This week Alice and I decided to meet to discuss our ideas

As you can see, the time stamp says 4th October, but due to other commitments we didn’t get around to it until 17th October.

Anyway, it was really useful to have a chat with Alice about our ideas. Alice wants to run an accelerator program for Black Artists, including a 6 month residency spot, events, expos workshops. Providing communal studio space, building a  networks of other black artists and building a networks with cultural institutions. I thought this sounded like a great idea. I asked if she was interested in doing events for the public as well. She said yes that some workshops and talks could also sell tickets as a means to bring in extra income. I also suggested that doing more events and expos would acts as good promotion for the residency and could help attract more interest from local talent. After our meeting I also considered that doing some sort of outreach to local schools/colleges would get the attention of young people and give her a chance to scout out up and coming artists. We agreed that it was best to start the project in London, since she was the most familiar with that area and London is home to many arts and cultural institutions. We also agreed that this project could work in many different locations across the country, and would be really beneficial for black artists in other cities which may have even less access to cultural institutions. I suggested that the project could be adapted to work across the country in time once it’s established itself in London.

We discussed the idea of people living on site during the residency programme. Alice asked what I thought of that. I liked the idea a lot, as it gives you a chance to fully immerse yourself. From my experience, I have found that exchanging accommodation for work can become unbalanced, and people end up doing far more work than they should, simply because their accommodation depends on it. So I suggested she should be aware of that.

Talking with Alice was a really useful for me for many reasons. It gave me another opportunity to pitch my idea, which I find quite difficult. Being able to explain my idea clearly to other people means I have a clearer picture of it myself. It was useful to feedback on what she thought would and wouldn’t work. She specifically helped me with finding my target audience, local people on lower incomes and visualising the space. She also suggested some questions I could use for my interviews.