From a museum perspective, the most fruitful residencies are those that encourage practitioners to cast collections in a new light with an access-all-areas artistic licence to re-interpret the overlooked and the everyday.
“It’s exciting when an artist explores the more dormant parts of the collection,” says Laura Carderera, the residency programme coordinator at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London. “It’s an effective way of really shaking things up and helps keep us up with contemporary practice.”
The museum is a temporary home to ceramicist Matt Smith who, among other duties, is using his residency to look at how craft is often used as a voice for different minorities and how lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender narratives are represented in the museum.
“Within the constraints of a publicly funded institution with a historic collection, I think this could be really interesting work,” says Carderera, who contrasts Smith’s studio approach with the recent hands-on gallery interventions staged by Liam Byrne, the museum’s first musician-in-residence .
“Residencies can be a bit of a gamble as you can never truly be sure of the outcomes, no matter how much planning you do,” Carderera says. “We select residents who have specific proposals but, after meeting with curators and other people working in the museum, they can sometimes become excited about something else entirely. We’re open to people with strong ideas that push us to work in new ways.”
But it doesn’t always go according to plan. Two years ago, the V&A had to pull the plug on a planned performance by rock band Napalm Death, which had been invited by resident artist Keith Harrison to play in a gallery with fragile ceramic-based sound systems.
Safety inspections revealed the very fabric of the building was at risk from very high sound levels.
“When we work with artists, we have to go through a lot of channels with curators, visitor services, safety and security people to see if there are concerns about any activities,” Carderera says. “It can be a bit bureaucratic and everyone tries really hard to make everything work but a solution wasn’t possible that time.”
Artists’ personality traits as well as their artistic intentions are fully explored at the interview stage for residencies, with applicants required to engage with the public during their stay at the museum.
In the recent past, residencies were advertised like job opportunities, with a fixed number of hours, but now the focus is more about audiences and how the artists will work.
All the practical issues such as potential themes and disciplines, licenses and intellectual property rights are covered in the six-month contracts agreed by museum and the artist.
The latter typically receives a £10,000 bursary, paid monthly, and a small production budget.
Although residencies are run in association with the museum’s learning department, Carderera meets regularly with curatorial staff to discuss the possibility of tying activities in with future exhibitions and the potential commissioning of new works.
In advance of its planned presence in the cultural quarter at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, east London, the V&A is forging new relationships in east London, an area traditionally rich in art and design studios. It is starting with its first residency at the V&A Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green next month.
“The Museum of Childhood doesn’t have studios so the chosen artists will be hot-desking and working closely with the learning and curatorial teams,” Carderera says. “But a lot of artists work off their laptops, so huge spaces for them aren’t always necessary.”
Carderera is keen to share her learning with the many museums around the world that approach the V&A for advice on establishing and maintaining relationships with artists.
“Many come here and see our studios and think they’ll never be able to provide a similarly suitable base for their chosen artists but that’s not the case,” she says. “The best advice I can give them is to spell everything out at the open call.
“An artist may, for example, think their travel costs were covered for the interview; there are so many little things that take up a lot of time and can become far bigger issues.”
The V&A is running a one-day workshop, How to Work with Artists and Designers in Museums and Collections, on 3 March 2016.
“It’s exciting when an artist explores the more dormant parts of the collection,” says Laura Carderera, the residency programme coordinator at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London. “It’s an effective way of really shaking things up and helps keep us up with contemporary practice.”
The museum is a temporary home to ceramicist Matt Smith who, among other duties, is using his residency to look at how craft is often used as a voice for different minorities and how lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender narratives are represented in the museum.
“Within the constraints of a publicly funded institution with a historic collection, I think this could be really interesting work,” says Carderera, who contrasts Smith’s studio approach with the recent hands-on gallery interventions staged by Liam Byrne, the museum’s first musician-in-residence .
“Residencies can be a bit of a gamble as you can never truly be sure of the outcomes, no matter how much planning you do,” Carderera says. “We select residents who have specific proposals but, after meeting with curators and other people working in the museum, they can sometimes become excited about something else entirely. We’re open to people with strong ideas that push us to work in new ways.”
But it doesn’t always go according to plan. Two years ago, the V&A had to pull the plug on a planned performance by rock band Napalm Death, which had been invited by resident artist Keith Harrison to play in a gallery with fragile ceramic-based sound systems.
Safety inspections revealed the very fabric of the building was at risk from very high sound levels.
“When we work with artists, we have to go through a lot of channels with curators, visitor services, safety and security people to see if there are concerns about any activities,” Carderera says. “It can be a bit bureaucratic and everyone tries really hard to make everything work but a solution wasn’t possible that time.”
Artists’ personality traits as well as their artistic intentions are fully explored at the interview stage for residencies, with applicants required to engage with the public during their stay at the museum.
In the recent past, residencies were advertised like job opportunities, with a fixed number of hours, but now the focus is more about audiences and how the artists will work.
All the practical issues such as potential themes and disciplines, licenses and intellectual property rights are covered in the six-month contracts agreed by museum and the artist.
The latter typically receives a £10,000 bursary, paid monthly, and a small production budget.
Although residencies are run in association with the museum’s learning department, Carderera meets regularly with curatorial staff to discuss the possibility of tying activities in with future exhibitions and the potential commissioning of new works.
In advance of its planned presence in the cultural quarter at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, east London, the V&A is forging new relationships in east London, an area traditionally rich in art and design studios. It is starting with its first residency at the V&A Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green next month.
“The Museum of Childhood doesn’t have studios so the chosen artists will be hot-desking and working closely with the learning and curatorial teams,” Carderera says. “But a lot of artists work off their laptops, so huge spaces for them aren’t always necessary.”
Carderera is keen to share her learning with the many museums around the world that approach the V&A for advice on establishing and maintaining relationships with artists.
“Many come here and see our studios and think they’ll never be able to provide a similarly suitable base for their chosen artists but that’s not the case,” she says. “The best advice I can give them is to spell everything out at the open call.
“An artist may, for example, think their travel costs were covered for the interview; there are so many little things that take up a lot of time and can become far bigger issues.”
The V&A is running a one-day workshop, How to Work with Artists and Designers in Museums and Collections, on 3 March 2016.