Paid Practice Development Series

This project aims to put you in control over building your creative future — identifying future practice goals, curatorial support and networking needs to develop a new body of work, alongside two other emerging artists. This four-month project will combine aspects of peer-learning and supported mentorship by London-based artists and curators. Through peer-led sessions, you will be invited to share aspects of your practice that you’d like to explore or develop with the collective, as well as facilitating outings to events that you hope will offer opportunities for further learning and network-building. Additional mentorship will be delivered through a short workshop series, facilitated by arts professionals, and designed to meet professional-development goals that you define during our first meetings.

This project will culminate in a public exhibition, performance/event, or workshop series to be held between September and November, 2024.

This project aims to build your skills around:

• Concept generation for developing new artworks and a public output in the form of an exhibition, event, or performance
• Developing a public programme to accompany the exhibition/event
• Coaching on writing grant, open call, and residency applications
• Expanding professional networks
• Thinking through ways of carrying individual and collective work forward beyond this project

Who is this project for?

New BFA or MFA graduates from any creative background struggling to get their foot in the door on early career opportunities.

Creatives of any background experiencing barriers to finding pathways into creative education or careers.

Priority will be given to individuals living in or nearby the boroughs of Newham, Dagenham, Barking, or Croydon.

This is an equal-opportunity project; in the case of assessing equally strong applications, priority will be given to global majority, LGBTQIA+, and disabled or neurodivergent artists.

About the Curator:

As a curator and producer, my experience lies in collaborative projects that promote empowerment and access to participatory creativity and learning. Prior to postgraduate study in Curating at UWE Bristol, my academic background lay in postcolonial studies and radical pedagogies. After developing my pedagogical practice in these fields through several years working as a teacher in Canada, I relocated to Amsterdam, where I spent a year researching and producing large-scale community-embedded street art projects, accompanied by engagement and education programming at Street Art Museum Amsterdam. I focused research and curatorial work through my MA on collaborative and participatory practices including workshop design with high-profile international artists and a long-term young artist development programme, in addition to developing and delivering other events- and exhibitions-based programming. Working extensively with both professional artists and young emerging artists throughout my MA, I bring a keen understanding of difficulties facing new artists, and how to create interactions that will help drive their creative careers forward.