Artist-in-residence : London Library and Dorset Libraries

Artist residency schemes occur in many forms and their outputs heavily depend on the practices and media that the selected visual artists work in. What they have in common is that an artist – generally specialised in a visual arts genre – will spend a certain duration of time basing themselves in the library space to work with existing collections, spaces or communities, to develop new artwork. The outcomes are often open-ended, which makes it different from a commissioning model, and the offer to the artist often includes salary fees and/or studio space.

One of many examples is the London Library’s artist-in-residence scheme, which involves two artists spending a year embedded in the library to produce new work. In 2019-2020 they worked with artists Mark Harris and Bob Matthews, both printmaking specialists, who researched the collections to inform new printmaking approaches and work. This then led to a collection of new prints, which went on display in various spaces across the library. A project like this might highlight understudied parts of the collection or offer new viewpoints on existing collections research.

Some artists-in-residence might work with library users and produce public engagement outputs rather than their own artistic work, and thereby mix the classic artist-in-residence model with community engagement approaches. An example of this is Dorset Council’s Libraries as Cultural Hubs project, which ran in 2018-2020. It allowed different artists to embed themselves in Dorset’s libraries for a few months at a time to work with local communities and programme and produce activities for these groups. These included writing and art workshops, setting up a writing corner in the library, making a collaborative sculpture, creating a short performance, as well as meet-and-greets with authors.