How do fine art courses prepare their students for life after art school? How is professional practice shaped by factors such as location, course philosophy, and the cultural and political climate? Sarah Rowles unpacks the findings of Q-Art’s new publication, Professional Practice: 20 Questions – Interviews with UK undergraduate Fine Art staff exploring how students are prepared for life after art school.
Kwong Lee of Manchester-based Castlefield Gallery discusses how the gallery works with universities in the city in to provide professional development support to students and contribute to cultural policy research, and offers his views on practice-based research and PhD programmes. Based on an interview by artist Steve Pool.
What are artists’ associate programmes and what do they offer within the broad landscape of artists’ professional development? What should artists consider before applying? Based on extensive research into sixty arts organisations across England, Scotland and Wales, this guide by Dany Louise offers artists help in thinking through the various options available to them.
An analysis and commentary on artists’ work and opportunities in 2012.
6 December 2011. 3331 Chiyoda, Tokyo. Edited transcript of recorded interview.
As part of Joshua Sofaer’s Artist as Leader research, Masato Nakamura discusses his commitment to transforming the art education system in Japan, and the inauguration of a new model of art centre “founded on the basis of artist leadership”.
From found photography to a research-based practice, Richard Taylor talks to 2012 University of Wales Cardiff Fine Art graduate Laura Reeves.
Graduating in 2012 from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in Time Based Art & Digital Film, Sylvia Law has been selected for 2013’s edition of RSA New Contemporaries, and has since returned from the John Kinross Scholarship in Florence.
Richard Taylor shares a Google document with Faye Green, a 2012 Fine Art graduate from Nottingham Trent University, who’s not afraid to pull apart her work to produce sculpture anew.
In June 2012, following four years of study in the Painting and Printmaking department at Glasgow School of Art (GSA), Nick Thomas exhibited his final year work. By July he had helped put together ‘NEW FIRM’, an exhibition by himself and 46 of his peers, at London’s Candid Arts Trust. We caught up with him, in Glasgow, on his return.
We catch up with a 2011 graduate, one year on from her degree show, to unveil alternative means of productivity with Scotland and Venice, well placed volunteering and research through internship.
Here, we profile a selection of courses offering postgraduate level study for artists seeking to develop their practice further within creative, supportive and critically challenging environments.
A round-up of projects that explore approaches to making and siting art beyond conventional white cube spaces – from travelling fairgrounds and riverboat processions to site-responsive installations and public sculpture.
This Research paper forms part of a series that looks specifically at the nature and value of openly-advertised work and opportunities for visual and applied artists. Drawing on data published on www.a-n.co.uk/jobs_and_opps, this series set out in 2007 to track on an ongoing basis the key categories of awards/fellowships, academic posts, art vacancies, commissions, exhibitions, residencies and competitions/prizes, and by doing so, to identify any trends arising, and provide commentary and contextual evidence and analysis from other related sources, to contribute to arts and cultural consultations and policy.
Early in March I was in Margate for the National Federation of Artists’ Studio Providers’ (NFASP) AGM and a series of events designed to bring artists and studio providers together to share experience, intelligence and generally bond.
From subsidised studio and accommodation to one-on-one mentoring sessions, here we spotlight a selection of residencies that provide support to artists across the UK and beyond.
Six months on from completing her degree in Dundee, we catch up with Hannah Imlach in Edinburgh, a month before she embarks on an artist residency.
Puy Soden graduated from the University of Huddersfield in 2011. We talk to her six months on from leaving undergraduate study.
Zanne Andrea completed her Fine Art degree at University of the West of England (UWE) in Bristol, in the summer of 2011. We catch up with her en route to a collaborative empty-shops project and off the back of a mini-residency, six months on from graduating.
Construction Gallery in Tooting opened its doors on 18 January with an ambitious site-responsive work by Alistair McClymont, and works by the project’s first residency artists Sam Robinson and Rebecca Lucraft.
For one evening in October, Edinburgh’s Collective Gallery brought together six artist-led studio groups and galleries for an Artists’ DIY Soapbox.
On reading Mitra Memarzia’s report on diminishing resources in undergraduate courses (‘The future of art education’, a-n Magazine September 2011) I was moved to both endorse the findings and speculate further on the continuing erosion of specialist teacher training in art education.
If there is any single shared idea about art, it’s that it can be transformative. Aliceson Carter came to art late, and her ‘story’ and her work, bear out the deconstructive and reconstructive potential of creativity. Here she talks to Andrew Bryant about Goldsmiths, blogging and being on the outside.
The key finding of this study reveals that shockingly few individual artists apply for funding in their own right, and even fewer are successful. What this means is that there is little direct funding being given to artists to pursue and develop their own projects, under their own control – under 20% of available funding for the visual arts in England, 14% for Northern Ireland and around 18% for Scotland and Wales in 2009-2010.
There are two key things Nicholas Leverington mentions that I want to zone into.
Ryan Hughes, 2011 graduate from Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, talks to Richard Taylor about life post-graduation and how he now makes room to re-approach a working practice.
