Partners

Artists Union England
A trade union for professional visual and applied artists, AUE aims to:

• represent artists at strategic decision-making levels,
• positively influence the role artists play within society and
• challenge the economic inequalities in the art world to negotiate fair pay and better working conditions for artists.

a-n The Artists Information Company 
Founded in 1980, a-n The Artists Information Company is a leading UK agency supporting the practice of visual and applied artists. Through advocacy and information and from the perspective of artists, a-n’s mission is to stimulate and support contemporary visual arts practice and affirm the value of artists in society. Artquest shares the belief that sustaining a diverse sector requires fair pay as standard. Artists and galleries must negotiate the conditions, including pay, that they need to produce great art. We welcome the dialogue around the complex issues of fair pay for artists that a-n’s Paying Artists campaign initiates.

ArtWorks Alliance
A network of organisations and individuals with a passion for participatory arts and an understanding that working together to strengthen support for those working in the field will bring benefits for everyone involved. Artquest is a founding partner in the network.

CVAN England
CVAN England leads a collective agenda for policy change across the visual arts. They campaign to be heard, valued, and recognised so that the sector can thrive now and in the future.

Visual Artists Ireland
VAI is the representative body for visual artists in Ireland. They provide practical support to artists in all art forms throughout their careers. We share information, research and web content, and are inspired by their innovative programme of insurance and debt collection services for artists fees.

Art Monthly 
Art Monthly is a leading magazine for contemporary visual art. Published ten times a year, it provides in-depth features, interviews with leading lights, profiles on rising stars and up-to-the-minute coverage of trends from independent critics. Art Monthly also publishes Henry Lydiate’s Artlaw column, which has been accessible for free on the Artquest website since 2003.

Autograph
Their mission is to enable the public to explore identity, representation, human rights and social justice through work produced by artists who use photography and film. Autograph’s key aim is to connect audiences with their mission through the presentation of artistic programmes in the UK and internationally. Autograph’s strategy to deliver this aim is three-fold:

Careers & Employability
Careers and Employability supports UAL students and graduates to develop enterprise and employability skills, and make and take opportunities. They want to help individuals fulfil their potential as practitioners, employees and entrepreneurs.

The Contract Store
Contract Store is an exclusively online business offering legal documents for commerce. Artquest users can download selected free and reduced-rate contracts for the arts.

DACS
Campaigning for the rights of visual artists and paying them royalties that help sustain their practice and livelihood. We worked with DACS on piloting a new small grants fund for artists, and on a publication on the artists economy.

The Henry Lydiate Partnership
A business consultancy that helps clients with projects in all areas of creative and cultural practice. It was founded by Henry Lydiate, one of the UK’s most respected visual arts legal specialists, with over 30 years experience in working with artists to resolve their legal problems. Henry, together with his colleagues, provide specialist legal responses to visual artists and craftspeople in London through our free Artlaw information service, as well as being the author of the Artlaw archive, and online knowledge bank of art related legal articles published since 1976 in Art Monthly magazine, and available to view for free on Artquest.

Flat Time House (FTHo)
FTHo was the studio home of John Latham (1921-2006), recognised as one of the most significant and influential British post-war artists. In 2003, Latham declared the house a living sculpture, naming it FTHo after his theory of ‘Flat Time’. Until his death, Latham opened his door to anyone interested in thinking about art. It is in this spirit that Flat Time House opened in 2008 as a gallery with a programme of exhibitions and events exploring Latham’s practice, theoretical ideas and their continued relevance. It also provides a centre for alternative learning, which includes the John Latham Archive and an artist’s residency space.

Forma
Forma is one of Europe’s leading visual arts commissioning agencies and creative producers, working in col­laboration with artists, communities and partner organisations to deliver ambitious art projects for the benefit of the general public. Characterised by excellence in concept and context, production values, and the audience experi­ence, Forma imagines, enables, and delivers celebrated art projects by exceptional artists.

