Artists’ Consultancy

New Forms of Studio Provisions

A collaboration with muf architecture/art
July 2015

Research into the design of new forms of studio and workshop provisions that better reflect the contemporary working methods of sculptors and three-dimensional art practitioners.

Who better to advise on what sculptors want, need and cannot live without than six artists who have garnered reputations for realising ambitious sculptural projects? We joined forces with muf art/architecture to host a two-part consultancy that was designed to ply our future by dreaming of an ideal ‘Pangaea Sculptors’ Centre’. 

PRIORITIES

Envisioning a space that:

1. Optimises practical and creative production and new working methods – imagining and imaging what these could be, with a focus on studio/workshop provisions. What are the contingencies, proximities, thresholds, resources, requirements?
2. Supports the production of ambitious sculptural practices, with ‘ambition’ critically understood as much more than size and embodying commitment, skills, site specificity and sensitivity.
3. Privileges the making process—making this accessible and a community resource. Exploring the inside/outside threshold of production space and how this border/edge can be optimised.

OUTCOMES

1. Insights that our informing our planning as we consider our long-term development.
2. A range of perspectives that reflect a broad spectrum of sculptural practice.
3. A new community of like-minded peers who share PSC’s ethos, especially our commitment to creatively imagining various future scenarios when it comes to sustainable sculptural practice at a time of widespread austerity.
4. Visuals that we can use to help describe this vision to others on our website, in reports, in funding documents and so on. Some of these are featured below, with London-based illustrator Ilyanna Kerr rendering impressions of our shared vision live throughout the two sessions – perfect for sketching the future.