RELAY - Olympic inspired contemporary art from Turning Point South East

Image: Horizon, 2012 by John Smith, a RELAY commission at Turner Contemporary

Turning Point South East is pleased to announce the launch of RELAY, a programme of contemporary visual arts inspired by London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Visit the new website now: www.relaysoutheast.org.uk

RELAY is a programme of free contemporary arts events, exhibitions and performances taking place around the south east of England April-August 2012 onwards. 

RELAY celebrates the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games by taking sport, art and location as starting points for a series of new artist commissions.

The RELAY baton will be passed from major contemporary arts organisations across the south east from Fabrica, Brighton; to Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth; on to MK Gallery, Milton Keynes; handing over to Modern Art Oxford and finally to Turner Contemporary, Margate and Stour Valley Arts, King’ Wood Ashford. 

In addition to the new RELAY artist commissions, there will be other RELAY events orgainsed by De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill on Sea; John Hansard Gallery, Southampton and Pallant House Gallery, Chichester.

RELAY is presented by Turning Point South East, the regional network for the visual arts. The programme is a unique collaboration between the south east contemporary arts organisations, universities and local sporting groups.

The following organisations are involved:

Aspex Gallery; Blast Theory; Canterbury Christ Church University; Creative Campus Initiative; De La Warr Pavilion; Fabrica; John Hansard gallery; Lighthouse; MK Gallery; Modern Art Oxford; Pallant House Gallery; Photoworks; Quay Arts; The Ruskin, University of Oxford; South East Dance; Stour Valley Arts; Turner Contemporary; University of Brighton, Faculty of Arts and University of Portsmouth.

Knowledge Sharing days for Turning Point Network - save the date

As part of the ongoing Knowledge Sharing programme, Turning Point Network is holding a series of free events that include a mix of talks and practical sessions, facilitated by people who are using knowledge sharing techniques to make a difference within their organisations and networks.

19th April 2012 || Newcastle & Gateshead, hosted by BALTIC

20th April 2012 || Liverpool, hosted by Liverpool Biennial

These are the first two in an ongoing series of events that will take place across England.

"Experts and skilled trainers will explore ways to access and value knowledge you didn’t know you had" says Claire Pollock, coordinator of the Knowledge Sharing programme for Turning Point Network. "The days will also provide insights into the ‘why and how’ of knowledge sharing and how the Turning Point Network can strengthen the sector by supporting development of knowledge sharing across the contemporary arts."

"Attendees will hear from people inside and outside of the arts who knowledge share really well", continues Claire. "They will learn about: how they share, develop ideas and make things happen in collaboration; how in these challenging times, knowledge sharing can be a vital philosophy that puts people first; and how knowledge sharing can stimulate engagement and debate to effect change and achieve collective action."

Who should attend?

These free events are for everyone working in contemporary visual arts organisations, artists and freelancers wanting to explore practical knowledge sharing solutions to help them in their daily jobs, as well as wanting to make the contemporary arts more sustainable. People who are members of Turning Point groups or other arts committees and management groups will find these sessions particularly valuable.

Full programme available soon. For more information or to register your interest please contact Claire Pollock: [email protected]

11 for 2011

11 for 2011 is a pilot programme of artist films featuring emerging and established contemporary artists, based in the North East of England, who are gaining National and International recognition.

"Turning Point North East wanted to promote and celebrate these artists by profiling them in a programme films that we hope can continue annually", says Julia Bell, National and North East Coordinator of the Tunring Point Network. "Artists were nominated by the visual arts community, and members of the Turning Point North East consortium selected eleven to profile".

The 11 for 2011 films have been promoted by a number of stakeholder venues and are hosted on a number of websites. The featured artists are Richard Rigg, Thomas Whittle, Eric Bainbridge, Graham Dolphin, Jane Millican, Kelly Richardson, Matt Stokes, Richard Forster, Iris Priest, Laura Lancaster and Cath Bertola.

You can see all the entire series on the TPNE Vimeo page.

Important Notice - we're changing the way you receive updates from Turning Point Network

Image: David Shrigley, courtesy of the Arts Council Collection

In an effort to improve the way people receive updates from Turning Point Network, we have updated the website to enable users to register for their own account.

You can get your account by following this link. Once you have an account you can access your profile (it appears in the top right of your browser, when you are logged in) and subscribe to pages.

You will get an email notification whenever a page that you are subscribed to is updated.

Sadly it doesn't email any media that has been included in a post (images or video) so it's more of a useful reminder that a substitute - we hope it is a helpful step.

Turning Point Network to launch future programme on 10 May 2012 - Save the Date!

City Hall, London: host venue for the 3rd national Turning Point Network summit

Turning Point Network is pleased to announce the date for its 3rd national summit, the most important of its kind, and encourages all members to save the date today.

The summit will be held on 10th May 2012 at City Hall in London, hosted courtesy of the Greater London Authority. It will showcase work being undertaken right across the national network, and will provide a platform to launch future programmes of activity. 

Turning Point Network has reached an important stage in its maturity, with the efforts of collaborative action beginning to make a visible impact across England. This 3rd summit will enable members, as well as the members of partner networks, to consolidate their knowledge and come together to address a number of key issues (identified by network members), including:

• Measuring value
• Alternative economies
• Deepening audience engagement, and
• Supporting artist and their practice

More information about the event's programme will be released in the coming weeks. If you want to recieve updates by email, please make sure you are signed-up for your www.turningpointnetwork.org.uk account and subscribed to the News page.

