This is the text from the latest Artquest E-Letter sent on Thursday 10 April 2008
In this issue:
- Artelier now in beta testing
- Jumble Sale
- Value Added Conference
- New Life Berlin: International call for artists
- Total Madrid residency selection
- Forum 2007/2008 ends
1. Artelier now in beta testing
Artelier, Artquest's international studio swap website has just entered beta testing. A small group of artists are now giving the Artelier site a test drive to ensure it is as user friendly as possible. Soon Artelier users will be able communicate with artists overseas, and arrange studio and flat exchanges to travel and practice abroad. Keep your eye on the Artelier website for the latest developments as Artelier is due to launch this Spring/Summer
2. Jumble Sale
It’s back due to popular demand. The Artquest Summer Jumble Sale returns in its third incarnation for a fun day out making friends and picking up cut-price second hand equipment, bric-a-brac, books and clothes. Now at a new South London venue, the sale promises to be livelier than ever before. Among the many diversions the day has to offer you can enter the raffle (£150 worth of prizes), bring a cake for our cake baking competition, or dispense with the cooking and simply take tea at the refreshment stall. Whatever your fancy it’s the perfect day to browse for bargains while chatting to London based artists.
Click here to find out more and to have your own free stall at the event.
3. Value Added Conference
Places available
Artquest, in partnership with SPACE, presents Value Added, a one-day conference for artists and commissioners exploring questions of value in relation to socially engaged artistic practice.
Keynote speaker: Jude Kelly OBE, Artistic Director of South Bank Centre
With the emphasis placed on participation and social exclusion in current European, central and local government cultural and regeneration policies, there has been an explosion of socially engaged projects in recent years.
The theme of 'value’ is the focus for the conference: the value of this type of practice to commissioners, participants and artists, questions of how we frame and present this value, and how artists and commissioners together can express and capture value. Expressing the value of the arts in social and regeneration contexts is also a key ongoing concern of policy bodies and opinion-formers including Arts Council England and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and this event will contribute new perspectives to this discourse. Value Added promises to provoke invaluable and innovative discussion on a topic central to much contemporary visual art practice.
Value Added is presented by Artquest and SPACE, supported by a-n the artists information company and Art Monthly and funded by Arts Council England and University of the Arts London.
To book your place on Value Added click here.
4. New Life Berlin: International call for artists
New Life Berlin is a contemporary art festival dedicated to new modes of moving and existing. Curated from the online art community Wooloo.org, New Life Berlin aims to connect the critical resources of a global network of artists with a specific geographical location of cultural importance. By inviting participation (while still retaining curatorial control), New Life Berlin will investigate the much discussed 'online community’ - How effective is this community? What binds this community? What governs it?
International Call for artists
Artists working in all mediums are encouraged to apply for participation in New Life Berlin. All applications must be made online on the wooloo website. Main deadline for applications is May 1st, 2008. Please go to the individual project links below to read more or apply for participation:
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Caban Unnos: It's Now Or Never takes its outset in old English folk law and invites participants to collaborate on building a one-night-house somewhere in the city:
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Fictive Days will bring eight applying artists together for 2 full weeks to live as their chosen mainstream film character in a Berlin apartment.
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Open Dialogues: New Life Berlin is a critical writing initiative exploring online and offline communities during the Festival.
5. Total Madrid residency selection
Artquest, in partnership with Liquidacion Total, is inaugurating Total Madrid, a six-week residency and exhibition for a London-based visual artist. The deadline for applications is now past and short listing is taking place. Watch this space for the final selection.
6. Forum 2007/2008 ends
All good things come to an end, and these words ring true as we bid a fond farewell to this year's Forum. 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. It provided a space for established visual artists and craftspeople to engage in constructive, rigorous and critical discussion on their practice. The lead artists for this years programme were Will Clifford, Ruth Beale and Veronique Chance and Helen Rousseau.
Future delivery of Forum is currently under review but in the meantime read how to set up your own peer mentoring group here.