Refresh Art Award

A project co-founded with curator Georgina Talfana, with an experimental new business model in mind that offers value to artists as well as being financially viable for curators. The overall desired effect of this being finding something more socially and economically sustainable for everyone in the arts. First call out was in 2018, with the show in London in June 2019. 
 
Taking advantage of the collaborative, borderless and viral nature of digital technology, we also aimed to get a true snapshot of contemporary art, rather than one decided by the same old gatekeepers of fine art.

Some key elements of our model were giving all artists something in return for their entry fee rather than only the large (and mostly disappointing) hope of winning a cash prize, no unpaid internships for any part of running the award, a focus on contemporary subject matter rather than having to focus on design-style fine art that sells easily.

Using a fully independent commercial setup, and taking no funding, was paradoxically one of the only ways we could manage this. Read more about the show at my AN project blog.