Signpost, a-n’s guide for new graduates, has just been published on a-n.co.uk. Aimed at helping new graduates ‘negotiate the first few years out of higher education’, Signpost is a practical guide pointing to all the information and advice new artists need to get started in their chosen creative profession.
Edited by artist and AirSpace Gallery Director Anna Francis, and with contributions from artists, arts organisations and support networks, the guide sets out the things recent graduates need to know, and demonstrates some of the approaches artists have taken in moving their careers forward.
There’s advice on how to go about finding a studio (or even starting your own), how to make the internet work for you, information about postgraduate study and residencies, and practical know-how on becoming self employed, how to write a proposal and how to price your work.
Each section is illustrated with examples from artists and organisations that are already out there ‘making stuff happen’: how a group of recent London graduates set about starting their own studio space; how two Liverpool-based artists set up an artist-led art fair; and why an artist in Manchester decided to set up a peer-led art school.
Signpost also includes specially commissioned Artists’ pages including Kevin Hunt’s Artist-Led Hot 100 that ‘draws attention to some of the most superb activity being facilitated by emerging independent artists and curators right now in the UK’. The Hot 100 features galleries, curatorial projects, publishing groups, studio collectives and ‘critical movers and shakers of the artist-led world’.
And key organisations that help recent graduates on the journey to becoming professional artists are represented in a series of Partner pages – highlighting what each has to offer and how they support artists’ development.
As artist Emilia Telese says: “Art is a long career with no predetermined path, where the journey is part of the fun.” Signpost is here to help new artists start that journey.
Published in flip-book and PDF formats, Signpost is edited by Anna Francis with contributions from artists including Johnny Gailey, Ellie Harrison, Jack Hutchinson, Bethan Lloyd Worthington, Emilia Telese and Emily Speed.