FRANK
Artquest is an initiation supporter of FRANK fair artist pay campaign, run by artists Anne Hardy and Lindsay Seers and curator Fatos Ustek. FRANK aims to support fair practice and fair pay for artists in the UK to assess current structures and methods in working with artists.

Gasworks
A contemporary art organisation based in south London, housing artist studios and offering a programme of exhibitions and events, artists’ residencies, international fellowships and participation projects. The intern will work with Triangle Network staff on network-wide projects, such as international artists’ residencies and workshops, gaining an insight into the coordination of a dynamic global network of grass-roots arts organisations.

• Commission new work or present existing work made by contemporary artists which speaks to our mission
• Research, display and publish work which address the subjects of identity, representation, rights and justice
• Encourage the production of new knowledge and learning about this subject matter, both alone and through collaboration with other institutions.

Iniva (Institute of International Visual Arts)
An evolving, radical visual arts organisation dedicated to developing an artistic programme that reflects on the social and political impact of globalisation. With the Stuart Hall Library acting as a critical and creative hub for our work, Iniva collaborates with artists, curators, researchers and cultural producers to challenge conventional notions of diversity and difference. Iniva’s aim is to engage a wide audience, particularly young people, in discourse and debate on issues surrounding the politics of race, class and gender.

newplatform.art
Not-for-profit supporting early career artists by presenting their work and developing their skills. The programme includes professional development and sales of work through corporate environments.

New Contemporaries
New Contemporaries is the leading organisation supporting emergent art practice from the UK’s established and alternative art programmes. Their programme includes an annual nationally touring exhibition, and a programme of mentoring organised by Artquest.

The Showroom
A contemporary art space focused on a collaborative and process-driven approach to the production of artwork, exhibitions, discussions, publications, knowledge and relationships. It is committed to supporting artists who have not previously had significant exposure in London. The Showroom’s groundbreaking approach fosters experimental art practice, reflects upon everyday life through engagement with the local community and advocates for international transdisciplinary forms of art and education.

UAL Decolonising Arts Institute
The UAL Decolonising Arts Institute seeks to challenge colonial and imperial legacies, disrupting ways of seeing, listening, thinking and making in order to drive cultural, social and institutional change. Artquest sits on the Institute’s Advisory Group for the 20/20 programme: 20 contempoarry artists in residence with 20 museums across the UK.

Studio partners

Our Outpost project worked with many independent studio groups between 2014 and 2020. Due to limitations on social contact during the COVID-19 pandemic this project became Artquest One to One from March 2020. Studios visited include:

• Delta House Studios,
• Art Hub Studios,
• Space Studios,
• FLAMIN London,
• Cubitt Studios,
• ASC Studios,
• Somerset House Studios,
• Kingsgate Studios,
• NW10, North West Studios,
• Acava Studios,
• Arbeit,
• Thames-Side Studios,
• Second Floor Studios,
• Cell Project Space,
• The Koppel Project,
• The Bomb Factory,
• ACME Studios,
• Chisenhale Studios,
• Bow Arts Trust,
• Slaughterhaus Print Studio
• Tottenham Hale International Studios,
• V22 Crown Close,
• Tannery Arts,
• Kindred Studios,
• Wimbledon Art Studios,
• Euro Art Studios,
• Makespace Studios,
• Kingsgate Workshops,
• Wysing Arts, Cambridge,
• Studio Voltaire,
• Hotel Elephant,
• Lewisham Art House.

Conway Hall Humanist Library and Archives
Since 1886, Conway Hall Humanist Library and Archives has been a haven for the radicals, political and social reformers and freethinkers who dared to dream of a better world. Beginning as a general lending library offering a wide-ranging collection of diverse subjects to suit the needs of the membership, the library has since evolved and grown to become the country’s only specialist humanist library. Along the way it has acquired the library of the Rationalist Press Association, the Stanton Coit Library, and the National Secular Society’s Library and Archives.

