Professional Program

Things I Wish I Knew:
West Space Professional Practice Series

Throughout 2012, West Space will run a series of professional practice seminars. These are designed to develop the skills of artists, writers, curators and arts workers across a range of professional competencies. We know that many of you want to develop your skills in these areas (because you ask us questions about this stuff all the time). To meet this need, we have developed a series of afternoon workshops, each of which is designed to tackle some ‘frequently asked questions’ and to help you navigate the (sometimes treacherous) waters of the Melbourne art world.

Each seminar is led by practitioners who we believe are experts in the particular subject but also leaders – each has negotiated their own professional practice in extremely innovative and clever ways. We feel their brains are worth picking and that you may learn a thing or two by spending some time with them.

Each seminar runs on a Sunday afternoon for four hours at West Space. There are limited spots in each seminar. We have deliberately kept the price low so that it is affordable for young artists and/or recent graduates. Each seminar costs $35. You can do one, or sign up for the entire series and enjoy a reduced price of $175.

This Series includes (please scroll down to the bottom of this page for full descriptions):

When Attitudes Become Form: How to curate.
Mark Feary & Rebecca Coates
Sunday 3 June – Booked Out

Knocking on heaven’s door: How to get exhibitions and money.
Phip Murray & West Space
Sunday 17 June – Booked Out

Welcome to the jungle: How to manage the business
of being an artist.
Cheree Tucker & Lyndal Walker
Sunday 1 July

Going to Press: How to publish and write.
Dan Rule, Brad Haylock & Stuart Geddes
Sunday 8 July – Booked Out

Empire state of mind: How to do self-promotion and marketing.
Penny Modra, Tai Snaith + Special guests
Sunday 29 July – Booked Out

Art Installation 101:
How I stopped worrying and learned to love the cordless drill
Ross Coulter & Camilla Hannan
Sunday 12 August – Booked Out

Bookings will be managed by Cherie Schweitzer, Front-of-House Manager. Contact her at cherie[at]westspace.org.au. Please book soon to avoid disappointment!

Click here to download the Professional Practice Program

This initiative has been generously supported by The Ian Potter Foundation.

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When Attitudes Become Form: How to curate.
Mark Feary & Rebecca Coates
Sunday 3 June, 12-4pm

This workshop covers:
What does a curator do.
Old versus new – how has the role of the curator and possibilities for curating shifted.
What are the different forms a curatorial project might take.
What are the various models and methods to approaching curating.
How do you start – how can you continue.

20 participants only, $35 each.

Mark Feary is Curator at Artspace Visual Arts Centre in Sydney. Prior to joining Artspace in 2011 Mark held programming and curatorial positions at West Space and the Centre for Contemporary Photography in Melbourne as well as working at the Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne, the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art and at the Australian Pavilion at the 2003 and 2005 Biennales of Venice. He has undertaken a Curatorial Internship at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in New York and participated in the 2009 Gwangju Biennale International Curator Course in Gwangju, South Korea. Mark has curated numerous exhibitions, published widely and taught in curatorial studies at RMIT University, Melbourne. Recent curatorial projects include A Postcard from Afar: North Korea from a Distance, apexart, New York (2012); South by Southeast: Australasian Video Art, Yebisu International Festival for Art and Alternative Visions, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Japan (2011); Event Horizon, Centre for Contemporary Photography (2010); Structural Decline, Melbourne Art Fair (2008); Rules of Engagement, West Space (2007); and Relentless Optimism, The Carlton Hotel, Melbourne (2007).

Rebecca Coates is an independent curator and writer, and is Associate Curator at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA). She is a lecturer and tutor in the Art History Department, University of Melbourne, where she is undertaking a PhD. As Curator at ACCA from 2002 to 2007, Coates curated many group and single artist exhibitions including Peter Cripps: towards an elegant solution (2010) and NEW2010; Rosslynd Piggott: Extract in 3 parts (2009); Mike Nelson Lonely Planet (2006), Uncanny Nature (2006); Truth Universally Acknowledged (2005), Domenico de Clario (2005); and John Nixon EPW 2004 (2004). She also curated independent exhibitions during this time. Coates speaks and writes regularly on contemporary art and theory, and has contributed to a number of art magazines and journals including Art & Australia, Eyeline, Art World, UN magazine, Broadsheet and refereed academic journals.

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Knocking on heaven’s door: How to get exhibitions and money.
Phip Murray & West Space
Sunday 17 June, 12-4pm

This workshop covers:
How to write a grant proposal.
How to write an exhibition proposal.
Writing artist statements and bios.
Preparing CVs.
The importance of good support material.
Understanding the importance of criteria.
Preparing viable budgets and timelines.

30 participants only, $35 each.

Phip Murray is an artist, writer and a curator. She is currently the Director of West Space; a board and editorial member of the independent arts journal, un Magazine; and a history/theory lecturer in the School of Architecture and Design at RMIT. Recent curatorial projects at West Space include Tomorrow the World (2009), Today Your Love (2011) and Time Has Come Today (2012), and recent writing projects include The NGV Story, a book published by the National Gallery of Victoria to commemorate their 150th anniversary. Phip is an alumnus of the AsiaLink Leaders’ Program and is currently participating in the Australia Council for the Arts’ Emerging Leaders Program. She is a board member of Liquid Architecture and a member of the Green Room Alternative + Hybrid Performance panel. Phip has written scores of grants to different funding bodies, and has also read hundreds of proposals through her work on selection panels including West Space, Next Wave Festival and the City of Melbourne’s CultureLAB.

