June 2025: Creative Mentoring featuring mentors Aliyah Asinah, Sian Fan, Julia Howe, Steve Mcleod and Kate Soloman hosted at Arts SU Darkroom Bar, London College of Communication
We were warmly hosted by our brilliant Darkroom Bar crafting a chilled and relaxed environment for students to gain intensive and immersive knowledge and insight from 5 industry professionals. For this event we attempted to represent 6 key areas of creative practice at University of the Arts, Lonon Fine Art, Design, Fashion, Communication, Emerging Technologies and Photography.
Those attending received up to 45 minutes with one of our brilliant and inspiring mentors- gaining insight, feedback on projects, capacity to understanding their goals and ways forward for their practice as well as a free soft or hot drink.
With a huge thank you to our Mentors for their hard work, time and energy on this debut event, we value the enthusiasm you came with, understanding and insight. We brought on board and thank Aliyah Asinah for her Curatorial understanding, Julia Howe for her Fashion and photography skills, Kate Soloman for her experience as a freelance journalist, Sian Fan for her digital expertise and creative practice and last but not least Steve Macleod for photography and business acumen. We hugely appreciate and value each mentor for embarking on this opportunity with us. Sharing their time, knowledge, expertise and engagement.
February 2025: Connection through collectives
Trip to Auto Italia to meet Community and Participation Curator Rachel Routledge and hear more about Art / Work Association
As part of our Connection + Collaboration strand we are linking up students with fun, inspiring and thoughtful organisations who provide routes into work for emerging creatives. Here we got to hear more about Auto Italia’s brilliant Art/Work Association- a peer forum of over 400 early-career artists, creatives and cultural workers. Members of A/WA generate an ongoing programme of talks, screenings, seminars, readings groups, workshops and critical feedback sessions, conceived as a platform for artist-led learnings.
Art Collective printing workshop facilitated by Tascha von Uexkull (Assemblage Collective) at The Foundling Museum
I took a group of students to visit The Foundling Museum where the brilliant Assemblage Collective are in residence. The aim was simple- learn more about the museum and its collections but possibly more importantly tap into the brilliant work of Assemblage, experience first hand their approach and engage with possible future creative opportunities they may have.
We were wonderfully hosted and guided by the Collectives founder Tascha von Uexkull who treated us to an immersive drawing and monoprinting workshop. Such an engaging and thoughtful insight into their work and great to connect students to this kind of programme and work.
Huge shout out to Arts SU Arts Programme student staff @jiaquie for the excellent reel.
January 2025: Networking training facilitated by Arielle Murphy and Kate Hunter at Makerversity, Somerset House, London
Images: Emily White, Arts SU
Increasingly I hear from students the need to better understand how to ‘sell’ themselves, how to talk about themselves, meet others, connect and create spaces of growth. It was a student request on the back burner for over a year, unearthed and dusted off that I returned to the need to try and form a new event within our professional development roster.
A call out to colleagues in the young people’s programme community brings me to the work of two fantastic and insightful educators Arielle Murphy and Kate Hunter.
The main thrust of the session was a theatrical action in which you embodied a polar bear, turning your back to the room, you tried to chat about yourself as the animal, slumping your weary body and arching your back Kate and Arielle were at pains to show the intentionality of our physical approach as a method of embodied connection. Equally if you consider yourself a polar bear does it take the edge of networking, moving into the room - how can we use these techniques to ‘cut the ice’ (excuse the polar bear themed pun) of spaces we find stifling, or insecure, building relationships and connections to find them enriching and most importantly rephrasing networking as essential to the life line of creativity but also to the soul.
All cred’ to Arielle and Kate for the ace facilitation and Charlotte Gilks, Louisa, Matt and Makerversity for hosting us so brilliantly.
