Picture of identity

By: Piia Rossi

Jan 25 2013

Tags: art career, artist community, bielefeld, Das Atelier Speckmann, im mai, nomadic artist, professional contacts, socially engaged practices

Category: Art

4 Comments

I received a very generous and attractive offer from a local art community Das Atelier Speckmann to create new work for their forthcoming spring exhibition. Every year the members invite two artists to work on the studio and to present work in an annual exhibition event im mai. This year a local artist Antje Löbel and me were invited!  I’m delighted about this fantastic opportunity to produce a context-space-community specific work here in Germany. Offers such as this are not regular when you are a newcomer on a local art scene. As I mentioned, the offer is very generous as practically the whole space is available for us to do what we please.  The two invited artists can decide between themselves whether to work collaboratively or separately, and how to use the space.

It is generally thought that artists can work almost anywhere and that their work is not tied into a specific place, also that travel and changing location is only beneficial to an artists’ career (This would make being an artist the best kind of a job for a trailing spouse then).  Actually this is not quite the case. Artist might be able to produce actual pieces of art anywhere provided that there is an adequate workplace available, but to exist without an artistic community is not really possible if you aim for a career rather than a hobby.

Being an artist involves a lot more than doing pieces of art, it requires a large supporting community including other artists, studios, galleries, administration, critics, publications, organizations, sponsoring bodies…  to survive. What is vital for an artists’ occupation are contacts. Artist needs contacts to produce work, to get valuable peer support and critique. Contacts are needed to present work, to be considered for commissions, to be involved in progammes,  to hear about initiatives, etc. Artists can’t, no more than any other professionals,  exist in a vacuum.

For a nomadic artist this is the very problem as you are very likely to exist in a vacuum in the new location unless you can always relocate to a place where you already have contacts. It is especially difficult to be a nomadic artist if you primarily work with communities and socially engaged programmes. Arriving to a new location with no contacts and possibly not even language skills can be detrimental to an artist’s career. For me it felt like going out there with a flag on my hand looking for friends, and it isn’t easy.

It can be equally difficult to keep up existing contacts at the previous locations, as the distance and the lack of daily contact is bound to affect the relations. It is true that  ‘out of sight is out of mind’. This is only natural, and in practice it means that your name will not come up in project meetings, you are not considered when collaborators are sought for and opportunities just don’t reach you.

Therefore, for a nomadic artist to get invited by a local artist community to get involved in their activities feels like a door has opened.