The Horniman Museum
Eclectic museum based on the collection of Frederick John Horniman, Victorian tea trader and philanthropist, who began collecting objects, specimens and artefacts ‘illustrating natural history and the arts and handicrafts of various peoples of the world’ from around 1860. Located in Forest Hill, the Horniman Museum hosts the Horniman Residency.

The Foundling Museum
The Foundling Museum tells the story of the Foundling Hospital, London’s first home for abandoned children, and of three major figures in British history: its campaigning founder the philanthropist Thomas Coram, the artist William Hogarth and the composer George Frideric Handel. The Museum’s nationally-important collections are housed in a restored and refurbished building adjacent to the original site of the Hospital, which is now Coram Fields children’s playground near Russell Square. Each year The Foundling Museum hosts our Foundling Residency, offering an artist a research base, access to collections and staff to help build a new body of work or project.

The Arts Catalyst
The Arts Catalyst commissions art that experimentally and critically engages with science, producing provocative, playful, risk-taking projects to spark dynamic conversations about our changing world. The Arts Catalyst worked with us on our Beam Time residency, and continues to help us find partners for our second, changing research residency opportunity.

M4gastatelier
M4gastatelier is a temporary living, project and work space in the heart of Amsterdam for international artists. It is based in the long-established M4 studios complex, an artist-led co-operative housed in a former letterpress factory comprising artist studios, live/work spaces and creative visual arts and crafts businesses. Artquest and M4gastatelier collaborated on our Going Dutch residency, which until 2014 sent a professional London-based artist to Amsterdam for a three-month supported working period.

Milchhof
Milchhof is an artist-led studio organisation in Prenzlauerberg, Berlin, in the heart of the creative quarter. Membership comprises visual artists, makers and small creative businesses, and together they maintain and curate a small gallery space on the property. Milchhof also houses the ACAVA live/work studio that we sent a London-based visual artist for our <<3 months in Berlin>> residency until 2014.

Museum of the Home
MoTH‘s purpose is to reveal and rethink the ways we live, in order to live better together. The Museum of the Home is housed in almshouses built in 1714. The money to build them came from Sir Robert Geffrye (1613–1704). In 1911 the London County Council (LCC) bought the building and gardens, opening the Geffrye Museum in 1914. Over the years the Museum evolved, presenting paintings, furniture and decorated arts in the context of living rooms. Artquest supported MoTH in developing a collections research residency, basing some of our Tender research on interventions in their application and selection processes.

ACAVA (Association for Cultural Advancement through Art)
ACAVA is a major provider of affordable artists studios in London, leasing and renovating studios to artists across the capital. Artquest collaborated with ACAVA on our <<3 months in Berlin>>, OZ residency and Life Boat programme of graduate residency opportunities for UAL fine arts graduates.

Engage
Engage is a membership organisation representing gallery, art and education professionals in the UK and in 15 countries worldwide, and promotes access to, enjoyment and understanding of the visual arts through gallery education.

Sound Sense
The UK professional association promoting community music and supporting community musicians through professional development, information and advice, advocacy and lobbying, and membership.

Foundation for Community Dance (FCD)
FCD is the professional organisation for anyone involved in creating opportunities for people to experience and participate in dance. The Foundation works with, and on behalf of artists, organisations and teachers involved in leading, delivering or supporting community and participatory dance.

University of the Arts London (UAL)
UAL is Europe’s largest specialist arts and design university, with close to 19,000 students from more than 100 countries. Established in 2004, UAL is a vibrant world centre for innovation, drawing together six colleges with international reputations in art, design, fashion, communication and performing arts: Camberwell College of Arts, Central Saint Martins, Chelsea College of Arts, London College of Communication, London College of Fashion, and Wimbledon College of Arts. UAL provides Artquest around 60% of our annual turnover in cash and support services.

Arts Council England (ACE)
Arts Council England champions, develops and invests in artistic and cultural experiences that enrich people’s lives, supporting a range of activities across the arts, museums and libraries – from theatre to digital art, reading to dance, music to literature, and crafts to collections. ACE provides us with around 38% of our annual turnover: Artquest is part of their National Portfolio.