are interested, and if you have any further questions on the project, please get in touch with Xenia, Project Officer, via her email address: xenia.menzl@edfringe.com
