Since the early 1970s, Bobby Baker has been producing art that documents and subverts her experiences of everyday life, drawing on motherhood, domestic labour, and mental illness and recovery. Speaking to Lydia Ashman, Baker reflects on the challenges she faced as a woman and an artist, her successes and why she’s ‘proudest of keeping going’.
The Bethlem Gallery in Bromley provides a professional platform for artists who have experienced mental health difficulties. Alistair Gentry speaks to the gallery’s director Beth Elliot about the organisation and how it fosters a supportive artist-focussed environment.
Joining a board can provide artists with a voice in the decision-making room and a way to steer the arts agenda. Nicola Naismith explores what’s involved, and hears from artists and their fellow board members about the important contribution artists can make and why being a trustee matters.
Writing a manifesto was one of Dan Thompson’s first acts as an artist and he has since written several more including one about using empty shops, and The Paying Artists Manifesto for Artist-Led Work that showed how artists working with their own ecology, economy and excitement ‘make the world around them better’. He explores the history of artists’ manifestos and shares advice and tips on how to write your own.
Hannah Pierce, a-n’s former External Programmes and Partnerships Manager, offers advice on writing applications for a-n’s member opportunities.
In 2017, Wysing Arts Centre restructured its residency programme to be more responsive to artists’ situations and to support a more diverse pool of practices. Drawing on a conversation that took place between Wysing’s director Donna Lynas and resident artist Tessa Norton at the ‘Pivotal Moments’ conference, Lydia Ashman explores how and why the programme has changed.
Founded in 2010, Grand Union is a studio provider and project space that supports artistic and curatorial development in Digbeth, Birmingham. This profile includes a video, recorded at Assembly Birmingham, in which director Cheryl Jones introduces the organisation and shares its current strategy for securing a permanent home.
Artists and parents Katy Connor and Stephen Cornford discuss their experiences of raising a child whilst maintaining their art practices, offering advice on how to manage time, travel and childcare.
Originally from Germany, Glasgow-based painter Cornelius Quabeck first spent time in the city during a two-month artist residency in 2011. He talks to Dan Thompson about living and working in Düsseldorf, London and San Francisco, and the reasons that brought him back to Scotland in 2016.
In 2015, Scottish artist Paul McDevitt set up Farbvision, a project space in Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg district that presents solo exhibitions and is also home to the INFINITE GREYSCALE record label. He talks to Dan Thompson about his reasons for relocating from the UK, and the artistic freedom and financial reality of life in his adopted home.
Based in Birmingham’s growing cultural quarter Digbeth, Recent Activity seeks to contribute to the area’s artist-led scene without replicating the activity of its more established spaces. Art researchers Doggerland speak to one of the organisation’s founders Andrew Gillespie about working within manageable parameters to offer “something a bit different” to the area.
In this motivational and practical guide, artist parents share their top tips and survival strategies for maintaining and developing an art practice whilst raising children.
Oliver Bennett reflects on the challenges of introducing art into the public realm, following his attendance at Oslo Pilot’s symposium, as the city seeks to challenge the existing biennial format and enable new dialogues with its public space.
Developed by Steve Pool, Artists working in higher education includes a guide and four profiles that explore the ways artists are currently engaging with the HE sector. This introduction highlights the diversity and value of such relationships, and offers some key tips for working in the field.
Artist Paul Evans discusses how his work became aligned to the research undertaken within universities and how his socially engaged practice has enabled academics and the public to better understand the nature of university research. Based on an interview by artist Steve Pool.
Kate Pahl, Professor of Literacies in Education at University of Sheffield, discusses what artists bring to academic research projects, and identifies some of the challenges artists and academics face when working together. Based on an interview by artist Steve Pool.
If you are an artist or arts organisers who earns income from a variety of sources, self-employment is usually a good option as it enables you to work for many different people and perform more than one type of work. This guide by financial services experts Counterculture explains what self-employment means, how to register as self-employed, and how and when you will need to pay tax.
Artists, gallerists and curators offer tips and guidance on how to price work when exhibiting in group shows, selling at open studios, or applying for open competitions.
A contract is an agreement between two or more people that is legally binding. It can be verbal or written. This guide by Sheena Etches and Nicholas Sharp outlines the essential ingredients of a contract, offer and acceptance, and implied terms.
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.
After keeping his video blog on Degrees unedited since November 2012, Joshua Tyson tells us of ‘The soap factory’ and its culture, in time for degree shows at University Campus Suffolk.
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”.
Lauren Healey talks to Northern Art Prize 2011 winner Leo Fitzmaurice about objectness, appropriation and his time-intensive research process.
Over the course of four years, artists, curators and writers were invited to select blogs from the a-n site. Their choices highlights the range and depth of practice discussed on a-n’s artists’ blogging platform at that time.
28 December 2011. Soho, London. Recording Time: 50 minutes.
As part of Joshua Sofaer’s Artist as Leader research, artist Richard Layzell and businessman Richard Hicks discuss Layzell’s 7 year tenure as ‘Visionaire’ at AIT software where he created bespoke events that addressed the problems and needs of the developing company.
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