Syllabus VIII: Open Call 

Applications close Tuesday 5 November 2024 (midnight). 

We are inviting applications for an Artist Advisor and Guest Partner to be part of Syllabus VIII. 

Syllabus is a collaboratively produced alternative learning programme that supports ten artists each year. Syllabus offers time to come together with artists from across the UK to discuss ideas, work, life and approaches to practice. 

The main responsibilities of the Artist Advisor are to support the cohort of ten Syllabus artists with programming advice, mentoring and facilitation.  

The Guest Partner will coproduce and host a digital or in-person gathering with and for the Syllabus VIII artist cohort. They will be part of a consortium of Partners who support the artist’s development and help to shape the programme structure. The role also involves attending planning meetings, at least one physical gathering, and participating in shared learning and evaluation. 

You can view previous Syllabus activity here. 

Artist Advisor Application Information

Guest Partner Application Information

Apply here.

We are delighted to announce the ten selected artists for Syllabus VII in partnership with Eastside Projects, New Art Exchange, PS2, Spike Island, Studio Voltaire and TACO!:

 

Omid Asadi

Maggie Campbell

Katrina Cobain

Sophie Gresswell

Sahjan Kooner

Yoojin Lee

Natasha MacVoy

Michael.

Alexis Parinas

Moira Salt

 

Together the artists will co-produce the Syllabus programme in collaboration with artist advisor Uma Breakdown and the partner organisations. Over ten months, they will undertake workshops, critical conversations and mentoring, whilst connecting with arts organisations and communities across the UK. 

Check out what they are up to here.

Biographies

Omid Asadi (he/him), a multidisciplinary artist hailing from Iran, explores the intricacies of human existence through the lens of contrast. His work delves into themes of immigration, identity, environment, and memory, reflecting a deep inquiry into the human condition.

@omidasadiart

Katrina Cobain (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Glasgow, working in performance, sculpture, writing and film. Her work explores the behaviour, personas and coping mechanisms invented under our late capitalist landscape, and the cognitive dissonance and absurdity they often produce. She uses writing as a tool in correspondence with object making, to push narratives forward in her practice.

@katrinakobain

Sophie Gresswell (she/her) is an artist exploring interconnected ‘living’ heritage. Her work often stems from her own experiences of mixed heritage and facilitates space to sit with complex history and unknown heritage in order to find a deeper sense of connection. It invites us to transcend our individual lifespan and amplify the way our human stories intersect through generations, cultures and history to bring us to the current moment in time, and inform the very people we are today.

@sgresswellart

Sahjan Kooner (they/them) is an amalgamation of inherited worlds and speculative futures, they work in a freelance capacity to support their practice and owe a great deal to their family, they are a student of the dream state. Using video and installation, they create expansive worlds that explore the traces of love, hope and imagination that make our lives possible, along with examining a debris of questions around the technological, social and racialised structures that augment life.

Yoojin Lee (she/her) works across and in-between performance, installation, text, sound and video to embody ways of becoming and knowing. Her work engages with seemingly quiet, less noticed but persistent forms of resistance and relating that unfold through multiple temporalities, such as sleep, sloth and slowness. She sleeps in London.

@nijooyl

Maggie (they/them) is an artist working across sculpture, costume, text, and performance. They worked as co-facilitator at The Field, a communal practicing/living project in rural Derbyshire.

@watergender

michael. (he/him) is an artist and community worker based in London.

Moira (she/her) is a multimedia artist, using film and sound, performance, printmaking, and installations. Her practice looks at b/Black diasporas, particularly women, and their connection to memory, myth, and land.

@moirasalt

Natasha (she/her) explores ideas and motifs that relate to invisible labour, care and neurodiversity, through playful use of doubling, repetition and considered use of close-at-hand materials. Simultaneously highlighting universal experiences based on our perception of space, passage of time, processes of making, and how we might gather, hold and return to our thoughts. Recent exhibitions include Eye Witness, Exeter Phoenix Gallery, 2024 and U & I, Eastside Projects Members Show, Birmingham, 2023.

@natashamacvoy

Alexis Parinas (he/they) is an artist and arts facilitator working across moving image, painting, eco-printing, and installation. Through explorations of intangible cultural heritage, they seek to archive, imagine, discover, nurture, and pass down complex and expansive worlds through their practice. They also facilitate creative workshops for schools, universities, youth groups, and arts organisations, with a focus on nurturing the imagination and curiosity of young people through the arts. 

@miraxmei

Artists will benefit from: 

The opportunity to rethink individual practices through an intensive programme of in-person gatherings and an online programme, hosted by the partner organisations.
Working together to collaboratively shape and develop a reflexive, collective learning experience.
Critical conversations about ideas and work in progress with a supportive, national network of artists, curators and organisations.
Becoming part of a new network of artist peers
Introductions to, and connections with, arts organisations, communities in cities across the UK and access to new networks, expertise and resources. 
Two gatherings at Wysing Arts Centre and gatherings at Eastside Projects, New Art Exchange and PS2.
An online programme convened by Spike Island
A gathering with this year’s guest partner, TACO! and associate partner, Studio Voltaire.
Two 1-2-1 meetings with Artist Advisor, Uma Breakdown, over the course of the year 
One 1-2-1 meeting with a partner organisation.

Syllabus: Meet the new Partners podcast 

Tune in to hear the new Syllabus partners PS2, TACO! (guest partner 2024-25) and New Art Exchange talk about their organisations and what they are most looking forward to on the Syllabus programme.  

Read the podcast transcript here.

Click here to listen to the podcast on Soundcloud, or find it on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and more!

Syllabus is a collaboratively produced alternative learning programme in its seventh year that will support ten artists across ten months. The programme offers time to come together with artists from across the UK to discuss ideas, work, life and approaches to practice.