Work With Us

Colliding Lines produces cross-disciplinary live work and publishes the printed and recorded objects that come out of it. Most of what we make begins as somebody else's idea. This page is for artists, venues, festivals, funders and organisations who want to start one of those conversations.

Artists

Co-production. We take on a small number of shows each year and produce them properly: budgeting, scheduling, contracts, funding applications, technical management, touring and press. You keep authorship of the work. We are most useful on projects that fall between forms — a piece that is part concert, part installation, part text — and that conventional producers find hard to place.

Commissions. Each year we commission new work for publication, for the radio show and for our own live programmes, usually attached to a theme announced through an open call. Commissions are paid and the terms are agreed in writing before work starts.

Associate artists. A longer relationship: rehearsal and making space, production support, a route to publication and to the touring network, over one to three years. We take on associates rarely and by invitation or from an open call, never from an unsolicited approach — the About page introduces the artists currently working with us.

Venues, festivals and promoters

Our touring work is built to be flexible: shows have been staged in theatres, galleries, churches, warehouses, libraries and a stairwell. We will send a technical rider, a realistic get-in time and a set of access notes before you book, and we can scale a production down to fit a room rather than pretending it fits and failing on the day.

We also curate one-off evenings — a live show, a small-press stall, a set of readings and a sound piece in the same room — which work well as an opening night or a festival strand. Ask us for past programmes and audience figures; we keep both and we will show you the honest ones.

Partners and funders

We work with arts councils, trusts, universities, libraries and community organisations on projects with a public outcome: workshops, publishing programmes, residencies and commissions for artists who are early in their careers or working outside the usual routes. We are experienced at co-writing applications and at reporting properly afterwards.

Workshops and teaching

Bookbinding and zine-making, erasure and found text, writing for performance, DIY publishing and self-distribution, and an introduction to producing live art. Sessions run from a two-hour taster to a term-long programme and can be delivered for schools, universities, festivals and community groups.

How to propose something

Send a short outline rather than a full proposal — what the work is, who is involved, roughly when, and what you actually need from us. Two paragraphs are enough to start. Write through the contact page, or watch the Open Calls page if you would rather come in through a named call with a deadline attached.

We answer everything, including the proposals we turn down, and we will tell you why.