Make Space unlocks spaces within arts organisations for artists to set up, test and reflect on their work.

Many artists in the region either don’t have a studio, or don’t have adequate space to install work in a way which allows them to step back, critically review progress, document work professionally, and invite feedback from peers. Make Space responds directly to the identified needs of our network, and is informed by our Artists and Arts Workers Survey and Creative Conversations hosted by Plymouth Culture.

Through Make Space, artists can apply for space in partner organisations for focused periods of time. Please see individual information packs to see what organisations can provide, including the nature of the space, what is possible, what you need to consider and commit to, and the dates that the space is available.

Make Space is designed to support artists whilst recognising the practical limitations organisations face in facilitating access. The initiative is run entirely in-kind by VASW and Make Space partners.

Partners

Make Space is initiated by VASW in collaboration with Plymouth Culture, KARST and Spike Island. The research and development phase was co-funded by Plymouth Culture and Arts Council England’s National Portfolio Organisations in the city.

For the 2026 pilot, VASW has secured funding from Arts Council England to support documentation of installed work, supporting portfolio development and future opportunities.

Find out more and apply.

Curator Bank supports artists living in the South West through mentoring. It offers artists opportunities for one-to-one meetings to talk through work and ideas with curators based in organisations, aiming to support individual artist development while also strengthening networks between artists and curators across the South West.

Curator Bank is made possible by the generosity of curators and partners across the South West, who have committed time in kind for one-to-one meetings with artists. Participating curators represent a range of experience such as working with exhibitions, engagement, education, public art, museums and young people. In every open call round there will also be a guest curator from outside of the South West region.

VASW established Curator Bank in partnership with The Burton at Bideford, building on an idea by the curator Gilly Fox.

Curator Bank 2026 partners are Arnolfini, Aspex, Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, b-side, The Burton at Bideford, Dorset Visual Arts, Exeter Phoenix, Field Art Projects, Focal Point Gallery, Ginkgo Projects, Harbour House, John Hansard Gallery, KARST, Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange, Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery (RAAM), Royal West of England Academy (RWA), Somerset Art Works, Spike Island, Studio KIND, Super Culture, Tate St Ives, The Box, Thelma Hulbert Gallery, University of Exeter, Visual Arts South West and Yeovil Art Space.

For 2026 our guest curator is Claire Feeley, Artistic Director Focal Point Gallery / Head of Contemporary Visual Arts for Southend on Sea.

Curator Bank 2025
In 2025 Curator Bank was made possible by the generosity of 37 curators and 22 partner organisations across the South West, who committed time in kind for meetings with 144 artists. For 2025, our guest curator was Gilly Fox, Associate Curator Hayward Touring.

2025 partners: Arnolfini, Art Centre Penryn, Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, b-side, The Burton at Bideford, Exeter Phoenix, Ginkgo Projects, Harbour House, The Holburne Museum, John Hansard Gallery, Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange, Plymouth Culture, Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery, Royal West of England Academy (RWA), Studio KIND, Super Culture, Tate St Ives, Thelma Hulbert Gallery, The Sherborne, Tate St Ives, University of Exeter, and Watershed.

How Can I Stay? (I don’t want to not want to stay) aimed to support creative people in the South West who operate in rural contexts and face barriers due to a lack of cultural and public infrastructure, access needs, isolation and injustice.

How Can I Stay? is devised in response to our research with members of the VASW Steering Group: Erika Cann, Laura Hopes, Amanda Lynch, Rocca Holly-Nambi, Georgia Newman and Melanie Stidolph.

The programme, which benefited over 700 people, ran between June and November 2024. It included two online seminars exploring critical issues faced by those operating rurally; and online and in person events hosted by creative practitioners with partner organisations More Than Ponies, b-side, Studio Kind and Creative Kernow.

You can find BSL signed event recordings, along with commissioned reflective texts and artist conversations below.

How Can I Stay? was supported by the Postcode Local Trust.

The visual arts sector is still in the process of managing the far-reaching impact of COVID-19, but we have already seen how the immediate economic effects of the pandemic have amplified prevailing structures of inequality and unsustainable working conditions. Alongside small organisations, freelancers and young people; Global Ethnic Majority, disabled and neurodivergent artworkers have been disproportionately affected. Due to embedded working practices that rely on precarious employment and low pay, the visual arts has a history of systematically favouring those with a higher socioeconomic status in accessing opportunities. At the same time, established organisations still need to address wider institutional policies and practices that allow the continuation of unfair treatment.

In 2021, Visual Arts South West invited artworkers in South West England to develop new best practice guidelines for our professional community. To address long-standing concerns, four Artworker Advisory Groups collectively developed new recommendations for best practice to increase equal access to the visual arts, and to foster more inclusive, fair and hospitable working cultures. The groups focused on experiences of Global Ethnic Majority, disabled and neurodivergent, LGBTQIA+ and young artworkers.

The Best Practice recommendations are a supportive framework for us as a region to bring tangible, long-term change to our sector by making our organisations’ governance, employment conditions, programming practices and professional development opportunities more inclusive, accessible and hospitable.

The recommendations cover:

• Organisational cultures
• Employment and pay
• Programming
• Professional development
• Application processes
• Developing connections

In collaboration with CVAN, The Reset series was a selection of webinars exploring the effects of COVID-19 and how the visual arts sector can safely recover from it, including presentations by Sarah Munro and Sally Shaw, Matthew Burrows, and Rachel Dobbs and Glen Stoker. Listen back a selection of the series below.

On 20th September 2019, we invited artists, curators, arts organisations and audiences to gather for a day of discussions and learning. This event (titled 'Future Proof') had the goal of identifying and addressing key challenges of our region while establishing collective survival strategies for the future in perpetually changing conditions.