Sitting in Torre Abbey’s Tea Rooms, gazing through the windows and out across the former meadows to the wide sweep of the Bay.
We have an 11am meeting with the Service Lead (Theatre, Museums and Arts) and the Operations and Development Manager.
We are here to introduce ourselves and our proposal for a partnership project with Torre Abbey who we are asking to host a 12-month Smooth Space artist’s residency.
We are made very welcome. The cafe setting feels informal, which is a relief as we are nervous – unsure how the Service Lead and the Manager – head of Torre Abbey and his deputy – will respond to this proposed project. We have had full support to go ahead from Torbay Council, but we now need to convince Torre Abbey – without their goodwill and full commitment the project will stall.
We are asked a lot of questions – what do we mean by ‘residency’? will we be moving in? how big is the project budget? what kind of art will we produce?
So we talk about the kind of support we hope to have from this proposed partnership (visiting access, conversations with staff, volunteers and visitors etc) and that we will be bringing all the funding. We also spend time showing a couple of examples of past projects – non-permanent works (moving image and audio installations).
The meeting draws to a close, but Lead and Manager suggest we stay as long as we like – take a tour around. Torre Abbey is still closed to public for winter – so our visit is an exclusive private event.
We shake hands and are assured that Torre Abbey will let us know whether they feel able to commit to the residency within the next couple of weeks.
