Talent Development

The Talent Development (TD) Programme was established in 2013 and born out of a commitment to supporting emerging artistic talent.

The programme enables artists to create, propose and justify a period of bespoke professional development. It gives artists (individuals or groups) the chance to design a programme relevant to their needs, aligned with their practice, ambition, career position and long-term goals.

The programme stands apart from other professional development initiatives on the basis that it set out to nurture artists through their individual needs and practices. Often professional development is delivered in a group context with an overarching programme that perhaps can generalise the support that artists require. An individually tailored programme was established on the very basis of feedback from local artists in Southampton and is backed up by national research carried out by a-n, the Artist Information Company, in 2010/2011 which demonstrated the need by artists for personalised development planning, business support, networking events and the critique of their work.

As many artists will know exhibition and commission opportunities often extend to the few, so it is vitally important to provide different types of programmes to support artists who have different types of practices.