Supporting artists to create self sustaining peer learning groups

Introduction by CAMP (Contemporary Art Membership Platform)

In April 2025, CAMP (Contemporary Art Membership Platform) launched KINections, a professional development project for artists in Devon and Cornwall facing barriers to developing their creative careers. The project was designed in response to feedback from CAMP members, and the organisation secured a mix of funding from Arts Council England and The Fenton Trust to support the delivery of a programme of supported activity through to Summer 2026. Identified barriers limiting career development included:

• Low wage economy in coastal regions
• Lack of cultural infrastructure
• Rural isolation exacerbated by poor public transport

Following a targeted open call, 16 artists were recruited to be part of KINections, 10 rurally based emerging artists and six artists based in Torbay. Some of these artists described facing additional barriers including caring responsibilities, poor physical or mental health, and precarious housing or employment.

Using the model of CAMP’s KIN groups, the project aimed to support participants to build a supportive network. KIN groups are self-organising groups of CAMP members that meet regularly, online and/or in person. Usually involving between 10 and 25 people, they connect members working in related media, in a particular city or area, or with another common interest or focus. KIN groups have self-organised exhibitions, shared skills, visited venues, given peer feedback, and run workshops, with some members being part of more than one group.

Over a period of a year, the KINections artists participated in a tailored programme of professional training workshops, one-to-one advice sessions, visited a number of venues and met with curators and producers across Devon and Cornwall. The artists have also been supported in developing creative work, and putting together two exhibitions. The project has benefitted from significant input of voluntary time by the CAMP co-directors, and the care and support of the CAMP coordinator.

CAMP paired the Emerging Rural Artists group (ERA KIN) with LOW PROFILE to work together on a programme specifically designed and facilitated by LOW PROFILE to give the group resources to sustain their network beyond the funded project period.

Top tips and learnings from LOW PROFILE

Introduction - why artist-led approaches are so important to us

As artists working collaboratively for 23+ years, we understand the importance and value of artist-led networks and approaches to making things happen.

Over the years, we’ve found ways to keep going by developing strategies to ‘build our own artworld’, we now describe this approach as ‘artist-led, sector supported’. By this we mean situations where we develop the framework, conditions, partners and resources that we need to make an artwork/project happen ourselves - but that we do this supported by organisations.

Example artist-led, sector supported artworks we've made include:

• DRUMROLL
• PEOPLE (Plymouth)
• Built it Together
  

This DIY mindset to realising a number of the artworks we've produced over the last ten years has been hugely informed by many previous years shaping and delivering grassroots, artist-led projects which we developed in response to identified needs - our own, other artists, and those of a place.

Amongst other things, we’ve:

• made artist-led residencies, where we’ve gone camping; rented airb&b’s and hosted artists in our homes.
• run a four four-day residential with 150 artists and arts workers - where the participants co-delivered the programme.
• put on a 24 hour festival and delivered a three month programme of activity with artist friends - both taking place in unusual, underused and unconventional sites and spaces.

For us, artist-led is about a desire to build a community around our practice; to work together with others to make things happen; to establish relationships with likeminded people who feed our lives in countless ways; to make our work and the work of other artists visible; to have a voice and agency; and to invest in a place and to help it to grow.

We wanted to bring this attitude and our experiences to help set up ERA KIN, a rurally dispersed artist peer group. We hoped to help this group to establish a mutually supportive network that in different ways, might help them to each keep going as artists based in places with less cultural infrastructure.

Below are our top tips for how to facilitate setting up a self-sustaining group of artists (who don’t know each other) using methods developed and used during the ERA KIN project.

1. Call out for artists who have a shared challenge (to form the new group)

AIM: Identifying people who feel they would benefit from being in a group together. A shared challenge (in the case of ERA KIN this focussed on rural living) can help bring a new group together.

HOW IT WORKS: Advertise the desire to create a group via social media, e-mail lists and/or other targeted approaches to reach people who might want to be part of the new group.

FACILITATOR ROLE:

• Create a simple, low-stress method for people to sign-up or indicate their interest (eg short online form, with options for audio responses for accessibility).
  
• If there is a limited capacity to the group (6-10 people worked well in the ERA KIN example), create a simple and transparent method for deciding who can/won’t be accepted and let applicants know this in advance of applying.
  
• Contact successful group members with details about the first meetup.
  
• OPTIONAL: In the ERA KIN example, dates, times and locations for all future meetups / sessions were pre-arranged prior to the callout (and included in the callout information) to avoid difficulties with agreeing good times and places to meet.

