STUDENT HOUSE
Our Story
Who We Are
What We Do
The premise of Student House came from years of well- loved Saltaire Arts Trail events - created by Saltaire Inspired during which the village of Saltaire becomes one giant collaborative platform for the arts. The streets are bustling with people and local residents offer up their Grade II listed homes, welcoming artists from across the region to exhibit inside. In 2019, Saltaire Inspired made the decision to create a branch of the Arts Trail which is dedicated to showcasing talent from the students of Bradford School of Art - and so, the birth of Student House.
As part of this new endeavour, it was decided that this programme would be delivered and coordinated by a newly appointed intern, a recent art graduate who could relate personally to the project.
Partnerships were made and plans progressed and then the Covid-19 pandemic hit, pulling the rug out from under us. Our first ever Student House (No.6 Titus Street) was no longer an option and it was back to the drawing board.
With a boatload of passion for the project and ever-growing sympathy for the students who had lost opportunities to exhibit their work, we decided to take Student House digital. As this was the debut year, we had a blank canvas to work with, meaning we could design a platform with as much fluidity and freedom as possible, and create something which doesn't strive to replicate a white-walled gallery but instead encompasses all the quirks and personality that you would expect from a Saltaire Inspired event.
Saltaire Inspired is an ambitious arts charity, creating quality contemporary arts events in unique settings. We deliver three annual arts events in the World Heritage village of Saltaire, and work towards our vision to help Saltaire become internationally recognised as a centre for the visual arts.
We create art and community events in the unique spaces of Saltaire and present exciting and challenging contemporary visual art in accessible settings, inspiring people of all ages and backgrounds to take part. We use public buildings and private homes as venues in order to encourage and reach out to new audiences and communities, and to attract artists to exhibit and respond.
A Note From The Editor - Emily Ryalls, Artist Support Intern 2020
A lot has happened in the last 6 months, it's hard to know where to start. To introduce myself, I'm a recently graduated 22 year old photographer/art programmer from Wakefield. At the start of this year I was given the opportunity to be the 2020 Artist Support Intern, a role which has two key elements to it - to learn and absorb all the knowledge of how to organise and deliver our annual community arts events, but also to take that knowledge and apply it to the newly created Student House (a project that I would take lead on).
It was a wonderful dynamic - switching from note taker in one meeting, to chair in the next, as far as possible from the cliche of just pouring tea and coffee. It felt like a constant cycle of learning and applying and I was never short of support.
The entire process of creating Student House has been full of new experiences and collaboration, both for myself and the students - I've hosted 1-2-1 video tutorials on how to photograph your work at home, a guest Zoom talk with Leeds based designer Oli Bentley and countless chats about how we as creatives can band together right now to adapt and innovate during these challenging times.
So please get comfortable, and enjoy the tour of this year's Student House.
- Emily