Open Studios Exhibition Launch - 15/11/24
UNITe is a ten-week artist studio programme based at g39 for artists to develop work, experiment, research, have creative discussions, and more. Our UNITe season has run for a decade. We love this part of our programme as it allows us to meet new people and see people’s working practices. It’s part of the way that we continue to be open, learning and constantly changing.
This year we are keeping the front gallery open during our normal hours, with more information about the artists, a social space and a library resource on artist led spaces.
Taking inspiration from independent art schools, studio groups and peer led activity, g39’s UNITe season transforms the exhibition venue into a busy artist studio complex and hub for creative research, training and collaboration. We invite the public in to witness the often-unseen studio activity of artistic practice and take part in discursive sessions.
Annually the UNITe studio community fosters and supports artists at any career stage. It is a space for artistic practice and its associated research, testing, wrong turns, collaborations, serendipity and discovery.
For the artists this is an intense period of supported work and they are asked to shape the peer directed programme, as well as benefit from it. In addition to feedback from the studio community and g39’s audiences we have invited a number of guest contributors to lead studio crits and debates, and discuss criticality. We’re particularly interested in how artists in a studio community can support one another in rigorous critical ways, and will be exploring a range of methods for critiquing artworks constructively in a studio setting to generate stronger, more rigorous approaches.
For the public, the space will be open as usual while events evolve and develop from the artists involved in the programme. They are also invited to attend a series of free public talks from several visiting speakers including Larry Achiampong, Stephen Sutcliffe and a screening of the 2024 Jarman Award.
By bringing together g39’s audiences and artists in this way we want to promote an understanding of where visual art comes from. Whatever the context and wherever the situation – the studio, the workshop, the library, the laptop, urban or rural – are all sites of production that are usually kept separate from the sites of presentation.
UNITe 2024 concludes with an open studio event, led by the artists to see what they have been doing and to celebrate well into the final hours of the residency and we close after a Roath long weekender with an early seasonal celebration.