Featuring experienced artists, makers and industry professionals working in the UK and internationally, In:Site Learn offers a varied programme of practice and career focussed talks, workshops and mentoring for participating In:Site artists.
Applications for In:Site 2024 are now closed.
Meet our In:Site Learn 2021/22 speakers
The In:Site Learn 2021/22 speakers represented a range of disciplines, material practices and contexts for art, craft and design, helping artists to navigate early career decisions and encouraging a proactive attitude to shaping a creative career.
Drawing on key moments from their own stories, speakers shared their experiences of: developing and maintaining a long-term practice, working with different art forms, artists, people and communities in collaborative, site responsive or participatory ways, and how they implement ethical and sustainable working processes.
Practical advice covered a range of areas including: breaking into and getting on in the art world and creative industries, creating meaningful networks, developing tools and strategies for research and planning, gaining jobs, funding and opportunities, taking care of money, accessing workshops and equipment, effective promotion on and offline, writing a good CV, and negotiating sales.
Guidance of a more personal kind gave an insight into: positively managing failure and rejection, navigating career and practice direction changes, finding your people and nurturing art friendships, building confidence, prioritising self-care, and knowing when to turn down opportunities.
Anna Ray
Anna Ray is based in Hertfordshire, she studied BA and MFA Tapestry at Edinburgh College of Art in 1994 – 1999. Over the last 25 years she has been granted major awards for her work and has exhibited nationally and internationally in both fine art and applied art contexts. Exhibitions, residencies and commissions include artist-in-residence at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show (2015-16), ‘Entangled: Threads & Making’, Turner Contemporary, Margate (2017), ‘On Tenterhooks’ solo exhibition, Brookfield Properties Crafts Council Collection Award, (2021) and ‘Fibre and Form’ solo exhibition, St Albans Museum + Gallery (2021).
Ibukun Baldwin
Based in Manchester, Ibukun Baldwin is the Founder and Director of Bukky Baldwin – Black owned, waste reducing, community changing, hand-made goods. A multi-disciplinary artist and social practitioner specialising in print, illustration and embroidery, Ibukun founded Bukky Baldwin after graduating from her degree in textile design, with the aim of using creativity as a force for positive change. The fashion label focuses on the importance of community and providing employment opportunities for marginalised groups. The brand values individuals in need at its core and is committed to using creativity as a tool to bring about positive socio-economic change in the UK.
Julia Rowntree
Julia Rowntree is based in London and is a creative producer and arts development consultant. Julia co-founded Clayground Collective with ceramic artist and educator Duncan Hooson in 2007, motivated by a shared concern about decline of clay studies and hand skills’ development in schools and colleges in the UK. The company combines participatory public art, education and research in a series of creative projects. Commissions to poets, musicians, other clay artists, collaborations with scientists, surgeons, academics, archaeologists, environmentalists, schools, libraries, museums and galleries, has extended interest in clay and the significance of hand skills beyond the studio.
Laura Slater
Laura Slater’s design studio and print workshop is based in Shipley, West Yorkshire, specialising in ‘printed objects for every day’. Underpinned by a drawing practice and using hand printing processes, Laura is interested in the way we engage with pattern, how it functions in the spaces we live in and objects we live with. She has produced collections for large and independent retailers (including Ikea, John Lewis, Tate, Northern Monk Brewery and Roake Studio), in addition to her own home furnishings collection. She collaborates on an ongoing basis with visual artist Mawuena Kattah and lectures on the Textiles Design BA (hons) at Leeds Arts University.
Rebekah Frank (Photo: Lydia Daniller)
Find out more
Rebekah Frank
Rebekah Frank is based in San Francisco and has both an art practice and a writing practice. She works with steel – a fascination discovered through a challenge received when she was 18 – and has worked in that material ever since, as a blacksmith, welder and machinist and currently, as a jeweller. She writes about artists whose work has a strong material focus and as a queer artist, she especially enjoys writing about other queer artists: their experiences and processes. In 2022, Rebekah was the Craftspace {Queer} + {Metals} digital residency artist.
Stefano Santilli
Stefano Santilli has an established studio practice based in Brighton, he exhibits work and lectures internationally and is senior lecturer on the 3D Craft & Design course at Brighton University. After a career of producing bespoke pieces and limited production furniture, Stefano has worked on public arts commissions and community workshops for the Crafts Council and for the Museum of London.
Useful resources for early career artists, makers & designers
Your Art Will Save Your Life, Beth Pickens
Mind Your Practice: A podcast for artists
The Art Of Shouting Quietly – a guide to self-promotion for introverts and other quiet souls
What Are the Arts Jobs? Sofia Niazi and Sarah Taylor Silverwood
Paths to success: five star makers share tips for those starting out
What I wish I’d known when I graduated: 11 craftspeople offer career advice
