Dates: Saturday 1st – Sunday 2nd June
Time: 11.00 – 16.00 (with a lunch break)
Place: ZOOM – register here
To some extent, every artist is also a writer. We have to contextualise our practices within multiple different scenarios and cater to different audiences in press releases, biographies, applications and websites. There are many ways to speak about one’s work: the most popular being International Art English. There is a time for this type of writing – within academic contexts, certain funding applications – but is this use of language the best for all scenarios? Are there more creative ways in which we can look at the artist statement that reflects the work itself? Do we have to have just one statement, or can we have multiple different options of how to present ourselves for different contexts and audiences? Can the artist statement be used as a creative tool to think with and around one’s creative practice?
In this two-day online workshop, artist and writer Samuel Brzeski will explore different strategies for writing around and about your work, focusing on the artist statement. We will discuss the work of others, write together, and gain various new tools and approaches to draft and edit artist statements. The workshops are for people at all stages and experience levels–whether you have very limited experience with writing or are very confident in it. A few readings will be sent out in advance, and the sessions will be based around finding ways into writing, establishing voice and position, knowing the audience, and finding clarity. The workshops will be held online, but will be discussion based rather than lectures, with participants encouraged to talk together around issues, challenges and motivations, as well as doing some writing exercises together. The workshop will be held in English, but feel free to write in whichever language you choose. It is recommended that participants bring statements, drafts and texts that are in progress that can be worked on during the workshop.
Samuel Brzeski is an artist and writer working with language as raw material—through text, the voice or otherwise performed. He runs the art writing collective and publishing platform TEXST, and regularly publishes hybrid texts and art writing on various platforms. He has been writer-in-residence with Lydgalleriet (2020-21) and Contemporary Art Stavanger (2022). He currently edits the Vibrational Semantics series of text commissions, which explores the performative use of the voice. His forthcoming collection of creative texts, Tips of the sung, will be published by Lydgalleriet in autumn 2024.
NB: As this is a workshop that involves a lot of active sharing of work, discussion on texts as a group, and time spent together actually writing, it will not be recorded.