Developing a Peer Support Programme: Part Two: Creative Practitioner Support Programme

Need to catch-up? Read part one here.

Expansion came in the form of moving to work with SPACE to develop the idea of a peer support programme.

Many of the same principles stood from Colchester Crit Collective, including the importance of it being something that happens outside of traditional arts education, with a much simpler structure (Vidokle and Rosler, 2008). We wanted to create a respectful environment in which peer feedback could be shared to help develop the practices of our attendees (Hattie and Timperley, 2007). Having SPACE as a permanent location for the sessions allowed us to develop this environment, as attendees start to become comfortable and accustomed to the room that sessions are held in (Davila and Waterston, 2009).

The Graduate and Creative Practitioner Support Programme was officially launched in October 2018 and offered two free sessions a month to creatives and continues to this day as the Creative Practitioner Support Programme. Sessions now run every third Thursday and fourth Saturday at 12-2pm. This along with the regular rooming makes the sessions more welcoming and predictable. 

The notion of building a supportive community (Day, 2012) is at the heart of what we do. Since we moved to the regular time slot, the session attendance has grown and we have started to create this community of creatives who are from in and around Colchester, each with their own practices.

The sessions allow for facilitated dialogues to take place (Lermans, 2018), rather than the sessions being a free-for-all, there is an element of structure. As the session facilitator I will manage attendees expectation and keep an eye on timing. Each attendee is asked if they wish to show work or are just there to observe. Those showing, will be asked to outline what it is they want from the session; do they have a specific set of questions they want answering, do they want their peers initial reactions to work. or something else. This allows for attendees to access the kind of support they require. This is also beneficial to attendees in terms of being able to bring more perspectives to the development and aid problem solving (Latham, 2018). Peers are able to offer critical analysis, allowing attendees to expand their practices and to sharing knowledge (Davis and Tilley, 2016).  Receiving peer feedback also highlights the opportunity for the attendees to become more self-reflective and critical about their own practices (Percy, 2004). 

Our Facebook group has also grown, bringing together our attendees on a digital site. This has allowed us to implement the use of technology into our offer (Wojak and Miller, 2015), allowing all of the elements listed above to continue outside of the meeting room. We currently have around 70 members within our Facebook group. This group is actively used by attendees, to continue conversations and for networking.

The Creative Practitioner Support Programme is currently in its second year. We will be running sessions every third Thursday and fourth Saturday until July 2020, when we stop for the summer break. 

References

Davila, J. and Waterston, E. (2009) Art Quilts at Play: Ignite Your Inner Artist-Experiment with Surface Design Techniques. C&T Publishing.

Davis, R. and Tilley, A. (2016) What they didn’t teach you in art school: What you need to know to survive as an artist. Ilex.

Day. P. (2012) The Are Group Crit: How do you make a firing squad less scary? [online] Available at: arts.brighton.ac.uk/projects/networks/issue-18-july-2012/the-art-group-crit-how-do-you-make-a-firing-squad-less-scary. [accessed 30/01/20].

Hattie, J. and Timperley, H. (2007) The Power of Feedback. Review of Educational Research. 77 (1).

Lermans, L. (2018) Critical Response Process. [online] brooklynartscouncil.org. [accessed 04/02/20].

Percy, C. (2004) Critical absence versus critical engagement: Problematics of the crit in design and communication in Higher Education. 2 (3),

Vidokle, A. and Rosler, M. (2008) Exhibition as School as Work of Art. [online] www.art-lies.org/article.php?Id=1661&issue=59&5=1. [accessed 05/02/20].

Wojak, A. and Miller, S. (2015) Starting Your Career as an Artist: A Guide to Launching a Creative Life. Allworth Press; Second Edition.