LIFE BOAT

LIFE BOAT is a year-long residency and career support programme for University of the Arts London BA fine art graduates, supported by ArtsTemps, ACAVA and UAL's Widening Participation programme. Applications for LIFE BOAT 2013 are now open.

LIFE BOAT is a residency and career opportunity for 2013 BA Fine Art Graduates (working in any medium) from University of the Arts London. Up to four graduates will be selected to share an ACAVA studio space for a year (subsidised by ArtsTemps) and given access to a tailored career development programme.

Career support during the residency will include:

  • Group crits/studio visits attended by guest gallerists, curators, writers and artists
  • Support for awardees in establishing their own peer mentoring group
  • Ongoing professional support from Artquest

Furthermore at the end of the year awardees will also have the opportunity to apply for a £1,000 bursary to realise a project or an exhibition. 

Key Dates:

  • Application deadline: Monday 29thJuly 2013 10am
  • Shortlisted Applicants Interviewed: Monday 19th and Wednesday 21st August 2013
  • Residency Dates:  October 2013 – October 2014

Eligibility:

Any BA Fine Art graduate from the University of the Arts graduating in Summer 2013 is eligible for this opportunity: (UAL colleges with relevant courses include Camberwell College of Arts, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, Chelsea College of Art and Design, London College of Communication, Wimbledon College of Art)

Conditions:

  • Selected applicants should attend the studio a minimum of 16 hours a week.
  • Selected applicants should report back on progress and learning every 3 months and produce articles/video/content in format to be agreed for Artquest website
  • Selected applicants must not be enrolled on any full time or part time course of study during the period of the residency

PLEASE READ THE APPLICATION GUIDELINES AND NOTES BELOW CAREFULLY BEFORE MAKING YOUR APPLICATION.

If you have any problems or questions regarding the applications process please email nick kaplony.

Application Guidelines

  • Application is via email only.
  • Please send your completed applications to lifeboat@artquest.org.uk by 10 am Monday 29ththJuly.  Late applications cannot be accepted under any circumstances.
  • Include the heading 'LIFE BOAT 2013 Application' in the subject line  
  • Please include all required material in one email if possible.
  • Please ensure that attachment sizes are kept to a minimum (and definitely under 5MB)
  • Please note that applications not adhering to these guidelines cannot be considered.

Your emailed application should include the following material:

1.) Images of your work

  • In the body of the email links/Website address/es of sites containing 5 images of your work (if you do not have your own website, send the link to any photo sharing website (such as Flickr, Axis, or Showtime )or any review / gallery page your work appears on) and an indication as to which images you would like us to consider
  • In the body of the email links/Website address/es Website address/es of sites containing 5 video/audio clips up to a maximum of 5 mins length per clip (if you do not have your own website, send the link to any video sharing website (such as YouTube) your work appears on) or an indication as to which part of the video / audio in a longer piece you would like us to consider
  • Or any combination of the above (i.e a combination of links to moving image work and still images totalling no more than 5 images/videos)
  • NOTE: Please do not include images as seperate attachments.

2.) Personal Information and Supporting Statement

A word document or PDF containing your Personal Information including

  • Your full name
  • Contact Tel Numbers
  • Address including postcode
  • Email
  • College Attended
  • Course Attended
  • Year of Graduation

And  a statement supporting your application of no more that 500 words which should include 

  • Artist’s statement about your work
  • Likely direction of practice in the next 12 months
  • Details of any projects and exhibitions you have initiated or been involved in outside of your course of study
  • How you feel this residency will help develop your career and practice

3.) Equal Opportunities Form

Please download and return an equal opportunities monitoring form to help us ensure our applications process is as fair as possible and attracting a diverse group of applicants.  You do not have to answer any question on the monitoring form that you prefer not to.

 

NOTES

Your own Website

The easiest way to apply is to include your website address in your application, detailing the specific pieces of work or projects you would like to be considered with direct links to those pages.  Please ensure that full details of the work are visible including title, year, media and dimensions.

Images

If you don’t have a website, we recommend creating and uploading any images on a Flickr or Axis account (or any other photo sharing website) and sending through links to us on there. 

