Artist Development

The Blast! artist development programme offers commissions, residencies and development opportunities for emerging artists based in the Black Country on an annual basis. Collaboration is at the heart of the programme; we partner with arts institutions to provide a platform for participating artists, curatorial support as well as access to studios, materials, workshops and exhibition space, and non arts spaces to embed the programme within the fabric of the area.

The programme is rooted in alternative education models and widening access to sites of cultural and knowledge production. It is shaped by invited guest faculty - artists and curators whose practices open up different ways of working and thinking - who lead workshops, conversations and practical sessions. These explore alternative approaches to learning and making, foregrounding practice-based research and peer-led exchange as vital forms of cultural inquiry. Participants are supported through mentoring and collective sessions, with space to experiment and learn together.

Since 2021, we have supported 50 local artists through Blast! commissions and residencies, through our three annual programme strands:

Assembly, a development programme for three artists held in partnership with The New Art Gallery Walsall that culminates in a group exhibition of newly commissioned work.

Residencies, held in partnership with the Wolverhampton School of Art, which provides five artists based in the Black Country with studio space and access to the school’s workshops and facilities.

The Printing Room, an art writing journal that supports five artists to experiment with and push their writing practice and research, supported through writing workshops led by an invited guest mentor and co-editor.

Initiated as a talk programme for volunteers to our 6-week long social arts festival Blast! in 2019, since the beginning the programme has focussed on providing local early career artists with a space for connection, skills sharing and conversations around the pertinent questions facing contemporary practitioners. This focus on widening access to the resources needed to establish a career as an artist, is central to the programme today.

The Blast! Artist Development programme is supported by funding from Multistory’s core funder Arts Council England, and through partnerships with The New Art Gallery Walsall and The Wolverhampton School of Art.