Artsadmin offers a unique and free one-to-one support service to UK-based artists working in contemporary performance, at any stage of their career
Sessions are informal and artist-led, offering an opportunity to talk about anything from artistic ideas and project development to funding and contexts for your work. The format of these sessions has been developed in response to artists’ feedback and research.
Who is the service for?
This is a free service that we offer to artists and creatives, which to us includes arts workers, producers, designers, production managers, curators, arts leaders, technicians, writers, dramaturgs, academics and thinkers.
What happens in a one-to-one support session?
This is a one hour session and you can meet with us once a year. These sessions are places of support, which means everything spoken about in these meetings is confidential. This also means this isn’t a place to pitch work that you hope to get produced at Artsadmin. The support team won’t share anything about you or your project with the rest of the Artsadmin producers.
What art forms can we support with?
Our team’s knowledge is in contemporary performance and live art.
How are the sessions delivered and what access support is available?
The sessions are currently delivered online via Zoom. Our Zoom account can access Otter.ai captions embedded and we can offer BSL interpretation. Both will be provided upon request. Please indicate any access requirements when you book your session.
What other organisations offer advice and support?
Not sure if our support is right for you? We’ve listed some other places below that offer artists support.
Book a session with one of our team
Please do take the time to read about the person you’d like to meet with before you book in. Each person has different experience, knowledge and expertise, and your experience will vary based on the person you meet.
Please only book one session. Due to capacity, we are only able to offer one session per artist each year.
My name is Valentina. You can call me V, Val, Vale, or Valentina. I use she/her pronouns. I am a Colombian-born queer brown migrant artist and creative producer. I speak Spanish as well as English. I have studied and worked in the US, the UAE, and now the UK. At Artsadmin, I look after our Artist Support Programme.
I am keen to engage in conversations with artists and arts workers around practice, vision, strategy, budgeting, networking, and collaborating; and to sit in the sticky bits of art and art making. I am particularly passionate about supporting migrant artists and artists of the global majority, as well as queer artists and other underrepresented folks, as these are elements of my identity and lived experience that permeate my practice, politics, and personal belief systems.
During these sessions, I will hold space for us to listen to what is going on under the surface, and I look for ways to challenge you. I will ask you questions about what is driving you, what would be ideal, and how I can best support you in the time we spend together. I will listen, reflect back, and push you to unpick your own statements, beliefs, and plans.
You don’t have to prepare anything, but feel free to spend some time setting intentions and expectations, and we can begin our time checking in about why we are meeting and what we hope to do together. You can also send me anything you’d like me to look at or read beforehand, or to have handy during our session, to valentina@artsadmin.co.uk.
Before we meet, I suggest you take a look at our Resources Directory, just in case some of the things you’re curious about or looking for are already there.
Chat soon!
My name is Ellie Liddell-Crewe and I use she/her pronouns. I am a northern soul with my feet now in the South. I work full time as a Programme Manager for Unlimited – an arts commissioning body that supports, funds and promotes new work by disabled artists for UK and international audiences. I am partnership lead for Unlimited and all things linked to our Develop strand of work, holding overall responsibility for artists development and showcasing – enabling as many Unlimited artists as possible to reach audiences both nationally and internationally. Other responsibilities include strategic responsibility for Live Art, Combined Arts and Theatre across the portfolio. Having previously worked at Artsadmin (when Unlimited was a programme delivered with Shape Arts) and as a Venue Manager and Inclusive Artist with the wonderful ONCA (a Brighton based arts organisation that bridge social and environmental justice issues), I am here for any questions you may have around access, disability, socially engaged practice or how to simply get your foot in the door and generally may be a nice human to have a brew and a chat with.
About these sessions
Ellie runs her creative support sessions once a month- split into two 30-minute chunks. The first half hour is usually around finding out more about yourself your practice and answering your questions and the second is an optional follow up session a few weeks later, often looking at tasks that have been set and reflecting on previous discussions.
If this format works for you, please book in session one via the calendar, once you have met, Ellie will suggest an appropriate time for the optional follow up session.
