Call for Artist: Giant Crankie Show Designer and Illustrator

Fee: £4,000 fee + materials

 

About the Project
Moving Parts Arts is currently delivering A Treasury of Tyneside Tales — an ambitious community heritage project celebrating the stories and voices of Tyneside residents, as well as local folklore. Over the coming months, we will continue to work with 100 intergenerational participants from across Tyneside to create hand-crafted Crankies to be exhibited at the Great North Museum in April 2026. Alongside this exhibition, we will produce a professional outdoor Crankie show for family audiences. This new show will feature a giant Crankie, which will support a 30-minute performance inspired by Tyneside folklore and community stories, including live music and storytelling. The project is funded through National Lottery Heritage Fund, Community Foundation North East/Newcastle City Council (Newcastle Cultural Investment Fund) and Hays Travel.

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About Crankies
A Crankie is a traditional storytelling device — essentially a large box with a screen cut into the front, through which an illustrated scroll is hand-cranked as a story is told. Crankies often combine puppetry, shadow work, alongside live performance to create a rich visual and theatrical experience.

 

About Moving Parts Arts

Moving Parts Arts CIO (charity number 1194137) is an award winning arts and community development organisation founded in 2017. Based in Newcastle upon Tyne, our week-long puppet festival, dynamic outreach projects and participatory community events engage 20,000+ people a year. We believe that puppetry can bring people together and break down barriers. 

 

The Opportunity
We are seeking a Designer/Illustrator to collaborate with the Moving Parts team on the design and creation of the Giant Crankie performance. The successful artist will contribute to both the visual storytelling and the overall aesthetic of the show.

The fee for this role is £4,000 + materials. The role will include:

• Storyboarding illustrations that support a 30 minute script.

• Painting / drawing / crafting these illustrations onto a large-scale Crankie canvas scroll. The scroll will be approximately 2.5 metres high and 20 metres in length.

• Painting the Crankie frame facade.

• Input into conversations around aesthetics for the show more broadly.
   

The Moving Parts Arts team will work closely with the selected artist to ensure the aims of the project are met within the timeline and budget. This will include creative support, support with budget management, providing space for fabrication as required (if needed) and administrative support.

Essential Experience

• Proven experience of large scale illustration/visual art - this could be a mural, scene painting, set design, large-scale posters, installations etc. Anything that demonstrates you are able to work at scale. 

• Ability to produce hand-rendered illustrations. Please note that the Crankie scroll will not be realised using digital graphics. 
   

Desirable Experience

• Experience in theatre design.

• Experience designing for outdoor or site-specific performance or events.

How to Apply
Please send:

• A current CV and links to your portfolio.

• A short expression of interest (no more than 850 words, or a video/sound file of no more than 7 minutes) outlining:

  • Your relevant experience and why you’re interested in this project 

  • Your approach to collaborative design 

  • We’re conscious of the scale of the Crankie scroll and are interested to hear about how you might approach this project. We recognise some compromises will need to be made to allow the Crankie scroll to be finished on time, to the correct scale, within budget, and to ensure the artist is paid fairly.

Email applications to: movingpartsheritage@gmail.com with the subject line Giant Crankie Show Designer and Illustrator Application. For video and sound files please include a link to Dropbox, Google Drive, YouTube or similar. Please do not use time sensitive file sharing platforms such as WeTransfer, and please make sure the correct access is granted to any links or we may struggle to assess your application.

We are particularly interested in applicants who are from or have strong connections to Newcastle and Tyneside. We also encourage applications from socioeconomically diverse, D/deaf/disabled and Global Majority artists, who are currently underrepresented in our team.
 

Key Dates

• Deadline for applications 14th December 2025

• Informal chats with shortlisted candidates on 16th December 2025

• Applicant appointed 17th December 2025

• Schedule for rough drafts, storyboards and feedback to be agreed with appointed artist between January - February 2026

• Final artwork completed by 13 March 2026 at the latest