Forum provides a space for established visual artists and craftspeople to engage in constructive, rigorous and critical discussion on their practice.
The Forum lead artists for 2007 / 2008 are:
- Will Clifford
- Veronique Chance and Helen Rousseau
- Ruth Beale
Artquest initiated Forum in 2004 in response to a lack of available peer mentoring sessions within the London visual art and craft communities for established practitioners. A secondary benefit of the project was the opportunity for artists to network and socialise informally. Artists and craftspeople present their work and concerns about their practice to the rest of their group in a relaxed, informal atmosphere, networking across disciplines and exploring lines of enquiry outside their usual practice.
Forum consists of groups of artists who meet six times at any frequency between September and March. Each group is administered by a lead artist, who chairs and organises each session. The groups meet at a venue organised by the lead artist (e.g. small gallery, studio, room above a bar etc.) and view presentations of group members' work or other concerns in their practice. Given that each Forum will be composed of different members, and that the lead artists select the members for their group, the sessions remain informal, relaxed and enjoyable while still maintaining a rigorous level of discussion and feedback on finished work and work-in-progress.
Forum groups are experimental in nature and generally have a unique focus on a specific area / group / topic / theme / career path of the visual arts and crafts. Artquest provides support to a maximum of four groups per year, selected on the basis of projects which may not otherwise take place and which would be useful for our ongoing evaluation and support of this project.
Artists seeking to set up peer mentoring groups may be interested to read the Setting up a Peer Mentoring Group Guidelines in the Manage your career section of this site. This document has been compiled from the meeting notes of the Forum evaluations since 2004 and provides an invaluable source for setting up your own peer mentoring / networking group.
Other London-based organisations running informal group discussions about their work include SPACE Studios and Whitechapel Art Gallery. You may also be interested in the a-n Networking Artists Networks (NAN) project.
For more information on any element of Forum, contact Russell Martin, Programme Co-ordinator, at russell@artquest.org.uk or 020 7514 8357 (Mondays and Fridays only).