ARTIST SURGERIES: one-to-one mentoring (ONLINE)
Regenerate your creativity, mature your skills and methodologies, take your practice to the next level!
Artists’ Online Surgeries with Isabel Rocamora are back for 2022! We, at the Studio, take your continued progress and journey to success very seriously and are excited to announce new modalities and cost-effective packages to support your creative path...
Discuss your work, receive detailed feedback and constructive guidance on your artistic trajectory, your current project, your writing. Break through road-blocks, equip yourself with the tools to develop thoughtful and impactful work, accomplish your creative goals. From idea, through development and production, to getting it funded and making it public.
Whether you have a specific project you are working on (at any stage of development or production) or you wish to discuss your career path in artist moving image, film and video or media performance, Isabel will help you gain clarity, hone your craft and develop tailored strategies for moving forward your personal practice. Expect an intensive analytical, conceptual and creative working process during which you will be invited to face challenges, foster new thoughts and arrive at fresh solutions in a supportive environment of dialogue and guidance always focused on your specific goals.
SURGERIES BY CATEGORY
There are three types of surgery.
1. Project Mentoring
This surgery is for you if: you have an idea for a project; you have a project in development; you are in production; your project is completed and ready for distribution.
Together, we will delve deeper into the thematic, conceptual and aesthetic concerns that drive your work. Isabel will guide the process, suggest creative and (when relevant) collaborative, technical and distribution strategies and methodologies, and recommend inspiring references and models to inform your path towards achieving your project goals. We will engage in joint analysis and structured dialogue of your work and creative process. There will be classroom exercises, homework followed by assessment and critique and the creation of focused maps for moving forward.
2. Artist Trajectory
Do you feel that you would benefit from discussing your career trajectory, focusing your creative path and/or building a stronger profile? Then this surgery is for you.
Framed by your mid- and long-term career goals – which we can also work on and refine together – this surgery is structured in two parts. First, it invites a thoughtful reassessment of your creative journey as it stands today. Second, it provides experienced methodologies for moving forward. Depending on the focus and duration of the surgery, we may review your CV and biog, consider ways in which your current skills may best support your future aims, analyse and constructively critique your recent practice, examine your disciplinary and/ or interdisciplinary context, sophisticate methods of self-presentation and the public release of your work, talk about how to re-position yourself within your industry, outline funding structures and strategies, and open up new avenues for a rewarding dissemination of your work. We will evaluate your trajectory and skills in relation to your aims, brainstorm new paths and possibilities and build maps and timelines matching your goals with feasible plans of action.
3. Writing Skills for Artists
Have you ever considered the crucial role of the written word for a successful creative trajectory and public image? Whether you are a filmmaker, a visual artist or a performance-maker, you trade primarily in images. However, isn't it often the case that for your project to be commissioned, grant-funded or taken on by a producer you first and foremost need to be an articulate and convincing communicator? You have to be skilled in describing your art, in writing synopses, pitches and treatments, and in expressing how your art contributes to the cultural trends and policies that shape our contemporary world. You have to be honest as well as astute. Most importantly, your prose needs to be clear, engaging and convincing.
The purpose of this Writing Skills programme is to sophisticate your communication skills and develop fresh strategies and a personal style for writing about yourself and your work. Tailored to your practice and focused on your goals, we will cover industry imperatives, such as: preparing the project proposal, the artist statement, the funding application* and the press release.
* Please note that we are not offering a grant application service, rather, the programme is designed to help you develop your communication style and empower you with fresh methodologies for expression and self-presentation.
These three surgeries are for moving image and performance artists (directors, choreographers, performers) who wish to: deepen their working process as it relates to their medium, sharpen their creative vision and communication style, and evolve a coherent and impactful practice.
As an artist, scholar and experienced educator holding a PhD in film-philosophy from the University of Edinburgh, Isabel brings a rare combination of creative methodology, technical grounding, production knowledge and intellectual depth to her mentoring. She has taught artist moving image, non- and narrative filmmaking and interdisciplinary creation at the Universities of Edinburgh, Edinburgh Napier and Bristol, the Barcelona International Film School and by invitation at Brown and Frankfurt Universities, Rhode Island School of Design and Stills Gallery Edinburgh. Isabel’s artist profile is established in a significant portfolio of international exhibitions – most recently at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Art Moscow, Koffler Gallery Toronto and Austrian Cultural Forum NYC. She has received film commissions from Channel 4 UK, Arte TV France/ Germany and TV3 Catalonia, and performance and moving image commissions and funding from more than forty institutions, including Arts Council England, Creative Scotland and the British Council. Her extensive track-record in the creative industries spans visual arts in the non- and commercial sectors: from site-specific performance interventions and worldwide theatrical tours, through working as actress and choreographer on feature films and commercials in the London film industry, to securing a recognised position in the art market. Isabel's mentoring includes film directors such as Robin Haig (BAFTA New Talent Drama Award) and Iván Castiñeiras (Edinburgh International Film Festival Documentary Award). See full biog.
SURGERY PROGRAMMES & FEES
• Share your session with one other mentoree (a peer artist) and save on the fee. For two individual artists who share common goals or else collaborators working on a project or wishing to further develop their collaboration methodologies. Since the programme is online, there is no need for you and your peer artist to be in the same location.
• Now also available: three-hour intensives.
YOUR OPTIONS
A one-off session, a series of sessions, or an intensive in one-to-one or one-to-two meeting formats. Programmes start at five sessions on a sliding scale.
All programmes include Isabel’s review of the artists’ portfolio and creative materials in process, prior to and in preparation for each session.
Individual Two-hour Sessions:
One session: 130 € // 120 GBP (2 contact hours)
Five session programme: 620 € // 550 GBP (10 contact hours)
Ten session programme: 1,150 € // 1,050 GBP (20 contact hours)
Individual Three-hour Sessions:
One session: 160 € // 140 GBP (3 contact hours)
Five session programme: 750 € // 650 GBP (15 contact hours)
Ten session programme: 1,400 € // 1,250 GBP (30 contact hours)
Two-person Three-hour Sessions:
One session: 180 € // 160 GBP (3 contact hours)
Five session programme: 800 € // 700 GBP (15 contact hours)
How this works: each of the two mentorees covers half the fee.
Programme structure: one meeting every two weeks works very well for most modalities. This allows time and space for the artist/s to work on their project in-between sessions, ensuring sustained and visible progress. We are always open to accommodating alternative suggestions, where possible. Note: the Writing Skills programme starts at five sessions.
TIME PERIOD: Surgeries will be offered through 2022. Limited places available
LANGUAGES: English or Spanish
TO BOOK a slot/ programme: email us at studio@isabelrocamora.org or go directly to Registration
TO DISCUSS YOUR NEEDS AND DATES: email us at studio@isabelrocamora.org
Upon registration you will be asked to send in your full biog or CV (3 page max.) and a half-page statement on the aspect of your work and main goals which you would like us to focus on, together with links to a selection of your works.
Once you have completed a Surgery Programme with Isabel (min. 5 sessions) you are entitled to a 10% discount on any Workshop on the Isabel Rocamora Studio site - this discount is not transferrable to another person nor may it be used with any other discount offer.
Images: Camila Valenzuela in rehearsals for Horizon of Exile, the Atacama desert, Chile. © The artist, 2007.
