Writing Art
This eight-week course explores the close relationship between art and writing, reflecting on how language shapes our understanding of visual culture, and how art can inspire and inform the written text. By engaging with a wide range of art writing forms, from critical essays and exhibition texts to autotheory and experimental writing, including influential readings from writers such as John Berger, Maggie Nelson and Olivia Laing, participants will be encouraged to find their unique, personal voice and perspectives in art writing.
Through discussion, creative exercises, and close interaction with the course leader, they will consider how art writing can transcend mere description to become a form of art itself, as well as transmuting other visual languages into text. They will also consider the cultural contexts of their own writing, on which they will receive feedback both from their fellow course members and the course tutor, reflecting on how different social and cultural backgrounds can influence the ways art is interpreted and written about, ultimately opening up new possibilities for their own creative and critical practices.
Writing Art takes place at our fantastic workshop space in the heart of the Trinity Triangle (two doors down from the brilliant The Hastings Bookshop). As with all our workshops, as part of our partnership with our good friends and neighbours at the bookshop, course members are entitled to a 15% discount on books bought in the shop, during their programme and for one month afterwards.
Julia Kotziamani
Thursdays, 10 to 11.30am, from 3/10/24 to 21/11/24 (eight sessions). £180.
We offer two reduced price spaces per workshop group to those who are unwaged or on a low income. To enquire about these places, or with any other questions, please get in touch via the contact page, or at james@hastingswritersworkshop.com
About The Tutor
Julia Kotziamani is a Hastings-born artist and writer whose work explores art history, memoir and cultural theory. She studied History of Art at the Courtauld Institute and worked at Sotheby's before returning to her hometown in 2017. She is the founder, director and lead tutor of Hastings Art School, an organisation dedicated to democratising art education and output, and is especially interested in new and challenging voices in art writing. Her work has been widely shown including at the 2018 Venice Biennale, and she won the Almacantar Award for an installation of text-based performance and documentation for her recent MFA degree show at Goldsmiths. She has contributed to art book articles and provided text for a wide range of artworks, and her words have appeared in publications such as Grazia, Marie Claire, Elle, Newsweek and The Daily Telegraph.