VIBES: We’re facilitating the formation of a new group to benefit artists with a defined challenge. Does that sound like you? Who would like to be involved?

2. First meetup of new group & the "blank" timetable

AIM: Group members come together face-to-face, meet the group facilitator, understand the programme and start to feel comfortable in each other’s company.

HOW IT WORKS: Four hours face-to-face session (including shared lunch) at an easy to access venue (e.g near a main train line). This is a facilitator-led session, where the group come together for the first time and start to work out what types of things they might like to do together.

FACILITATOR ROLE:

• Facilitate “Saying Hello” - group members say their name, a sentence about the types of artwork they make (and when, where, how they make it), and what they hope to gain from being part of the group
  
  
• Meet the facilitator - a short intro by the facilitator about why they are bringing this group together (reference the shared challenge of the group), what has brought them into this role (previous experiences), and hopes for the group (including that it becomes self-sustaining)
  
  
• Overview of the programme - how the group meet up sessions will work (moving from facilitator-led to participant-led)
  
  
• Facilitate discussion in pairs / threes about:
  • “Being part of the group” (What do you think is involved in being part of this group, and in keeping it going?)
  • “Pitfalls & problems” (What do you think might be the pitfalls or problems of forming an artist-led peer group?)
  • “Your gifts to the group” (What do you really enjoy doing? What could you bring to - or share with - the group?)
  • “Your challenges in the group” (What are the things you struggle with, or might find difficult about being part of the group?)

• Introduce the “blank” timetable - show that apart from the next session, which is focused on short introductory presentations by each participant, the rest of the timetable for future sessions is blank.
  • Setup a timed task (in two groups) that helps group members generate ideas for future sessions using the prompts “What would you like to learn, do, or make happen together?” and “What resources might you need? What support from the facilitator?”
  • Gather feedback and suggestions from the task so that the whole group can see ideas that are emerging. Use the “blank” timetable to plan and agree as a group what will happen in Sessions three and four

• Session 2 reminder - Remind the group about preparing for Session two - Make a slide deck or collection of images to share (via screen share on Zoom) to show your artwork & current interests to rest of group (~10 min each)
  
  
• Establish group contact - Get the group to exchange numbers and set up their own shared WhatsApp group (without the facilitator) so that they can communicate / get in touch / share interesting things between sessions.

VIBES: We’re all meeting for the first time, time to chat and share around specific focus, finding out something about others, sharing something of ourselves.

3. Short intro presentations to the group

AIM: Members of the group get an initial insight into each other's work and start to make connections between their practices/approaches.

HOW IT WORKS: Two hour online video call session. Group members are invited to share existing artwork (via screenshare) for 10 mins each, with the prompt “Things you are attracted to and/or excited about in terms of your practice”.

FACILITATOR ROLE:

• Create schedule / time plan (blocks of three presentations then a screen break)
• Look after time-keeping
• Taking notes to be able to identify connections between participants practices / interests / encouraging questions and observations from others in the group
• What commonalities are there? Any crossovers? Shared interests?
• Bring these connections into group discussion once everyone in the group has had time to present.

VIBES: Safe, no pressure, telling people in the group about what you’re interested in, not defending work, not focussed on critical feedback, more focussed on curiosity and connection.

4. Skills & practice audit

AIM: Members of the group share information on skills, insights or offerings they can offer, and desires for skills, insights or offerings they would like to receive from others. This process shows the wealth and diversity of skills available within the group, alongside the wants and needs of the group. This information can be used to inform decision-making for future participant-led sessions.

HOW IT WORKS: Self-paced online activity that happens outside of / between group meetings. Group members set up a simple online form including questions like:

• ”Do you have skills you would like to share with the group? (using multiple choice suggestions and an option to self-describe a skill not on the list)
• “Are there any skills / insights/ offerings you would like to bring to the group that don't fall under stricter 'arts' definitions?” (e.g. food growing / political organising / cooking / project coordination / the list is endless...!)
• “Are there any particular skills / insights you'd like to learn from other members of the group?”

All group members (and the facilitator) fill in their responses. These responses populate a spreadsheet that is visible to the whole group.

FACILITATOR ROLE: Contribute to the form, and prompt / remind group members to fill in the online form before the next session.

VIBES: We all have skills we can share that others may want to learn. We might be able to share and learn things together, from each other.

