Artists Commission-work with The Bond Board! Apply Now!

The Bond Board – Community Storytelling Commission Project
Our Voices – Our Future: Co-produced stories of belonging, survival and journey, informing community understanding and The Bond Board’s future strategic direction.

We are seeking expressions of interest from a range of community artists, interested in delivering our exciting new story project.

The Bond Board is a long established homelessness charity operating across Rochdale and Bolton since 1993. We support over 2,000 people each year who are homeless or vulnerably housed, many facing multiple and intersecting disadvantages including poverty, the cost of living crisis, insecure housing, migration trauma, poor mental health, and extreme social isolation.

Our work focuses on supporting people into the private rented sector through bond guarantees, tenancy sustainment, housing management, crisis support, landlord engagement and co produced community drop ins. Our ethos is grounded in respect, empowerment, lived experience and community resilience. Co production is central to how we work and how we learn.

This commission builds on previous co produced projects including Sustainable Livelihoods (2017), Zine and Heard – A Celebration of Resilience (2021), and the Tenants’ Advocacy Service Evaluation (2023).

Project background and intent

Our Voices – Our Future responds to the ongoing cost of living and housing crisis, rising social division, and increasing hostility towards migrants and people experiencing homelessness. Recent consultation with Bond Board service users found that 100% reported financial hardship, and many described loneliness, isolation and stress as dominant features of daily life.

This project is a community storytelling project first. Its purpose is to create accessible, culturally sensitive spaces where people can tell their own stories in ways that feel safe, dignified and meaningful. The project will bring together diverse groups who rarely have opportunities to listen to one another, including:

• Homeless and vulnerably housed people
• People living in poverty in the private rented sector
• Refugees and people seeking asylum
• Volunteers and peer supporters
• Staff, trustees and partner agencies
• Socially minded landlords

For further details and to apply (by the 20th May), please see the Artists Brief here:
Artists Brief-Our Voices-Our Future

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