The aim of the project is to create a digital platform and network, opening up new sites of Art School studio production in order to 1) enable artists and students to sustain a studio practice remotely and 2) to foster an international network of studio-based courses.
The focus on ‘makeshift’ or virtual studio communities is a response to the COVID situation that forced art schools to rethink radically the nature and purpose of studio provision and the impact of homeworking environments on emerging creative practice. The project is also a reaction against increasingly segregated and nationalistic tendencies in education (e.g. removal of Erasmus scheme) and the potential for art projects to transgress some of these barriers to learning. On practical and conceptual levels,
The project builds on the research project ‘ Dirty Practice’ , an annual residency and research project initiated by Ayliffe and Mieves in 2015.