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NEXT STEPS
Thinking collectively, working together Ellen Wilkinson speaks to three artist collectives to find out how several heads can be better than one.
Collective action hit the art headlines at the end of 2019 when that year’s four Turner Prize nominees formed a collective to split the award and share its £40,000 prize equally. But collective and collaborative practice is nothing new. Artist-led projects have always worked in this way, sharing time, skills, resources, knowledge and labour. Now, with already uncertain times rocked even further due to the Covid-19 pandemic and its social, economic and cultural fallout, the benefits of working collaboratively are perhaps more relevant than ever. For collectives Shy Bairns, Caraboo Projects, and The Centre for International Women Artists, putting heads together to collaborate is an artistic no brainer.
Shy Bairns: “A big benefit is having a good time with people you like” Manchester-based Shy Bairns is the collaborative practice of artists, designers and curators Izzy Kroese, Erin Blamire, Eleanor Haswell and George Gibson. Since 2016 they have been working together to make books and zines, run workshops and put on exhibitions.
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Caraboo Projects, The Wagon, 2019.
The four members met on their foundation course at Sunderland University. They made their first zine together because, says Kroese, “we were too shy to ask 27