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Welcome to the jungle: How to manage the business
of being an artist.
Cheree Tucker & Lyndal Walker
Sunday 1 July, 12-4pm

This workshop covers:
Tax.
Business structures/models.
Budgeting.
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Ways to approach your art career and the life that it will give you.
Do you want fame, fortune, legendary status or to live happily ever after?
How do you cope with rejection, a winding career path and the other pitfalls they never mentioned at art school?

30 participants only, $35 each.

Cheree Tucker is a senior accountant at Lowensteins Arts Management. She has a Bachelor of Science and of Business (Accounting) and qualified as a Chartered Accountant in November 2004. Cheree has been involved with not for profit accounting and audits since 2002.

Lyndal Walker has exhibited at all sorts of galleries including The Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Modern Culture, New York, La Panaderia, Mexico City, After Hours Bar, Beijing, TCB, Melbourne and Murray White Room, Melbourne. She was one of the founders of both 1st Floor Artists and Writers Space and Citylights. She also has a curatorial and writing practice and her collaborations include being one of The Hotham Street Ladies. She has lectured at RMIT, Monash University and The Victorian College of the Arts.

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Going to press: How to publish and write.
Brad Haylock, Dan Rule, Stuart Geddes
Sunday 8 July, 12-4pm

This workshop covers:
Writing about art
Arts criticism
Independent publishing
Approaches to publication design
Publication printing and distribution
Online publications

30 participants only, $35 each.

Dan Rule is a Melbourne-based writer, critic, editor and publisher with over a decade’s experience writing on contemporary art, music, film and culture more widely. He is currently an art critic and weekly columnist for The Age newspaper in Melbourne, the Contributing Editor and Senior Writer for Melbourne and Sydney cultural publication Broadsheet and a contributor to various publications including Australian Art Collector, Artist Profile magazine and The Big Issue. As an aside to his writing, Dan is a partner in art book publishing imprint Erm Books and is a co-owner and director of Perimeter Books, a specialist small press, art, architecture and design bookstore and art space in Melbourne.

Brad Haylock is an artist and graphic designer, whose practice also spans writing, curation and publishing. He is a lecturer in Visual Communication at Monash University. He holds an Honours degree in Visual Communication from Monash University and a PhD from RMIT University. He is presently a member of the board and the programming committee of West Space, the board and the editorial committee of un Magazine, and the organising committee of Light Projects. He is the founding editor of Surpllus, an independent publisher of printed matter pertaining to critical and speculative practices.

Stuart Geddes runs communication design studio Chase & Galley, and teaches at Monash and RMIT universities. Previously Stuart was art director of Monument magazine, co-founded design practice Studio Anybody, and co-founded/co-designed Is Not Magazine, which won the Premier’s Design Award for Communication Design in 2006, and was nominated for the Design Museum’s Designs of the year award in 2009. He was also a councillor for AGDA Victoria for two years, and in 2008 was an international judge on the London D&AD awards in the Newspaper and Magazine design jury. www.chaseandgalley.com

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Empire state of mind: How to do self-promotion and marketing.
Penny Modra, Tai Snaith + Special guests
Sunday 29 July, 12-4pm

This workshop covers:
How to tell the press and the public what you are doing.
How to document your work.
DIY marketing.
Thinking about design and web design.
How to network.

30 participants only, $35 each.

Penny Modra is the editor of The Thousands Melbourne and the editorial director of the Thousands City Guides. She has written weekly visual arts columns for The Age and the Sunday Age; edited books including Nobody Told Me There’d Be Days Like These (Amanda Maxwell, 2008) and 21:100:100 (Gertrude Contemporary, 2008); proof-read magazines such as Wooooo issue #7, Head Full of Snakes issue #1 and Arts Victoria’s ‘Cheap Arts’ guide. She has worked for clients including London’s Future Laboratory and PhD students whose dissertations are due in 12 hours. Penny was a co-founder of Melbourne’s experimental poster publishing project Is Not Magazine (2005-2008, RIP).

Tai Snaith is a Melbourne-based artist, writer, illustrator and sometimes curator. She has seen publicity from every angle- writing numerous releases for her own work and others, as well as receiving hundreds of different publicity materials for shows and projects to review or write about. She has extensive experience as a creative producer for festivals such as Next Wave, Fringe and the Emerging Writer’s Festival. Tai’s writing has been published in various arts and architecture magazines and will have her first children’s book published by Thames and Hudson this year, due for release in early July. Tai also conducts a regular visual arts review on Smart Arts, Triple R (102.7fm).

………………………………………………………………………………………….. Art Installation 101:
How I stopped worrying and learned to love the cordless drill
Ross Coulter & Camilla Hannan
Sunday 12 August, 12-4pm

This workshop covers:
Preparing the gallery
How to install your work
Power tools & OH&S
Setting up audiovisual & sound works
Installation art: interventions into the gallery space
De-installing and making sure you get asked back again

15 participants only, $35 each.

Ross Coulter is a visual artist who uses video, photography, sculpture, installation and painting in his practice. His work experience includes teaching in the art departments of a variety of tertiary institutions as well as freelancing as an art-installer at a number of public galleries and artist run spaces.

Camilla Hannan is a sound artist who works exclusively with field recordings. She processes these recordings into abstract representations of place and experience. Camilla’s work encompasses composition, installation and performance. She comes from a DIY background garnered from a teenage love for punk rock n roll. This was finessed inher late 20s with a degree in fine art (sound) from RMIT University. Camilla has performed in Australia, Europe and the USA. Her sound installation work has been featured at the Sydney Opera House, San Francisco, MOMA, Gertrude Contemporary Art Space, Melbourne and the AC Institute, New York. She has performed at festivals including Articulating the Medium in San Francisco and Totally Huge Music Festival in Perth. She has a day job as audio producer with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, trains new broadcasters at community broadcaster 3RRR and is a program committee member for Melbourne ARI West Space.