2006 was Artquest's fifth anniversary, and we used much of the year to refocus our services and delivery to the current needs of artists and craftspeople in an age technically much more advanced than we could have imagined when we started. Responding to a much more technically savvy audience, as well as greater access to broadband internet throughout London, we relaunched our website, increasing accessibility and functionality. We also produced a publication, 5, exploring with commissioned writers, artists and curators what the future might hold for both Artquest and practice in the capital.
This publication, and details of our other activities in 2006, can be viewed below. Select from the menu below or scroll through the whole page.
Forum is Artquest's peer mentoring groups for established visual artists and craftspeople in London. Forum provides a space for established visual artists to engage in constructive, rigorous and critical discussion on their practice. In the 2005 / 2006 project, the Lead Artists were: Kim Merrington and Becky Shaw; Helen Carnac; Andy Harper and Abigail Reynolds. Related articles and events include the Setting up a peer-mentoring group article in the Manage your career section of this site.
Organised by a-n The Artists Information Company and Artquest and supported by University of the Arts London, the 2006 Future Forecast conference created a think-tank around new evidence, ideas and issues. It follows successful events in 2003 and 2004 and was held at the Rootstein Hopkins Space, University of the Arts London with an evening reception at Camden Arts Centre.
The Future forecast conference was a unique forum that brought together an invited community over 100 artists, curators, arts and business professionals, educationalists and cultural activists who, with staff and advisers for a-n and Artquest, explored key issues within arts, cultural and environmental business practices, and identified future strategies and actions.
A one-day conference at the Rootstein Hopkins Space, London College of Fashion. Artquest hosted a one-day conference to discuss collaboration between designers, applied and fine artists and professionals from other disciplines. The event was designed to appeal to established practitioners who want to hear first-hand from their peers about the critical, conceptual and practical challenges that arise when working as collaborators in a variety of settings.
Themes covered by Intersection included:
The chair for the day was Marie O'Mahony: Consultant, curator and author of SportsTech: Revolutionary Fabrics, Fashion and Design, with a keynote by Charles Leadbeater: Visiting Fellow at the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, Associate of the Design Council, independent writer, speaker and adviser on innovation, entrepreneurship and the knowledge economy. The final panel discussion was chaired by Clare Cumberlidge: Director, General Public Agency and speakers were Emily Campbell: Head of Design at the British Council; Annie Cattrell: Arts & Humanities Research Council. Art & Science Fellow in Fine Art & Sculpture, De Montford University; Nipa Doshi: Partner at Doshi Levien Design Partnership; Rebecca Earley: Senior Research Fellow for the Textiles Environment Design Project, Chelsea College of Art & Design; Deirdre Figueiredo: Director of Craftspace; Greg Hilty: Director of collaborative brokering agency plusequals; Rob Kesseler: NESTA Fellow and Senior Lecturer in Ceramic Design at Central St Martins School of Art.
You can download the conference programme, speakers biographies and abstracts here:
You can also read the report by a-n of the Intersection conference.
The recipients of the second Electric Greenhouse digital arts residency were Mayling To and Joe Walsh.
Electric Greenhouse 2 offered free, part-time access to b3 media 's base at Electric Studios, Brixton. In addition, artists received bespoke training and support to realise their projects.
Rational Rec is a monthly interdisciplinary arts event held at Bethnal Green Working Men's Club. We invited Rational Rec to throw us a fifth birthday party and they came up with a whole programme around the number 5 to help us celebrate.
The programme included performances by Plus Minus:
Special guest Simon Bookish was a highlight, as well as themed catering and a huge cake by artist Shane Waltener.
The evening culmitaed in a performance of John Cage's iconic Five in lieu of 'Happy Birthday'.
For Artquest's fifth anniversary, we commissioned 5 - our publication of new writing from Paul Glinkowski, CCRED, Rona Lee, Raimi Gbadamosi and The Manifesto Club. The one-off magazine, mapping and anticipating artists concerns in London, can now be downloaded below in PDF format.
Download '5' publication in PDF
Trajectory was an intensive professional development and mentoring scheme targeted specifically at London-based mid career artists, developed by SPACE in association with Artquest. This scheme is funded by Arts Council England, London through Grants for The Arts.
The selected artists were:
Trajectory offered access to a year-long bespoke programme of professional development support. This scheme has been designed to be artist-led, with the group setting the agenda for a number of networking opportunities and workshops. The programme began in autumn 2005 with a schedule of networking meetings, chaired by Jason E. Bowman. Workshops took place between winter 2005 and early summer 2006.
Beginning in spring 2006, individual support for participating artists was delivered through mentoring with leading professionals from arts and non-arts backgrounds. This process was informed by SPACE's extensive research into mentoring schemes delivered by arts and non-arts organisations.
A publication of some of the exchanges between the artists was created and can be downloaded here.