Monocle Interview

I was interviewed by Andrew Tuck for Monocle Radio, for the programme

The Urbanist

Here is the link: http://monocle.com/radio/shows/the-urbanist/151/

TAKING OVER THE KING'S LAND

TAKING OVER THE KING'S LAND is a documentary film I made about a site speciifc art project I was involved in curating.

The film is out now and has been to the Sheffield Docfest, the UK's biggest and most important film festival for documentaries, the Portobello Film Festival in London and more.

Arts docs are notoriously difficult to place since many people associate the documentary genre to social issues, or art history. TAKING OVER THE KING'S LAND is a portrait of a an artist, and a quite remarkable project in the world's greatest metropolis.

http://www.film.kingslandmural.co.uk to watch the film

What I have Learned

This is the slideshow I developed for the South London Arts Forum (SAF) talk I gave earlier this year. They have made it available as I requested, and so here it is.
It's basically  rundown of what I have learned in a decade o f being an artist and curator. It may be useful to some.
The gist of it is, "you can do it, if you want it badly enough."

http://www.southwarkartsforum.org/usrdata/File/SAF-mciver.pdf

above: Just to show how long this art thing has been going on - an Egyptian paint box and brushes! British Museum. Fabulous.

SAF CONFERENCE and beyond ...

Yesterday I went along to the Southwark Arts Forum to take part in their conference THE ART OF MAKING MONEY
It was really interesting and I wanted to share  the list of excellent speakers, together with their websites so you can have a look yourselves:

The Speakers:

• Alex Chinneck – Visual Artist and Designer – His large public work has been featured in The New York Times, The Guardian, BBC and Dezeen Magazine. The London-based artist also runs a successful Furniture Design business..Alex was honest and fun, and his work is AMAZING
• Lucy Day - Lucy is an independent Art Curator working in partnership with Day + Gluckman curatorial partnership.  She also works as an external consultant for a number of organisations including a-n - the Artists Information Company. Lucy had a lot to say about the great work that A-N does; I'm such  supporter of A-N myself.
• Johnny Martin FD – Financial Director - is known for his “cool and straight forward approach” and has helped thousands of entrepreneurs nationwide understand business numbers and jargon. Wow, Johnny really cut the crap and made finance seem, well, COMPREHENSIBLE!
• Gillian McIver - Canadian artist and film maker based in London. Co-founder of the award-winning artist-run organisation Studio75, focusing on curating and creating opportunities for artist development.  Well, that would be me...
• Victoria Sin – Illustrator Designer - Sony, Paloma Faith and Vice Magazine amongst the list of clients of this entrepreneurial student, who is regularly commissioned work and sells her art-work online to her strong customer base. Such nice work!
• Claire Meredith - Speaker, Writer and Coach. She works with individuals who have an ‘itch’ to live in adventure; challenging, encouraging and inspiring them towards their best lives. She regularly presents the fortnightly Creative Hub podcast, Hatch. Claire talked about self-confidence - why we need it and how we can have it.

I can't pretend I could tell everyone how to make money but I hope I told them how to avoid wasting money. In my talk I emphasized that an artist's life plan (I prefer that term instead of "career") is totally individual, but that most things can be done if you set yourself the talk to using your creativity to find a way to do them. Alex's talk pretty much fit with mine in that sense, though his work is very different.
I certainly met some interesting and dynamic folks at the conference; I think SAF are doing a great job.

 windy wet day in Peckham Rye, but totally worth the trek out to get there:

Southwark Arts Forum 2014 Conference

I'll be speaking at Southwark Arts Forum

SAF Conference - The Art of Making Money 6th February 2014.

  http://www.southwarkartsforum.org/index.php?pagename=news&newsitem=6992

I'm not going to be telling people 'how to make money' - but I will be sharing some tips on building and creating a sustainable, interesting and challenging practice that will grow and lead to all kinds of amazing things. I'll talk about Studio 75 and my work with Luna Nera and how powerful artist-run initiatives can be.

 

at Studio75 - with Glenn Ibbitson, Nazir Tanbouli and Carole King

Book Art

from the touring exhibition of book art, Prospero's Library
work by Evelina Schatz, Mikhail Pogarsky and Nazir Tanbouli

 Lee Bicknell

 Annabelle Moreau

 Mikhail Pogarsky