Artist Opportunities

A professional short course designed to help experienced practitioners challenge creative assumptions, take meaningful risks, and break free from habitual ways of working through a series of rapid, intensive briefs.

In today's fast-paced, delivery-focused environment, we often lose the permission to experiment, play, and explore without a defined objective. As professional practitioners, our vocational skills become strengths, but they can also become invisible safety nets. We programme ourselves to find functional solutions and make risk-free decisions, often losing touch with lateral thinking and true creative possibility.

Because of the themes and the desirable outcomes of the masterclass, we will not be disclosing any specific topics and briefs for this course. Nor will a timetable be released ahead of the start date. This is to allow you to come onto campus and be able to immerse yourself with no pre-existing notions. The one thing we ask is that you are prepared to be unprepared.

This executive level course is led by Professor Neville Brody, one of the most celebrated graphic designers of his generation – a leading typographer and internationally recognised art director and brand strategist.

Who can apply: Anyone

What you get:

In person course at Battersea campus with a debriefing session online.

This course is a dedicated space to challenge those built-in responses. It is an antidote to the demand for instant, perfect output, offering a framework to rediscover the value of thoughtful consideration, ambiguity, and play. It is a safe space to take creative risks, uncover your "go-to" props, and think differently about your practice.

Over three intensive days, you will engage in a rapid brief-and-response process designed to push you outside your comfort zone. This isn't about producing a perfect outcome; it's about embracing the process of response itself as a gateway to new learning, change, and creative revitalisation.

Entry Fee: £1,375

Deadline 25 May 2026

The 2026 Curating Contemporary Art and Design summer school focus is 'Art in Public: Curating and Commissioning Contemporary Art in Social Contexts'.

The course will explore creative and critical work in public space as an expanded curatorial practice. Framed around a series of considerations - such as the role and shared value of public art, the ethics of community collaboration, understanding the complexity of public space, making work for different publics, embedding environmental concerns, and prioritising process-led interdisciplinary methods, the course offers an overview of innovative and contemporary global approaches to curating and commissioning art in public and social contexts.

The course is convened by Elisabeth Del Prete and supported by Thomas Cury (CCA, MA 2023). The Course Director is Professor Victoria Walsh, Head of Programme, Curating Contemporary Art (CCA).

From their various perspectives – professionally, geographically, culturally – all of the guest speakers will talk about the importance of creating diversified and dynamic public spaces through contemporary art and curatorial practice.

Guest Speakers include:

• Jeanne van Heeswijk (Artist, Netherlands)
• Amal Khalaf (Curator, UK)
• DAAR - Decolonising Architecture Art Research (Architects, Palestine/Sweden)
• Tamsin Dillon (Curator, US)
• Marie-Anne McQuay (Curator, UK)
• Alia Farid (Artist, Kuwait/Puerto Rico)
• Rose Lejeune (Curator, UK/Qatar)
• Veeranganakumari Solanki (Curator, India)
• Jaspar Joseph-Lester (Artist, UK)
• Adam Kaasa (Artist, UK)

Who can apply:
This short course will be of interest to those curious about non-gallery settings and public spaces as locations for art and to those interested in learning to activate the meaning of a space, place or community.

What you get:

As a forum for learning in a collaborative, highly dynamic and participatory atmosphere, the course combines analytical debate with online workshops, group activities and practice-led approaches taught by the world’s leading art and design university.

Entry fee: £1,875

Deadline 15 June 2026

A practice-led introduction to the study and practice of contemporary art, structured around the development of your own self-motivated individual project, delivered live online.

The interactive online Contemporary Art Summer School, led by performance artist and academic researcher Dr Despina Zacharopoulou since 2017, examines the rich array of positions, methods and materials that artists use, as well as exploring the questions raised by contemporary art and its production.

The theme of the 2026 summer school is ‘What is at Stake?’, and explores urgency, drive and the making of sense in contemporary art practice.

Who can apply: Anyone

What you get:
This three-week, online, practice-led short course provides a supportive environment for self-led independent practice and introduces participants to the study of contemporary art within the academic environment of the Royal College of Art.

Taught by RCA staff and supported by a broad range of prominent artists, academics, critics and curators, the course provides participants with the opportunity to develop their individual practice within an interdisciplinary, collaborative atmosphere.

Entry Fee: £2,550

Deadline 29 June 2026

Factory Berlin is currently accepting applications for a 12-month artist program based in Berlin, with the option to join online.

The program supports visual artists who want to focus on their practice while building the structure needed to work professionally. Artists receive support with artistic development, portfolio / narrative, professional presence, contracts + payments, and access to wider networks.

The program is open to artists working across visual and interdisciplinary practices, especially those ready to professionalize or working outside traditional paths.

Eligibility: Anyone - specifically emerging artists.

What you get: Mentoring from gallerist and curators in berlin and our network, networking with like-minded artists and entrepreneurs, marketing, exhibition opportunities, sales support, sometimes studio space, collaboration opportunities and artist critiques.

Deadline 30 September 2026