Newsletter – 11 November – 15 December 2017

Hello, welcome to our latest newsletter.

The Start of Something
With the news of the US Presidential Election in sharp focus, Brexit rumbling in the background and announcements of more galleries facing closure or financial crisis, we were delighted to have had a very pleasant and productive Meet the Artists event at Leicester Print Workshop this week to take our minds off other things for a while.

Part of Leicester Art Week, the event brought together artists from different parts of the city and from various disciplines and practices, to network and socialise and to share ideas about what could happen to strengthen the community and create opportunities in the city. We’re looking forward to hearing what might happen next.

Hard on the heels of that event comes The Start of Something at Nottingham Contemporary on Wednesday. A free event, it presents an opportunity for those working within or interested in working with the visual arts community, to stimulate new ideas for our ongoing project of the same name. The event will take place Wednesday 16th November, 4 – 6pm. Find out more on our website.

Document
Document is well underway with footage of our 6 artists being compiled and plans afoot for other activities.

As part of her Leverhulme Residency in the department of Sociology at the University of Leicester, Kajal Nisha Patel is exhibiting work resulting from her research into British South Asian women’s working and domestic lives. On 16th November she will deliver a seminar at the University in which she will examine her position and practice as artist while considering the potential of participatory art as a tool for social change, collaboration and community cohesion. Find out more.

Keep up with our Document artists on our website and on Twitter.

Network Survey
Thanks again to those who completed our Network Survey, we had lots of really interesting and useful feedback. The headlines are that:
  • 80% identified themselves as Artists, with the next largest group being Educators at 18% followed by Curators at 14%
  • 26%, the largest group to answer this question, have engaged with CVAN EM for 5 years or more
  • Over 80% said they engaged through the newsletter
  • 74%, the  think that CVAN EM’s two most important jobs are to support an arts community  and celebrate and promote contemporary arts in the East Midlands, with the next most important one being to provide opportunities for Network members to connect with each other
  • respondents most want from us opportunities to make links with curators and arts professionals and to find out about exhibitions, events and activities
A summary of the data and our new annual report on activities so far will both be available on our website very soon.

Annual Event
Our next date for your diaries is Friday 24th March, when we will hold our next annual event at The Collection in Lincoln. Making. Perfect. Practice. will explore notions of where we turn for help in the process and practice of making art, how, where and why we produce art and what are the challenges to production. It will feature contributions from regionally-based practitioners and from further afield, and we’re really excited about it!

We’re delighted to present the work of Joey Holder, our latest Meet the Artist participant. Read her profile to find out more about her and her practice. You can still view all our other artist profiles too here.
Your Say
It’s now possible to send us your comments on events, exhibitions and other activities you’ve been to in the region. Just visit the website and select Write a Review in the menu. There’s loads of new content on our websiteevents, opportunities and news.

Keep uploading your events and opportunities to the website and send us your studio snapshots too!

Bye for now!