  • Make sure you make them publicly accessible
  • Put full details about the work including title, year, media and dimensions in the description box.
  • Include any necessary information about what we’re looking at if it’s a detail, or installation shot.

Video and Audio

If you would like to submit moving image or audio files and you do not have a website that supports this we suggest uploading video or audio content to YouTube (or any other video sharing website) and emailing these links to us.

  • Check the help and guidance on the best formats to upload your material.
  • Ensure that you include full details of the work in the description box when uploading your video including your name, title of work, year, duration, dimensions (if appropriate) and any other relevant information that you feel is necessary (such as whether or not the video is part of an installation, for example)
  • Ensure that your privacy settings are such that the video is publicly available

 

LIFE BOAT 2012

LIFE BOAT 2012 was awarded to Henk Gieskens, Isabelle Gressel, Conall McAteer and Michael McManus. During the course of the residency you will be able to find out about their experiences starting their careers in a series of articles and interviews.

You can read Henk Gieskens first contribution about how he balances his time against the financial demands of working as an artist in his article Money=Time. In an interview with Artquest, Conall McAteer talks through different strands of his practice and how they relate. To help sustain his practice, painter Michael McManus works as an artist's assistant. In this article he shares valuable experience on how he found employment and how it has helped his own work. Isabelle Gressel talks about how her working rythm changed after college in her article.

Conall McAteer's practice is formally diverse, often engaging in site-based work outside of the gallery space and ranging through sculpture, publication, installation and intervention. Much of his work is inherently collaborative, reflected in its display, the comment it makes or its interactivity, engaging an audience with a new take on familiar and less-well considered aspects of everyday experience and culture. His degree show work Crate has been shortlisted for the Lowe and Partners NOVA Art Prize. He is currently working on a commission for an intervention and publication project for Thames View Estate in Barking and Dagenham entitled QandA. McAteer was also awarded the Clyde and Co Blank Canvas Commission for 2012. Open to all graduating BA Fine Art students across University of the Arts London, his proposal for Not For Love Nor Money was commissioned and installed in August 2012.

Henk Gieskens recently finished his BA in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins. Dutch by birth, Gieskens has lived in the UK since 2012, and has exhibited work in London and Rotterdam.  His painting, concerned with social grids, explores the boundaries between painting and sculpture to investigate materiality, form, colour, and composition: the paintings are an investigation into materials and process. For two years, Gieskens experimented with resin and wax to develop his own oil paint, which is poured in several layers onto steel, aluminum and glass surfaces, left to dry and then allowed to peel.  The highly controlled process of creating paint contradicts the unmanageable process of allowing gravity to dictate its form. Grids are brushed into the steel surface, creating a physical contrast between skins of paint, surface and geometric compositions that originates in architectural spaces. The 'drape' of paint is a stark juxtaposition against the precise matrix of squares that mimic the grids that make up architecture and city streets. 

Due to her project-based collaborative practice Isabelle Gressel works in a variety of media including performance, video, photography and installation. In her projects, she aims to create a context parallel to everyday life in which our day to day interactions are explored through experimentation and humour. Working with strategies like tactility and narrative, the viewer/participator is able to become engaged with the work, aiming to shift perceptions of themselves, others and their environment. Gressel has shown work in London and Sweden, graduating from Central St Martins and Chelsea with a BA in Fine Art in June 2012. A French/Austrian national, Gressel lives and work in London.

Michael McManus lives and works in London. He creates paintings that explore the landscape as a stage, a space that displays traces of abandonment and can be seen to possess a consciousness. In constructing his images, McManus combines gestural marks and glazes with meticulously layered forms. In 2008 he completed a Foundation Course at Byam Shaw before his BA in Fine Art Painting at Wimbledon College of Art. During this period he exhibited in a number of group shows, most notably Seven Acres and 10 out of 10. In 2011 McManus was awarded the Prunella Clough Painting prize and has been shortlisted for commercial projects.

More news of awardees work and progress will be posted on our website - join our mailing list or find us on Facebook and Twitter for updates.