Professional Development Workshop for Visual Artists and Media Artists
The Pitch / The Structure / The Technical / The Image
Getting Your Work Out There

Organized and presented by Artspace and the Electric City Culture Council
When - Saturday, May 3rd from 1:00 to 5:00 pm
Where - Artspace - 378 Aylmer N, Peterborough, ON
Cost - $20.00 - refreshments will be provided
What to bring? - Your portfolio (artist statement, biography, circum vitae, disc with images), proposals or call for entries you have questions about.

Workshop Details

Curators Su Ditta, Elizabeth Fennell, Fynn Leitch and Christy Haldane will kick off the day with illustrated presentations on the dos and don’ts of trying to get your work shown, selected for a commission, collection purchase or an exhibition.  They will draw on their professional experiences and points of view to offer hot tips, practical tools, deep thoughts, wild ideas, and best guesses, on negotiating the complexities of different sectors of the art world.  Find out how institutions, juries, and art private galleries really work and what actually happens in the selection process.

Following the panel discussion, participants will break into smaller groups for coaching, peer support and appraisal, as well as a one-on-one review of participants’ pitch portfolios.

Get first hand information and a variety of perspectives on how to organize your portfolio, make connections, and pitch your project/exhibition idea/body of work.  Where do you get the information you need?  How do you find the right fit?  What are juries and curators looking for?

Panel Discussions - The Pitch / The Structure / The Technical / The Image

The Pitch - Su Ditta will demystify the curatorial and jury selection process: how to network, organize a big push on your work, find the right fit, get information, and what your presentation should look like for different purposes.

The Structure – Elizabeth Fennell will explain how to read/understand a Call for Submissions and create an application that meets the requested criteria.

The Technical - Fynn Leitch - Getting work out of the studio and into a gallery often involves some rethinking. Scale, presentation, and intention are important considerations when approaching exhibitors. Fynn Leitch will focus on installation methods and proposals (the HOW) rather than artist statements (the WHY) and tell you why it's essential to get a floor plan.

The Image - Christy Haldane - Good images can make or break a proposal. Your images become you.... what do you see when you think Monet - a man or a painting? Christy will speak on the importance of the image; how to rework your images to fit the criteria of an application and formatting photos for different applications.

Biographies

Su Ditta is probably best known for her work as Associate Curator, Media Arts at the National Gallery of Canada (1987-1990) and as Head of the Media Arts Section of the Canada Council for the Arts from 1990-1994.  In the 80’s Su was Executive Director of the Canadian Images Film Festival and Administrative Director of Artspace in Peterborough.  Su was Adjunct Curator: Media Arts at Oakville Galleries for 10 years and she has organized more than 30 projects and exhibitions at public art galleries, and artist-run-centres across Canada; including  the Dunlop, Ottawa Art Gallery, Video In, Plug In, the AGP, the Walter Phillips Gallery, and at A Space.  Su has led or been a member of more than 50 juries, including for the Canada Council, Ontario Arts Council, the Governor General’s Awards, TIFF Short Film Prize, the NFB’s Five Feminist Minutes Project, Benchmarks and the Telefilm: Cannes Pre-Selection Committee.

Elizabeth Fennell is an independent curator whose practice focuses on regional artistic development and the cultural economy. By creating spaces to make (The Darkroom Project), show (Still ReFrame/Erring on the Mount), and sell (Gallery in the Attic), she uses her background in History (Trent, 2005), and Museum Management & Curatorship (Fleming, 2006), to assist artists in navigating the various systems of the professional art world.

Fynn Leitch has an MA in Visual Culture from Queen's University (2006) where her work focused at the intersection of craft and protest. Since 2011 she has led the direction of ARTSPACE, including the development of an onsite Media Lab, and has renewed the centre's commitment to critical writing and publishing. Curator, writer, and artist, her work has appeared in catalogues, magazines, and galleries across the country.

Christy Haldane has been a practicing visual artist for over 15 years. She has curated and participated in a variety of art exhibitions and art galleries since graduating from Sheridan College in 1999. In 2013 Haldane opened Proximity Fine Art, a commercial gallery on Stoney Lake, and became the project coordinator for the Electric City Culture Council. She has also worked for the Glass Art Association of Canada, assisting members with project grant applications and image manipulation.