I’ve been a Senior Producer with Artsadmin for 35 years, and have seen the organisation go from an ambitious dream to a reality in that time. I’ve produced a huge range of artists’ works; from site-specific, immersive, cross- generational performances to socially-engaged and participatory events and projects with an environmental focus or gallery-based exhibitions, performances, video installations and even festivals and conferences.
Some projects have been one-off commissions, whilst others have been co-produced and may have toured nationally/internationally. Alternatively some have been curated festivals or very locally based school or community focused. I’ve also coordinated festivals, produced artists’ publications and partnered on multiple European networks & initiatives.
I started my career as a Speech Therapist and trained and worked as a Dance & Drama Therapist. I also simultaneously informally trained in contemporary dance and dabbled in performance for a while as a founder member of a dance company with choreographers Jacob Marley and Liz Ranken.
Hi I’m Mark, I use he/him pronouns and I’m a cis white man. I’ve been working at Artsadmin since before my hair went grey in a variety of roles, including several years of experience providing creative support and advice to artists. My current role is as Artists’ Producer, working on partnership projects like Season for Change and Another Route and I’m usually very involved in Artsadmin’s work around climate and social justice, including What Shall We Build Here and before that the 2 Degrees Festival. I have worked with many artists on an ongoing and one-off basis on big and small projects.
I am really interested in artists’ work that engages with questions of justice, especially where thinking about climate intersects with other issues. I really like to experience and support projects where the audience is asked to be an active part of the project, and where the work happens in surprising spaces. I have a lot of experience of Creative Europe funding programmes, and some experience with raising money from trusts, foundations, sponsors, and from Arts Council England.
Before we meet, I suggest you take a look at our Resources Directory, just in case some of the things you’re curious about or looking for are already there.
My name is Nora. I am a producer for Artsadmin and I use she/her pronouns. I am a Moroccan-German migrant creative producer, researcher, and curator. I speak German as well as English. I have worked in the art and community sector since 2015 and successfully delivered on a local, national, and international level producing a variety of projects: intergenerational-art projects, exhibitions, conferences, live art, film festivals, participatory community art projects and multi-disciplinary curatorial projects. I started my career working in grant-making for a community organisation funding a lot of community art projects, and also spent a couple of years working in a commercial visual art gallery in Mayfair. I have a PhD in Art History from the University of Kent focussing on the politics and responsibilities of corporate collecting. At Artsadmin, I am producing artist projects with significant international partnerships and touring. Aside from my work here, I am also part of the art collective Queering Space and a trustee for Koestler Arts.
I am passionate about de-colonial perspectives in art history and specifically interested in art and artists from the Middle East and North Africa. Though currently working more in theatre and live art, I’m very passionate about contemporary visual art as well. In the sessions I can be a sounding board for production, logistical, technical, and organisational aspects of your projects. I love a good spreadsheet, timeline and to-do list and may be able to help you with pragmatic advice on structuring your ideas into manageable plans and next-steps. If you are working on community art projects, I may be able to give you some ideas for organisations, trusts and foundations for collaborations or funding.
My name is Farha and I use she/they pronouns. As an activist, community organiser and storyteller, I have buckets of experience of working alongside people and communities to amplify their power and voice. I am particularly interested in supporting black and brown artists from working class backgrounds.
In Creative Support sessions, I can offer guidance around budgets, project timelines, community engagement, funding and more broadly, hold a space for you to reflect on your practice and/or projects you are developing. I am adept at asking critical questions to help you consider a problem from a different angle and/or identify the way through any knots or tensions you are experiencing in your work.
I am an assistant producer at Artsadmin, and my pronouns are they/them.
I have previous experience being a performer in club nights and cabaret shows, working as a show runner, and a support worker. My role at Artsadmin means I sit between multiple projects, which in some ways offers me an ability to manoeuvre and appreciate diverse models of producing.
I have a background in contemporary performance, and I would wholeheartedly say this is where my passions and interests lie. I am also intensely interested in practices of communities that often under resourced but are offering unique perspectives whilst finding exciting and intricate ways to continue art-making.
