When Louise Hutchinson, director of Sheffield’s S1 Artspace, graduated in 2001 with a BA in Photography from Nottingham Trent University, she had already learnt a lot about how to put on an exhibition.
“One of the requirements of the degree show was to go and find our own venues; they wouldn’t provide us with any space,” she explains. “We had to negotiate with shop owners, developers, the council. It was a really valuable thing to do – it made you think about the degree show in a much more realistic way.”
The experience ultimately led Hutchinson towards a curatorial career – “I found I had more of an interest in setting up exhibitions than carrying on making my own work” – but she believes the lessons learnt are just as valuable for young artists.
“I do think that the degree shows that are a little bit looser, where you can experience it like a show, are more interesting, rather than shows that are very segregated,” she says.
Hutchinson gets to a lot of degree shows. There’s Sheffield Hallam, of course, which S1 hosts in its gallery space, but she looks much further afield, too: Nottingham, Leeds, Glasgow, London shows such as the Royal College, Goldsmiths, Slade, the Royal Academy.
“It’s very important to get to degree shows and see what’s going on,” she says. “A range of S1’s studio holders are recent graduates and we do a lot of professional development programmes with artists at that level.”
Working with final year students, she explains, provides an opportunity to discuss the degree show format, both good and bad. “We often talk to the students about this idea of marking out your space within the wider exhibition.
“Some students can be quite territorial about where their work goes. We try to encourage them to think about it like a group show – even though of course it isn’t – rather than individual presentations demarcated by square footage. There are certain relationships that can be made, and works can overlap; I don’t think it needs to be so segregated.”
Professionalisation
Hutchinson says she approaches all the shows she visits with an open mind, although she is quickly put off by students who wear their influences a little too obviously. She’s also unconvinced by what she sees as the professionalisation of degree shows.
“It can be frustrating to see some young artists trying to position themselves to get commercial representation,” she says, “presenting themselves as already packaged in some way – why do they do business cards, for example. I don’t think artists need business cards; just stop with the business cards!”
If not professionalism, what then is Hutchinson looking for in students’ work? “It doesn’t have to be super-slick or perfect, I don’t think that’s what artists at this stage should be thinking about,” she says.
“They should just be really mining what they’re interested in and how that manifests in a visual form. I want to see a genuine practice – is there something there that I want to know more about, is there something that is interesting to me? And could it be interesting to other people, too?”
This article was originally published in the a-n Degree Shows Guide 2015. Featuring interviews, previews and listings for degree shows across the UK, you can view it as an ebook or download the pdf
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