Q. What do you mean by critical engagement?
A. Artistic practice can feel quite isolated, even in a large city with lots of arts infrastructure like London. Artquest, which is staffed by professional artists, can help to encourage artists to seek critical feedback and networking around their practice. We encourage the setting up of peer mentoring groups and artists networks, provide practical advice on exhibiting your work, have articles and tips about building and sustaining a network that can help you take control of your career and move where you want to go.
Q. What do you mean by practical support?
A. Every artist, at some stage in their careers, needs to know something pretty mundane but vital piece of information to get along. How so I find an accountant? Where can I buy art materials? How much should I charge for my services? How do I claim housing benefit? Where can I find a list of UK arts residencies? All of these questions, and many, many more, can be answered on the listings and articles pages of this website. Use the search option and sitemap page for a full overview of the information available.
Q. What do you mean by visual artists and craftspeople?
Artquest covers information and advice that would be useful to any visual arts or crafts practitioners, including:
Artquest does not hold information or provide support for practitioners working in:
These are not exhaustive lists, and if you are in any doubt as to whether or not we can help please contact us.
If we cannot help, have a look at the other FAQ's in this section that can provide links to agencies who might be of interest.
Q. What sort of information does your website have?
A. Artquest aims to provide advice and information that covers every aspect of an artist's life and career, including:
This is not a complete list as Artquest has over 800 pages of information and advice on our website alone.
Remember to have a look at our Artroute section for information about living and working in France and our Artlaw section for legal articles and free online legal advice (for London-based artists).
Every query we receive asking for information which is not on the website, goes on the website. If you can't find something you need, suggest your own listing so we can add it on.
Q. What else do you offer apart from the website?
A. Artquest works with UK and international partners to create new projects for the benefit of our core user group. Recent online projects include Artlaw (an online legal archive and advice service); Artroute (online advice for UK based artists looking to go to France); the soon-to-be-launched Artelier (a networking tool for artists to arrange studio exchanges with their international peers).
Artquest also offers a variety of offline projects - we run annual residencies to Berlin and Sydney, and in 2008 are running a residency to Madrid, support for peer mentoring and networking groups, an annual jumble sale, and other projects for artists in London (see our projects archive pages on the left for full details). As with all our projects, we only commit our time and resources to things that other organisations aren't providing, maximising the benefit for London-based visual artists and craftspeople.
A. We've prepared a special page to take you through the different ways to use the Artquest site and services - see How to Use Artquest.
Q. Do you provide services to full-time students?
A. Artquest does not provide any services to full-time students outside of free access to our website. Artquest is primarily funded by the visual arts department of the London office of Arts Council England and, since they do not provide student services, we are not allowed to either. Students looking for advice or information should in the first instance contact their course tutors, or check our website.
Q. Why do you only help artists and craftspeople living and working in London?
A. Artquest is funded by the visual arts department of the London office of Arts Council England - we therefore have a very narrow remit to provide services to their constituents; visual artists and craftspeople living and working in one of the 33 London boroughs. We also only have a staff of four practitioners - three of whom are part time - and with the rest of our projects we cannot commit resources to answering queries or providing services to practitioners outside of London. Since Arts Council England also does not provide services to full time students, so Artquest also does not provide these services.
Q. I don't live in London - who can help me?
A. If you are in England, your local Arts Council office can point you in the right direction for provision in your local area. You might also try the CreativePeople website, who list organisations providing professional development throughout England. Artquest is a board member of CreativePeople.
Users in Scotland can contact Creative Scotland, those in Wales can contact Arts Wales and g39 and those in Northern Ireland the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.
A good link for international arts councils is the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies website.
Q. I work in a different art form in the UK - who can help me?
A. CreativeCapital (in London) and CreativePeople (in England) can help you find an organisation in a different art form that may be able to help you. Your local Arts Council office can also help you find provision in your area.
Q. Where did Artquest come from?
A. Artquest launched in 2001, a project of the visual arts department of the London office of Arts Council England (then London Arts) and University of the Arts London (then The London Institute). A piece of research commissioned by London Arts found that artists in the capital wanted a central service where they could go at any time, and at any stage of their career, to find up to date advice and information. London Arts entered a partnership with The London Institute to create Artquest to fill this gap and co-fund and support us to this day.
Q. How much does it cost to use Artquest?
A. Artquest charges no subscriptions or fees to use any of its core services. None of the web content requires a log in or password; we take no fees to use our online legal advice services or if you want to ask us a question. We are funded by Arts Council England to provide free services to our core constituents in London.
Occasionally we will run a large-scale conference or similar event, and will charge for this when required. Some training sessions in particularly specialist areas will be charged for at a heavily discounted rate (for example, we ran a web streaming course in February 2004 and charged £50 - against the usual £500 being charged at the time). Despite this, the overwhelming majority of our events and projects are free - and out residencies even pay artists to go to Berlin, Sydney, and Madrid,
Q. Your services are free - who funds Artquest?
A. Artquest is funded jointly by the visual arts department of the London office of Arts Council England and University of the Arts London.