I am queer person with lived experience of being Black, neurodivergent and fat which creates my frame of reference of how I live and collaborate alongside people. I have interest in transforming structures through engaging with artistic practice. I am dreaming of a sector that has a deep commitment to authentic processes that challenges systems and supports artist in demanding for more. I am enthusiastic about talking to people who are navigating practice, institutions, sustainability, new opportunities, practicalities, barriers, networking, performing and community.
About these sessions
I will approach my time with you openly, as I am a very curious person and can offer a listening ear and reassuring hand throughout our conversations. I’m prepared to give you room to think, dream and ask questions. If you are willing, we can attempt to move deeper into your ideas and thoughts.
I happy to make space for people who on verge of an idea, stuck, not sure what support is needed, unsure of where to go, in a shift of place or someone just looking for a chat.
I am Maya and I use she/her pronouns. I’m the Engagement Producer at Artsadmin, my journey has involved 9+ years of socially engaged practice, research and programming across Scotland and in London.
A bit about me:
I come from a visual arts background and have always sat between forms – my interdisciplinary approach has incorporated sculpture, drawing, movement, spoken word, fashion, storytelling, video and more. I’ve produced projects across visual arts, dance, performance and community gatherings, from intergenerational social dances to school wide gallery takeovers.
I’m most experienced in working with children and young people; I’ve also worked with adults with experience of the criminal justice system, refugees and people seeking asylum, older adults, disabled people, families and a vast range of intergenerational communities.
I’m studying an MA in Arts & Learning at Goldsmiths, my research looks at how anti-racist, anti-institutional models interact with institutional frameworks. A key focus is on the intersections of chronic health, neurodivergence and blackness within socially engaged practice.
As a black mixed-heritage, queer, neurodivergent person with chronic health conditions; intersectional access is inherently embedded into my ethos. My lived experience informs my knowledge base and provides sensitivities to my ways of working.
Who and how I can best support:
If you have a community-based practice or are starting to incorporate participation/facilitation/education/engagement in any form into your work and have questions about how to approach that – a creative support session with me may be useful.
Through my work, I’ve learnt to break down and translate a lot of ‘art speak’ into language that I can better understand. Whilst I recognise that we all think and process differently, I feel equipped to support others in journeying through that, in a way that works for them. Whether that’s navigating application processes, funding criteria or more general ideas-based dialogue – I’m happy to be a sounding board and to support in demystifying areas that might not be ringing clear.
I also have an awareness of institutional practice and finding ways for projects to sit within organisational structures without an artist compromising their approach and values.
In summary, the areas I feel excited and confident in supporting include:
- the ethics of facilitation
- sensitively building community partnerships
- work that explores African Diasporic and Black British identity with others
- how to work with and without institutions
- expanding or adapting art forms/projects/practice to work appropriately with specific groups and embedding access considerations throughout that process
Sessions with me:
Our session will be a time for us to reflect and travel through your practice and your questions together. I’m not here to tell you what to do, but am happy to unpack problem areas with you, sit with and appreciate the exciting moments, troubleshoot, evaluate, listen and consider perspectives. I can also signpost to references relating to community based or participatory practice.
I don’t expect you to do any in depth work before meeting but as we’ll just have one hour together, it would be great to come with a core focus for what you hope to get from the session. If you would like to send me any reference points or information to look over before meeting, please send to creativesupport@artsadmin.co.uk at least 3 working days before our scheduled session.
Before we meet, I suggest you take a look at our Resources Directory, just in case some of the things you’re curious about or looking for are already there.
Please note: This is not a place to pitch work to Artsadmin. Anything we speak about in our session is confidential and will not be brought into the wider producing conversations with our team.
If you can’t book using Calendly, please email us at creativesupport@artsadmin.co.uk or call 020 7247 5102.
Other support services for artists
| Date | Title | Venue | City |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6–18 April 2021 | Guest Artist Support Sessions: Nando Messias | ||
| 23 March – 27 April 2021 | Guest Artist Support Sessions: Vijay Patel |