5. Further planning & scheduling - Group decision-making process

AIM: Find easy and efficient ways to make decisions and prioritise activities and actions as a group without getting too personal, hurting people’s feelings or getting bogged down.

HOW IT WORKS: 30 min-1 hour online video call session. The group uses the information gathered through the “Skills & practice audit” task and an online polling tool to rank and prioritise their interest in various options that have been offered or requested.

In the ERA KIN group, sessions developed in this way included “Exploring local landscape with an expert”, “How to Build A Holding Pen”, “Colour & Ink Making”, “What we know about Arts Council funding”, creative writing / drawing exercises, group crits, and on-screen “work-alongs” (body doubling / parallel working).

FACILITATOR ROLE:

• Prepare the online poll by collating, analysing and spotting commonalities in the information gathered through the “Skills & practice audit” task - we used a free tool from https://www.opinionx.co to do this.
  
  
• In the ERA KIN group we identified “Creative Activities”, “Professional Development”, “Knowledge”, “Practical Skills” & “Group Experiences” as types of sessions that were offered / desired within the group, and grouped the skills offered into lists with these titles
  
  
• Group members individually (privately) rank the individual skills offered in each set of grouped skills into priority order. The online polling tool collates all responses and gives results in rank order for each set of grouped skills - suggesting the activities we should prioritise as a group.
  
  
• Work with the group to identify who offered the skills that have shown as top priorities, and schedule activities / sessions within the “blank” timetable. Remember to ask “What resources might you need? What support from the facilitator?” for each scheduled activity.
  
  
• If no-one in the group holds the skills to run a desired session, consider and discuss how the group might find (and resource) the sharing of these skills from outside of the group (e.g. identifying and inviting an external specialist to run a session).
  
  
• OPTIONAL - In the ERA KIN group example, we offered our existing bank of professional development workshops and tried/tested exercises to the group as part of the ‘skills audit’ so that the group had the option of asking us to deliver activities within sessions. This helped to ease the pressure from the group to immediately "lead" all activity themselves, made use of our experience and hopefully provided skills/information the group could use into the future

VIBES: We’re working out what we’d like to do together in an active way that feels fair and makes sure both the desires of the individual and the group are satisfied.

6. Handover to the group / facilitator steps away

AIM: The group has the confidence and skills to continue working together once they are no longer supported by the facilitator

HOW IT WORKS: The group have by this point learned and practiced ways to make collective decisions in easy/quick/democratic ways:

• The group has identified things they want to learn/do together through the skills audit and what each member of the group can offer
  
• The group has tried and tested different ways of working with each other, and identified approaches they find most beneficial for the ERA KIN group this included:
  • ‘work-alongs’ - where the group worked alongside each other remotely, sharing challenges/what they needed to focus on at the start, and re-grouping at the end to update; and
  • ‘group crits’ - where each individual would have a chance to share work / ideas in progress (and get supportive feedback)
  • creative sessions - where participants would share approaches to making/skills (e.g ink making)

• The group have established ways to stay in touch and are now leading on coordinating their time together (NB: in the ERA KIN example, the final session was entirely organised by the group)

FACILITATOR ROLE:

• Attend the final group session as guests not as facilitators, offering some simple support as needed (e.g for ERA KIN example, the final session operated as a group crit and a planning discussion around marketing for their forthcoming group exhibition. We supported by managing timings of presentations/feedback, and contributing to the discussion around ideas for marketing strategies).
  
• Give time for some informal feedback from the group with the prompts “what they have found most beneficial” and what their “hopes for the future” for the group are
  
• Ask participants to chat through their feedback to encourage the group to once again identify/check in on what they want to focus on moving forward
  
• Remind the group that we are stepping away at this point, and invite them to keep us updated about their activities .

VIBES: Supportive, encouraging and celebratory of how well the group are working together as peers and the potential for this to continue in exciting ways.

Acknowledgments:

This resource was commissioned by Contemporary Art Membership Platform (CAMP) and produced by VASW.

KINections was supported by Arts Council England, The Fenton Trust and CAMP.

CAMP is a member-led support and professional development network for artists, arts workers, and other creatives. It collectively promotes and supports doing, making, and sharing contemporary art across Devon, Cornwall, and the Isles of Scilly.

www.camp-membership.org
@camp_membership

LOW PROFILE are artists Rachel Dobbs (IRL) and Hannah Rose (UK). They live and work in Plymouth, and have been working together in collaboration since 2003.

we-are-low-profile.com
@hellolowprofile