Early Years Artist

Closing Date: Sunday 27th April by 12am

Key Dates: 21st May to 19th November 2025

Location: Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Early Years is a crucial part of the Fitzwilliam Museums Learning Programmes, offering a stimulating provision for families in and around Cambridge. We are looking for an experienced and enthusiastic Early Years artist who can design and deliver 12 sessions over 6 days for families with toddlers and babies, using the museum spaces and its collection as a springboard to provide playful, welcoming and engaging instances of discovery and learning.

The sessions occur once a month on a Wednesday, the first session starts at 10.30am and lasts until 11.30am and its for children between 18 months and 5 years old. The second session of the day starts at 1pm and lasts until 2pm, and it's for babies 0 to 18 months old. The sessions will run on 21st May, 25th June, 30th July, 24th September ,15th October and 19th November. Our Early Years Sessions are guided by our EY Guiding Principles, which are the result of years of practical research about family museum learning. These principles, amongst other things, define family museum learning as a welcoming and creative space for all the family to enjoy; an opportunity to build relationships between children and parents/carers, as well as with other families and the Museum more widely; and as an instance for families to take up space in the galleries, build their confidence and have a good time together. The artist will work with our team to use these principles, as well as the museum building and its collection as the basis to plan and deliver these sessions.

Fees and Expenses

Total delivery fee: £2000 to cover for planning and delivery of the activity described above, plus travel and materials expenses. The final breakdown can be discussed and agreed between the museum and the facilitator, but it is estimated that:

• 6 days of delivery @ £250 x day = £1500
• 2 days of planning and meetings @ £250 x day = £500
• Materials up to £200 = £200
• Travel costs of up to £150 per day for the 6 days of delivery + planning visits to the Museum

Expectations of Services

• The Fitzwilliam Museum expects everyone working with us to adhere to our Safeguarding and Health and Safety policies and procedures, as well as our Code of Conduct.
• We expect all sessions to be carried out in a safe and inclusive way that prioritizes the participants’ safety and ability to take part in the activity.
• We expect everyone delivering an activity to be present before the session starts to set up as required, and to remain during the whole duration of the session. If a facilitator needs to leave the session for an urgent reason, a museum member of staff must be notified before leaving.
• We expect everyone who has delivered an activity to leave spaces in good shape for other groups and visitors to continue to use them.
• The Fitzwilliam Museum will endeavour to support everyone working with us as deemed necessary to the best of our ability.
• All materials used must be free of harmful or toxic substances, be allergen free, and importantly they must be washable or possible to disinfect them, to keep them clean for the large number of families interacting with them.
• Any materials purchased or otherwise obtained as part of this residency, must align with our Planet Friendly purchasing guidelines.
• No liquids, inks, crayons, or glitter to be used inside the galleries.

Selection Criteria

• Experience of working with Early Years in a creative and inclusive way
• Understanding of the possibilities and constraints of working in a museum space shared with other visitors and groups
• Available for the session dates outlined above*

How to apply for this opportunity

Please send a portfolio or website link to your previous work with Early Years and families, and a one-page proposal describing the Early Years Sessions you would deliver applying our Guiding Principles and how you meet the selection criteria to Florencia Nannetti, Learning Associate: Families and Early Years at fn279@cam.ac.uk

Interviews

We will be carrying out interviews for this role on Tuesday 6th May. The interviews will be online using Teams.

*We are aware that if selected, you’ll have a short lead in time to get the first session in May ready. You’ll have full support from the Learning Team to do this, but we will be able to consider you starting in June instead with an additional session to be delivered in December.

More About Us

The Fitzwilliam Museum is widely considered the world’s outstanding university art collection. We care for works of art and material culture from Europe, Egypt and Asia of exceptional international importance, works that connect people across cultures and time. Founded in 1816 ‘for the increase of learning’, the Fitzwilliam has long been both a great public cultural asset and an extraordinary scholarly resource – local, regional, national and global.

Our vision

The Fitzwilliam Museum: opening up the past to transform our futures.

Our mission

We work with  art, objects, spaces and experiences to inspire reflection, connection and creativity. The work of the Fitzwilliam Museum learning team is underpinned by four pillars: Creating Opportunity; Society & Identity; Health & Wellbeing and Environment and our expectation is that these concepts will have relevance to this work.