ArtSway

ArtSway Associates

The ArtSway Associates Artists programme was aimed at sustaining and developing the professional prospects of ten contemporary artists who had previously undertaken an ArtSway studio residency and/or solo exhibition at ArtSway. The ArtSway Associates programme ran from September 2008 through to September 2011 and was funded by The Leverhulme Trust , with additional resources from Arts Council England.

The ten artists selected were: Anna Best, Dinu Li, Simon Faithfull, Hannah Maybank, Anne Hardy, Charlie Murphy, Emilia Telese, boredomresearch (Vicky Isley and Paul Smith), Elpida Hadzi-Vasileva, and Alistair Gentry. Links to all of these artists and their activity throughout the three-year scheme can be found on the right-hand side of this page in the ‘Visit The Associates’ section.

The programme aimed to provide long-term individual support for the selection of ten artists outside that of a traditional commissioning and selling model, and set out to deliver this by offering critical support, professional development support, advocacy, training, marketing support and seed funding for creative activity over the project’s tenure.

It aimed to:

• Promote best practice, innovation and excellence in professional development, through the organisation and delivery of a programme of activities designed to extend the skills, economic potential, profile, and opportunities of each artist through one to one and group activity
• Complement ArtSway’s exhibition residency and commissioning programme, and work alongside its sister programme, ArtSway Xtra (ArtSway Xtra is aimed at offering ArtSway audiences a richer experience of contemporary visual arts, and building a rapport between its audiences and the ArtSway Associates)
• Develop and evaluate different models of professional representation through creating a group of associate artists and trialling different contractual models of representation which are appropriate to the public sector and meet the needs of artists who have a variety of approaches to professional practice
• Utilise wide ranging networks of expertise to expand the professional options for artists
• Create an international showcase for Associates which built on two previous showcases of work presented by ArtSway at the Venice Biennale
• Group networking events and training sessions
• Seed funding for a number of projects, including crucial research and development time
• Exhibition management
• Funding towards major individual publications
• Bespoke training and regular mentoring and advice on professional and critical development — from both the ArtSway staff and outside arts professionals
• Marketing support, advocacy and critical feedback
• Regular and ongoing support through regular e-mail and phone conversations with Mark Segal, ArtSway Director, and Josepha Sanna, ArtSway Associates Co-ordinator, as well as regular one-to-one meetings
• An important network, which continues outside of the programme
• The ArtSway Associates programme complemented ArtSway’s exhibition residency and commissioning programme, as well as its sister Audience development programme, ArtSway Xtra

The ArtSway Associates programme has proved to be a critical three years in the professional development of the ten artists that were nominated, as demonstrated in the feedback that has been received, as outlined below:

Critical Support
“ArtSway Associates has been a crucial partner in developing my practice over the past three years. Through discussions with Director Mark Segal, Curator Peter Bonnell and ArtSway Associates Coordinator Jo Sanna, I have discussed many aspects of my practice's main themes and philosophical threads. This has helped me focus on what aspects of my practice to develop critically to better convey my ideas and lines of research. In turn, this has developed increased collaboration with academic bodies and institutions, such as the University of Leeds, London Metropolitan University, Tate Britain, The Chelsea School of Art.” 
Emilia Telese

Professional Development Support and Advice
“It’s been a really crucial year for my practice thanks largely to ArtSway and Mark. His suggestion to develop my drawing practice through an iPhone App was a brilliant insight into where my practice could go. The project has been very successful in a number of ways. Critically it has pulled together my drawing practice from the last 11 years and created a new frame that seems to help the world understand the thrust of what I've been doing. And strategically, through the use of App, Twitter, and Facebook, it seems to be reaching a totally new audience and becoming an important lever for my practice within the art world.”
Simon Faithfull

Training
“The group training session we received with Tom Simmons, on funding opportunities for practitioners within academia was fantastic. We learnt more about research grants in that one session than we did from working six years at Bournemouth University. It not only reminded us, but more importantly, gave us the confidence, to apply for funding from arts and science bodies such as NESTA and The Wellcome Trust. We had already discussed this possibility and through our one-to-one session with Tom Simmons we were able to run our projects past him, to ensure that we were in the right calibre, and he gave us the boost and reassurance that we needed.”
boredomresearch

Associates Network
“This has been one of the many great things about ArtSway Associates- meeting, sharing knowledge and spending time with the other artists. This is vital peer support because in one way or another we're all the kind of artists who don't necessarily fit into a school or scene; the only thing we have in common is that we're unusual. ArtSway Associates has created a great network for me that will go on whether or not Associates (or ArtSway) itself continue. More than that, this networking has created ongoing, direct work and collaboration with three of the other associates- Emilia Telese, Charlie Murphy and Dinu Li.”
Alistair Gentry

The Final Report, including each year's evaluation and artist feedback, can be downloaded from the 'Downloads' section on the right-hand side of this page.

Artist Associates: Beyond The Commission
A one-day symposium, organised by ArtSway Associates and hosted at the Arts University College at Bournemouth, was held on 16 July 2011 was held at the Arts University College at Bournemouth (ArtSway’s academic partner) to mark the conclusion of the ArtSway Associates programme as funded by The Leverhulme Trust. The symposium, titled Artist Associates: Beyond the Commission focused on the practice of supporting artists within the contemporary visual arts beyond the traditional curatorial, exhibition and commissioning role of the public sector.

The one-day symposium explored whether emerging Associate programmes should duplicate or complement, for instance, commercial representation, whether these should be limited in reach or accessible, and what the impact of such programmes had on audiences, organisations, and artists, and was attended by a number of national arts professionals, students, academics, and artists.

Further information on the symposium, including videos, images, transcripts and downloads, can be found here