Building an Art School for the Future
A Two-Year Model for Open School East:
Introduction & Overview
We are excited to announce Building an Art School for the Future, a new two-year model at Open School East (OSE)! This also introduces a shift to a two-year application cycle for prospective Associate artists, with the next call for applications opening in May 2025 and the following Associate Programme starting in September 2025.
Building an Art School for the Future is an ambitious, integrated model that features two additional core strands: our Civic Programme and a dedicated Alumni Springboard Programme.
The Civic Programme is developed in partnership with our local communities through collaborative art projects involving invited artists, OSE alumni, researchers, and community partners and practitioners. These projects will build a foundation for and help shape the school’s curriculum.
The Springboard Programme supports the artists and cultural practitioners who have graduated from our Associates Programme. It provides a range of professional opportunities to help them continue their development.
Building an Art School for the Future represents a sector-wide step change, enabling new generations of artists to create and lead high-quality, community-centred arts projects that emphasise collaborative and situated pedagogies.
Our new model will continue to address the inequity of arts training access, while also dissolving the traditional boundaries of the art school. It will nurture a new generation of artists for whom community building and social impact are central to their work.
How we work?
Building an Art School for the Future is structured around a two-year programming cycle, with each cycle exploring and responding to a specific theme. The threads of this theme run through each of OSEs programmes.
In Year 1, we establish a theme for the Civic Programme in dialogue with invited artists, alumni, community stakeholders, and local and international partners. The programme will create a ‘bank’ of resources, local knowledge, skills, and expertise, while identifying community interests and needs. These efforts will lay the foundation for the curriculum of our Associates Programme and initiate collaborative projects embedded in civic spaces to address the most pressing local needs.
In Year 2, the Associates Programme will explore the current cycles theme further, with Associate artists developing their own practices by creating work and curating events and partnerships within the local community.
As part of our new model, we are developing ways to embed community building and social practice methodologies into our organisation. We are working to flatten and remap the hierarchy of knowledge in our practice, as a leading alternative arts education provider, and in each of our programming strands and community-led curriculums.
We will equip future generations of artists with the tools they need to develop high-quality work, created with and for communities. This work will be realised through community-led and collaborative approaches, ensuring it is deeply embedded in our local community.
As part of the two-year model, we are launching Springboard, a new alumni programme. Through the development of varied partnerships, we will create opportunities for recent alumni, recognising the challenges many artists face in accessing networks and opportunities after leaving the programme. At OSE, we will continue to share our resources and networks, supporting our alumni as they develop their ongoing careers.
The two-year model also enables access to arts education within community settings. We continue to question the role of cultural organisations, exploring how we might adapt and respond to wider social and global issues, ensuring we continue to support our audiences, participants, and communities.
Open School East is an organisation committed to creating real change and impact in society by developing models of working that bring artists, communities, young people, and children together on their own terms. We foster the creation of art and cultural initiatives in local neighbourhoods, while building an international profile for the quality and ambition of this work.
Springboard Programme
Supporting the artists & cultural practitioners who have graduated from our Associates Programme
Civic Programme
Devised in partnership with our local communities through deep-touch projects with leading artists and practitioners
Associates Programme
A part-time, year-long development programme for emerging adult artists & cultural practitioners.