Studio Complex at Tate Modern, part of the 2018 Tate Exchange programme
Photo: (c) Tate
First overseas project joins from USA
Artist studios at Tate Modern, created by 200 students from Central Saint Martins, UAL, will open the second year of the Tate Exchange Associates programme at the gallery on 15 January 2018. Studio Complex invites the public to take part for free in a wide range of practical art activity and will look at what it takes to survive as an artist in contemporary London with ever-increasing rents and fewer spaces in which to make work. Creativity is the soul of the city and this project will look at how the notion of an artist’s studio is, of necessity, being re-invented for today’s world. The studios will open in the bespoke Tate Exchange spaces on Level 5 at the gallery. In June, Tate Exchange will welcome its first overseas Associate: Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts (VCUarts), from the USA.
Over the course of the next six months, the pioneering Tate Exchange programme will present hundreds of events devised by 60 Associate organisations at Tate Modern and 25 organisations at Tate Liverpool, all from the arts, health, education and the charitable sectors. The overarching theme will be production with an emphasis on the joy and challenges of producing and making art and the impact of creative learning.
The Associates programme marks the second phase in year two of the Tate Exchange programme, the first phase of which opened in September 2017 and comprised artist projects. In Tate Exchange’s inaugural year in 2016/17 the ambitious, new initiative attracted over 230,000 people across London and Liverpool with many thousands more viewing events online.
Among this year’s Associates are Plymouth College of Art whose Factory Settings will look at the kind of art education needed in a world transformed by automation. Staff and students will create factory production stations, digitally mapping visitors’ personalised creative journeys in activities from screen-printing to student protest. Thomas Tallis School will use the classroom as a setting for teachers, students, artists and the public to participate in the production of a ‘good curriculum’ and resources. Through making, editing, sequencing and publishing photographic works of art, teachers will open a window for the public onto the process of curriculum design and professional dialogue. In April, Creativity Culture and Education will take visitors through the Five Creative Habits of Mind, a teaching method that underpins the ground-breaking Lead Creative Schools scheme in Wales, putting an arts- rich education at the centre of the school experience.
From VCUarts in the USA, artist John Freyer, assistant professor at the University, will present a project with a focus on addiction and recovery, building on his extensive work in this area. As part of this, in collaboration with Tate Catering, Brixton People's Kitchen and people in recovery, a new coffee roast, Recovery Roast, has been created for visitors.
At Tate Liverpool, several Associate organisations will tackle the subject of homelessness. In January, Museum of Homelessness presents State of the Nation, a year-long response to the homelessness crisis in the UK. In March, Liverpool John Moores University, in collaboration with Chester Aid to the Homeless, explores some of the causes of homelessness. The theme of production will be examined further in February, when Liverpool Hope University fabricate and construct everyday objects from previous exhibition materials produced by Tate Liverpool and discuss sustainability, ethical consumerism and eco-systems.
Anna Cutler, Tate’s Director of Learning, said:
This year's programme explores the many facets, joys and challenges with production today. The next few months of Associates programme offers a serious dig into how we all play our productive parts, seen and unseen. It shines a light on creativity and creative learning as something playful and inspiring, something but that also packs a punch in questioning what gets made, why we make it and who gets to produce or consume it. It follows lead artist Clare Twomey’s ceramics factory in September which began our journey on this important theme.
On the evening of Friday 26 January 2018, the first Uniqlo Tate Late of the year at Tate Modern will focus on the theme of production with many of the Tate Exchange Associates taking this across the building in pop-up encounters, among them Stance Podcast, Trinity Laban, Digital Maker Collective, People’s Bureau and BACKLIT, Nottingham.
Tate Exchange examines art and its importance to society with the public and external organisations, tackling subjects such as migration, homelessness, mental health and identity. Tate Exchange’s Associates include charities, universities and healthcare trusts as well as smaller organisations from a wide range of disciplines involving, among others, architects, writers, health professionals and musicians.
Central Saint Martins’ Studio Complex will run on Level 5 of the Blavatnik Building at Tate Modern from noon until 18.00 daily from 15 to 21 January inclusive. Admission is free.
Tate Exchange: Production is supported by Maryam and Edward Eisler, Red Hat Inc., Paul Hamlyn Foundation and Art Fund. With founding support from Freelands Foundation.