It’s time to start a creative collective!
Written by Youssra Manlaykhaf
In 2012, a diverse group of A-level students from London schools became fast friends when they joined a youth art programme called AttRAct at the Royal Academy of Arts. It was designed to maximise creative opportunities and education in the arts for teenagers and it’s through that programme I secured my first job working for a Turner Prize winning artist at 17 years old. Seven years later, a few of us from this group decided it was time we formed our own dedicated community with the full recognition and experience of how valuable and exciting creative collectives really are for creatives. And this is how my own little art collective, Just Another Collective, was born. We’re a collective of six artists and designers who practice in very different ways and want to proactively create our own opportunities to exhibit our work and share our skills and ideas both amongst ourselves and through our platform.
Today in 2020, it's certainly not rare to hear that the widespread experience of lockdown has been quite a tough thing to adapt to for the majority of people. We've been thrown into a situation that has forced all sorts of businesses and freelancers to interrogate their current methods of work and implement a range of changes. However, a promising outcome of this huge shift in daily life has led to some very innovative and original solutions. And as creatives, we have a chance to find exciting new ways of forming concepts through expression, experimentation and evolution of our new and established skills. I'm here to convince you, through my own experience, that starting or joining a creative collective is the perfect way to really get your creative projects off the ground and experience that exciting balance of ideas, feedback and application!
The beauty of starting a collective is that it's a successful model for a huge range of reasons:
1. Collectives are very accessible - Anyone can do it!
You don't have to be an established professional to form a group of like-minded creatives that want to share their personal and professional experiences, various skills and establish a great support system. You could be reading this and still going through high school. You could be working in a job that doesn't allow for your creative flare and you need the fulfilment of a fun and exciting atmosphere and enthusiasm for realising new projects. You could be retired and itching to get a chance to showcase your work and share your progress with a group. You could be mobility-impaired and establish a virtual collective where you bounce ideas off each other over video chat! It's all up to you! There are no parameters to what your collective looks like as it exists to fulfil your creative energy and form a community that can boost your motivation and confidence. It’s all about creating that environment where shared enthusiasm and different perspectives can create that beautiful flow of ideas amongst you.
2. Collectives are a fantastic opportunity to collaborate and skill-share.
A creative collective is the perfect, pressure-free community where people can help you evolve your ideas and artistic concepts, and challenge them so you can grow as a creative. It also helps you learn what your strengths are and areas you could work on. All you need to do is reach out to people that share your enthusiasm for creating. Just Another Collective is formed of six very different young creatives. We're all in our mid-twenties, studied a variety of subjects, all have jobs in a range of fields and practice very different kinds of art and design. Photography, film, origami, painting and text based practices are all showcased together when we have our exhibitions. We came together so we could motivate each other to create more work within a hub of helpful feedback and support. We’ve also had the opportunity to delegate tasks when producing our projects that play to each other’s strengths, whilst also giving each other the chance to learn about skills we may not have had the chance to develop ourselves through each other’s unique experiences. It’s been a fantastic learning experience. Plus, there’s been plenty of time to take pizza breaks!
3. Collectives are an important example of a community based, practical education.
It's been quite the rollercoaster ride forming Just Another Collective. We have gone through the ups and downs of producing large, ambitious group projects to falling into lapses of silence as the realities of daily life and its various responsibilities put our little collective on the temporary back burner. Amongst it all, the experience of collaborating with this amazing bunch has meant we have all had a chance to test drive things we may not get to in our normal professional environments and that's hugely valuable in the creative sector. We're all expected to have several strings to our bow when we progress through our careers or establish our own independent projects and a collective can be a great chance to experiment, fail and gain new skills in an environment that allows it. It's a crucial to build more creative communities that allow for this sort of informal, non-institutional education. Being in a collective has allowed me to continue my Fine Art practice and exhibit experimental work in the context of a public viewing. I could actively experience if new pieces worked the way I had anticipated them to and have valuable conversations. I've even exhibited work that is still ongoing to get some feedback from new sources! You can do whatever you want together if it fulfils your group's creative needs.
4. Collectives are great for your CV!
Together, Just Another Collective successfully pulled off a massive launch party... because we wanted to! You could simply be establishing a collective to meet regularly and set some artistic challenges for each other perhaps. But collectives are also a fantastic opportunity to test run large collaborative projects where a whole host of your skills are put to the test. We challenged ourselves with throwing a big launch event so we could test run social media marketing methods and establish a following on Facebook and Instagram. We dove into the logistics of planning both a party with live performances throughout the night on one floor AND an art exhibition showing off our new work alongside a small prints shop on another floor ALL IN ONE NIGHT. We have worked on more low-key, longer standing exhibitions that required a very different change of pace and a new approach. We have also designed and launched our very own website and blog where we can continue to establish and share our ideas on a web-based platform. We're so proud of our shared achievements and these are examples of valuable projects to show off on your CV! It's a chance to show an employer that you are a proactive and motivated person outside of work place environment too.
5. Challenge yourself to do something you've never done before without the pressure making money.
Our success in Just Another Collective can be measured in so many different ways. And no, we aren't all suddenly making a bunch of profit and now all drive supercars. We didn't start a collective for that reason, even though people have in the past! I'd urge you to be mindful of considering all manners of success when you start collaborating with a group. Measuring everything by how much money you make is a dangerous game to play. It leaves you feeling anxious that you haven't made money from something you do as a passion and can poison the love you have for your craft in the long run. Sometimes simply making something that you know excites you and has helped you research or interrogate an idea more deeply with the collective input of several other minds can be incredibly fulfilling! Assigning monetary value to absolutely everything we do in life is very stressful and unhealthy. Art and design can be something you do for fun, a great source of therapy, a way to get people together, a form of activism and raising awareness or even a chance to intellectually challenge academic theories. Make sure you recognise a collective as the fantastic source of inspiration and experience that it is. And believe me, if you arelooking for professional skills for a workplace, soft skills such interpersonal skills, working through biases, practicing effective attention to inclusivity and diversity are among the few that can be well and truly applied within a collective. Not to mention all the other transferable skills you could work into your projects such as presentation skills, marketing, event planning, pitching/negotiating and building a professional network are among many others!
To keep up with Just Another Collective’s work visit us at: justanothercollective.com.
If you want to get in touch with us for collaborations, projects or you just want to send us some thoughts email usat — hi@justanothercollective.com or DM us on Instagram at — @justanother_collective