Free to attend - Please book your ticket here.

The Communities of Practice symposium aims to unpick the various themes explored in the exhibition. This will be done through two panel discussions.

The first, The Material of Making, will examine the challenges artists face when making work and the various forms of support they can draw on to enable them to sustain their practice. Speakers will consider the concept of “Hope Labour” (free and under-compensated work in the ‘hope’ that it will provide value in the future) and examine how studio practice is inherently tied to the acts of making and viewing artwork. 

The second panel, Alternative Futures, will reflect on the professional and educational landscape that artists need to navigate and how that landscape is being reimagined by artists, curators and educators. The speakers will discuss what an alternative creative environment could and should look like and what individuals or institutions are doing already to question and rethink the way they work. Questions of self-organisation, resistance and collaboration will be considered. This panel discussion is intended to build on perceptions of artistic visibility, which informed some of the curatorial thinking for No Last Dance, and will seek to examine how those working in the arts can actively affect change.

In between the two discussions, there will be an opportunity to walk around the exhibition and talk to artists exhibiting in it about their work.

Schedule 

2 – 3pm : Panel 1 -  The Material of Making 

Chaired by Helen Baker (Artist and Co-curator of No Last Dance)

Speakers: 

Dr Ewan Mackenzie (Lecturer in Work and Employment, Newcastle University) 

Louise Scott (artist)

Ian Gonczarow (artist)

Sarah Cooney (artist)

3 – 4pm: Break and walk round the exhibition with some of the artists

4 – 5pm: Panel 2 -  Alternative Futures

Chaired by Sue Spark (Artist and Co-curator of No Last Dance)   

Speakers:

Paul Hayward (Dean of Academic Programmes, UAL: Central Saint Martins)

Suzy O’Hara (Curator and Lecturer in Digital Arts, Sunderland University)

Abdullah Qureshi (Artist, Curator and Lecturer in Fine Art, Northumbria University)