Apply to SHIFT mentoring program vol. 3!
Application period 01.11.–11.12.2016
Apply to Finnish Art Agency’s SHIFT mentoring program now! SHIFT mentoring program offers personal career coaching, and meetings and workshops with external experts. The mentoring program was organised for the first time in 2015. Based on the two-year experience the program is substantially richer and wider.
A maximum of six (6) coachees will be chosen upon the received applications. The aim of the program is to provide tailored support for developing artists’ careers, for example by helping and planning the organising of exhibitions, setting long-term goals and creating international contacts. We are looking for visual artists who are particularly motivated and committed to push their career forward and set concrete goals for their actions. SHIFT mentoring program is firmly confidential.
Apply to the SHIFT mentoring program by filling in the application on Finnish Art Agency’s website by Sun December 11th 2016 (11.12.2016). For further information, please contact curator Darja Zaitsev darja@finnishartagency.com.
Program structure
SHIFT mentoring program comprises of one-to-one meetings with Finnish Art Agency, joint group meetings with other participating artists and FAA, and one-to-one meetings and workshops with external advisors. Every artist will also be interviewed for Finnish Art Agency’s online interviews. During the program artists and mentors will actively keep in touch with each other. The importance of communication is further emphasized when the program progresses.
The one-to-one meetings will be tailored to fit the coachees individual requirements. The aim of the program is to find the best possible solutions for every artist’s career and situation. Both the artist and the mentor will commit in preparing the issues raised in the meetings also outside the appointment times.
In addition to group and personal meetings, the program includes workshops and one-to-one meetings with external advisors (curators, experts in communication and writing, sales and marketing professionals, and professionals from the museum field). Personal meetings and workshops themes vary from international relations to written self-expression, from verbalizing one’s work to communication with the media, and from marketing and sales to codes and conducts in the museum field.
External advisors
Mark Devereux is director of Mark Devereux Projects in Manchester, UK. Devereux has curated over 100 exhibitions, working with more than 250 artists nationally and internationally. He has published four books and facilitated numerous events and professional development programs for artists. Devereux supports the practices of five early-career artists based in the UK through bespoke mentoring, production and curatorial projects, alongside an associate program for artists from throughout the UK.
Satu Nurmio works as the editor-in-chief for culture in the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE). As a journalist Nurmio is specialized in contemporary art, culture politics and urban culture. Under Nurmio’s lead the editorial team has been specializing in taking advantage of different forms of new media, social media and internet news coverage.
Mike Pinnington has been content editor at Tate Liverpool since 2013. Coordinating and delivering a coherent interpretation and information strategy relating to Tate Liverpool’s contemporary and modern art program, he is responsible for shaping the way the institution talks to its audience both in and beyond the gallery. Prior to that he co-founded The Double Negative magazine with Laura Robertson in 2011, which is a respected platform for contemporary arts criticism and practice from across the UK. He is a trained journalist who has written freelance for several national and international art magazines.
Laura Robertson is a freelance arts critic for national and international art magazines ArtReview, Art Monthly, a-n news, and Frieze. She co-founded The Double Negative magazine with Mike Pinnington in 2011, which is a respected platform of contemporary arts criticism and practice from across the UK. She teaches arts writing and professional practice at various art schools. Robertson has curated several exhibitions at UK.
Katja Räisänen is a passionate visual arts consultant specialising in contemporary art. She has over 15 years of experience in art education and art business, and has worked closely with several Finnish and international young and established artists, as well as designers. Most recently, she worked at the leading Finnish contemporary art gallery, Galerie Forsblom, where she was responsible for sales, marketing, PR as well as events and international art fairs.
Pirkko Siitari is currently working as an acting head of exhibitions at HAM Helsinki Art Museum. She works also as general secretary of Ars Fennica Foundation. She is the former director of Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art (2010–2015) where she also worked as a chief curator in 2008–2010. Siitari has worked in several Finnish museums since the 1990s.
Check out our previous SHIFT programs and seminars
SHIFT mentoring program 2016
SHIFT mentoring program 2015
SHIFT seminar 29.–30.10.2015