Collective description

We are a collective of artists with and without learning disabilities.

The collective does not have ‘staff’ or ‘service users’ – we are all artists producing high quality pieces of work. Some artists provide others with practical support, but we all have an equal say when it comes to decisions about our artwork and decisions about how the collective works.

We have been offered a building in Brent Lodge Park animal centre as a studio in exchange for making pieces of artwork for the centre and the surrounding park.

The collective is planning to run for 5 months over the Summer of 2010. At the end of these 5 months in August, we will hold an exhibition of the pieces we have created. We would like members of the public to display some of their pieces alongside ours.

After the Summer exhibition we would like artists involved in the collective to decide what happens next. We already have some ideas:

• We could transform the collective into a business and some of the collective members could have paid jobs to run workshops so other people have the opportunity to create art for the animal centre and park.
• Artists involved in the collective could make decisions about how the business runs.
• We could have more exhibitions so artists can show off their work.
• We could see if it is possible to support artists to gain art qualifications
• We could help artists to get work experience and find paid jobs doing creative things.