Key data findings from visual arts audiences in the South West

Image: Royal West of England Academy, one of the organisations that took part in the 'Understanding Audiences' Project in the South West.

12 visual arts organisations from across the South West took part in an audience benchmarking project delivered by Audiences South West in partnership with Turning Point South West.  Having delivered an initial series of training for Front of House staff in data capturing, each organisation piloted the use of the standard questionnaire as a model of practice.

The South West did extremely well in the amount of data captured and organisations involved, and the project revealed a great deal about who the audiences are, their demographics and some interesting possibilities for harnessing this information to enhance the delivery and promotion of visual art in the region. These are just a snapshot of the data statistics:

• 70% female attendance to 30% male attendance
• Age groups 45-54 & 55- 64 make up 43% of audiences
• 44% of audiences ticked the self description box ‘Wealthy Achievers’
• 60% of audiences spent between 1/2 hour and 1 1/2 hours at the venue
• 50% had visited at least once in the last 12 months
• 66% described themselves as knowledgeable about visual arts, and 40% were involved in the arts sector (either as artists, teachers, students or professionally)
• 45% have bought contemporary art, and 41% would consider buying contemporary art

The South West is one of five regions delivering this project, which has been enabled by Audiences UK and the Arts Council England. The project seeks to determine how data captured can be sustained by visual arts organisations and what value that data has to individual organisations and to the sector as a benchmarking standard of engagement. A benchmarking report is being created by Audiences London to analyse and compare national visual arts audiences and will be available soon.

Art Market Mapping in Manchester

Paulette Terry Brien and Laurence Lane (co-directors of Manchester-based gallery The International 3). Image courtesy Corridor8. Photo: Stephen Iles

The International 3, a member of Contemporary Visual Arts Manchester (CVAM), is leading an information gathering exercise entitled 'Art Market Mapping'.

The purpose of Art Market Mapping is for the CVAM group to gain a shared understanding of members' activity in relation to collectors, collecting and the art-market. It will also record the aspirations of CVAM members with regards to this area of activity.

The project seeks to expose areas of expertise and overlap, to share models of good practice across the gorup, and to reveal areas of existing and potential collaboration.

The project will run until the end of April 2012, with a summary of findings being published shortly thereafter.

For more information about the programme, please contact The International 3.

Market Matters: art, economy and opportunity

As part of our ongoing partnership, we will be helping Visual Arts UK to disseminate information about initiatives that have a direct relevance to Turning Point Network members, posting information onto this News page. 

The first of these posts is about Market Matters, a forthcoming event that Artquest, DACS and the Contemporary Art Society are running jointly. Market Matters is part of The New Economy of Art: a series of open discussions throughout 2011-12 focussing on economic developments and opportunities in the cultural sector. It explores the impact on artists, from the perspective of artists.

Market Matters will take place on Wednesday 14 March 2012, will explore the complex and overlapping motivations behind various kinds of ‘art market’ from commercial galleries, private dealers and auction houses to art fairs, online selling and gift economies. The debate will provoke thinking about how artistic practice intersects with and creates its own economies.

Speakers: Louisa Buck, Kate McGarry and Matt Roberts.

More information: www.artquest.org.uk/neweconomy

Contemporary Visual Arts Manchester - a mission to map artist's development in Greater Manchester

Contemporary Visual Arts Manchester (CVAM) has embarked on a mission to map opportunities for artist's continuing professional development (CPD) in Greater Manchester, and beyond.

Stage 1

Castlefield Gallery, in partnership with CVAM, is conducting a survey that aims to capture data about CPD opportunities available to emerging and mid-career artists based in the Greater Manchester area. This is a comprehensive, area-wide survey asking for current information on the range of development activities available to artists. The aim is to provide live data for the future of networked support and to nurture of the area’s creative talent. The survey will include all areas of the visual arts ecology; from the artist-led to the institutional and from local authorities to further and higher education. The live database will be shared with CVAM members by the end of March 2012, with a summary report to help disseminate the findings.

Stage 2

To take this live data further, Castlefield Gallery is collaborating with Manchester Metropolitan University's MIRIAD (Manchester Institute for Research and Innovation in Art and Design). The 6 month long research project, "analysing Artist's CPD in Greater Manchester: towards an integrated approach for talent development" will look at the impact of existing artist’s CPD, and make recommendations for a networked approach to talent support. There will be a number of outlets for this research, including plans for a national conference with MMU in October 2012.

If you would like more information about this project then please contact Kwong Lee, Director of Castlefield Gallery who is overseeing activity: [email protected]

EMVAN roadshow highlights Strategies for Survival

As part of its Strategies for Survival programme, EMVAN has been getting out and about across the East Midlands with a series of roadshows.

This series of events, the most recent of which is taking place in Leicester today, present an opportunity for new and prospective members to engage in critical discussion, to exchange ideas and information, to meet friends and make contacts, and to find out more about EMVAN and its future programme of activity.

The roadhsow dates were as follows:

2 February  – The Box, QUAD, Derby, 5-8pm

21 Feb – New Art Exchange, Nottingham, 5-8pm

23 Feb – University of Northampton, 5-8pm

1 March – New Walk Museum & Art Gallery, Leicester, 5-8pm

A final event will be held on 8th March in Rutland. The venue and time have yet to be confirmed.

Places can be booked through QUAD on 01332 290 606 or via www.derbyquad.co.uk.