WORK Records: Project Manager

Job Summary Animate Projects seeks a Project Manager to work with us to deliver WORK Records, an 18 month ambitious creative heritage project exploring three heritage collections across the East Midlands. Job Description WORK Records sets out to explore ideas and the realities of historic working lives, with a particular focus on three 'family firms', as represented in the collections of our heritage partners collections and elsewhere. Three 'investigative teams' - curators, historians, existing and former workers, and artist facilitators - will explore each particular…

Job Summary

Animate Projects seeks a Project Manager to work with us to deliver WORK Records, an 18 month ambitious creative heritage project exploring three heritage collections across the East Midlands.

Job Description

WORK Records sets out to explore ideas and the realities of historic working lives, with a particular focus on three ‘family firms’, as represented in the collections of our heritage partners collections and elsewhere.

Three ‘investigative teams’ – curators, historians, existing and former workers, and artist facilitators – will explore each particular historic collection, identifying records and objects, and seeing where they lead us, and to who, and what stories they can tell, about working lives.

Three short, animated films will articulate this new knowledge and understanding, telling previously hidden and untold stories of working lives, and will be the catalyst and inspiration for an extensive public engagement programme, including screenings & discussions, workshops, a ‘staff newspaper’ publication, and the core of an online resource.

Our heritage collection partners are Derbyshire Records Office, Corby Heritage Centre, and John Smedley Archive. Whilst the collections are distinctive, they are geographically and culturally connected as part of the East Midlands, and, more specifically, we will focus on holdings relating to family firms: Smedley (Lea Mills), Robinson and Sons (Bolsover) and Stuart and Lloyds (Corby). Alongside the archive collections, we are working with arts organisations Junction Arts in Chesterfield and Fermynwoods Contemporary Art in Northamptonshire, the history team at the University of Derby, and Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site.

Location: Remote working, with travel across the East Midlands Contract: Fixed term, 18 months, 0.6 (3 days/21 hours per week), worked flexibly, June 2025 – October 2026 Salary: £18k per annum plus expenses

WORK Records is made possible with National Lottery Heritage Fund support thanks to National Lottery players. The project is also supported by Arts Council England.

Job Requirements

Please read the full brief before applying. The person we are looking for will have:

• Experience of working to engage diverse communities in a contemporary heritage and/or visual arts/museum context
• Experience of project management and delivery of community focused and engaged heritage and/or arts projects, working with a range of partners and stakeholders
• A passion for social history

Job Responsibilities

Please read the full brief before applying. The role involves:

• Working closely with the Animate team, our heritage collection and arts partners, a project historian, and artist facilitators, other partners (including University of Derby), volunteers, community groups and engagement programme partners.
• Coordinating and facilitating the WORK Records project community, and work closely with the artist facilitators to support the work of the three ‘investigative’ teams.
• Coordinating delivery, of the public engagement programme, including in person and online events, resources and other materials.