Case Study: Benji Appleby-Tyler

Benji Appleby-Tyler is an emerging artist turned curator, who is currently studying Fine Art at University. He create an open call on CuratorSpace to work with other artists on his participatory project 'IDEA Portable Protest Kit'. Artists followed instructions to construct a 'soap box' and create an individual performance which was collated into a showreel.

"I have been working as an artist for the last 5 years. Previously I had a career in HR within the financial sector, but when I was made redundant from my job I decided to pursue my ambitions and complete a Fine Art degree. During the pandemic it has been difficult to network and find opportunities to gain experience, so I decided to set up my own project. I wanted to focus on the theme of protest art, and felt that working with other artists would allow me to have a broader insight into issues that I may have not considered and gain a broader perspective.

I wanted to work with artists outside of the university, but didn't really know where to start to look for them. However, I had applied to several opportunities on CuratorSpace before, so I thought that I would use this platform to create my own. There are a wide range of artists within the CuratorSpace community, so this was an ideal way of finding others, and stopped me being limited to only working with people I already knew. In fact, I received more applications that I had anticipated so decided to work with more artists that I had originally planned, and many have said that would love to work together again."

You can see the results of Benji's open call here: https://ideaportableprotestkit.wordpress.com

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