Features (Archive)
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How to approach judges for competitions
Getting partners involved and securing high-level individuals to help you select winners is no easy task. But having someone recognisable on your panel is a big perk for candidates who want their work seen. Here are our top tips to appeal to judges you would like involved in your programme.
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Voice Like an Insect
Zealous Stories: Print winner, Angelica Trimble-Yanu, was born and raised in Oakland, California and is an enrolled member of the Oglála Lakȟóta Nation.
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Drawing up your schedule
Timing is everything – opening your submissions at the wrong time or for too long could negatively impact the number of candidates who apply. Find out more on what to watch out for when crafting the schedule of your programme.
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Terminal B
Zealous Stories: Digital Art winner, Nigel Goldsmith, is a visual artist focusing on environmental issues and the Anthropocene.
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Planning the selection process for your competition
Seeing submissions reach into the hundreds then into thousands is a real buzz. But that euphoria can quickly turn to dread if your process to select successful candidates isn’t built to cope.
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Performative Drawing
Zealous Stories: Performance winner, M. Lohrum, is an artist based in London and currently working across video, drawing and performance.
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10 Questions with Guy Armitage
This year, Zealous celebrates its 10th Anniversary. In recognition of this momentous occasion, we’ve interviewed founder and CEO, Guy Armitage, to find out more about the company’s past, present and future.
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Sharing Four Lessons from Running a Business
Ten years have gone by quickly, and we are still learning. After a decade of building Zealous, we thought we should share some of our top lessons.
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We Are Not Ourselves
Zealous Stories, Sculpture winner, Svetlana Ochkovskay lives and works in Portsmouth, UK. Her practice explores ideas of identity, belonging and otherness: encouraging new perceptions of the world by taking the audience to a visual other.
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Celebrating our 10th Anniversary!
It is humbling to see an idea I had ten years ago develop into a network of over 45,000 artists and arts organisations. And although we should use our anniversary to celebrate what we achieved, this feels only like the beginning! Here’s what to expect from our Anniversary year (and beyond).
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Establishing the perks for your competition
The only reason applicants will take the time to submit is that there’s something in it for them. Defining what’s in it for those selected, and understanding what you have available to you, could allow you to run a competition on a very tight budget, and still make a great success of it.
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Perfecting Your Artist Statement for Awards & Submissions
Having a clear and compelling artist statement is essential for grant applications, exhibitions, open calls and residency submissions. To ensure you communicate what matters, we’ve compiled a quick and easy guide to help you tackle the daunting task of putting words to your practice.
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Wee Muckers – Youth of Belfast
Zealous Stories: Photography winner, Toby binder, has been documenting the daily life of teenagers in British working-class communities for more than a decade. His winning series is a compelling exploration of young people in Northern Ireland, who often suffer the same problems, undeterred by which side of the border they reside.
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Streamlining what you ask for from candidates
Asking candidates for the correct information when they submit is a fine art.
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Creative Resources: Where to Get Your Grant
Every discipline comes with its own set of requirements and costs. It can be hard to filter through the plethora of opportunities to find the perfect one suited to your project and its needs. We’ve put together a selection of grant initiatives and competitions that stand out as being particularly suited to specific disciplines.
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From Lenses to Lighting
Zealous Stories: Design winner, Yair Neuman, is a London-based designer and entrepreneur, exploring sustainable design opportunities. Neuman’s Lens Light collection is a positive action to repurpose waste lenses from the eyewear sector into striking, sculptural lights.
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Defining the purpose of your programme
Purpose is powerful. It allows you to inspire people to take part and measure your goals effectively once your program ends. Without a clearly articulated purpose, marketing your offering and getting candidates to submit will be an uphill struggle.
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Shadow Passage
Zealous Stories: Animation winner, Ali Aschman, is a visual artist working primarily in stop motion animation. Aschman’s tactile work is rooted in storytelling, but takes a non-linear and surreal approach, finding its own organic structure through an intuitive and often improvisational process.
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Mastering Online Networking
Networking is a skill that is critically important, but often nerve-wracking and tricky to navigate. Now more than ever, individuals have had to exercise their networking efforts online – but this doesn’t have to impact you negatively!
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6 Submissions Platforms for the Creative Industries
Choosing the right process whilst taking entries could save you hundreds of hours of admin. To save you a little time we’ve compiled a list of the best submission platforms serving the creative eco-system at this time.
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Houses of Kadıköy
Zealous Stories: Painting winner, Edinburgh-based artist Emily Moore, creates arresting landscape paintings using an amalgamation of personal source images and experiences. Moore’s creative process allows her to recall each place and combine them to create new, anonymous landscapes.
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Founder Update 2021
Although we have been robbed of the fresh start we were promised at the start of 2021, we shouldn’t let that deter us from making the most of the year ahead. Here’s how Zealous plans to make the most of this year!
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Ghosts in the Graveyard
Zealous Stories: Craft winner, Linda Southwell, creates intricate porcelain sculptures based on plant and flower structures. She works from memory, developing flowers that are unique to her. Linda’s work celebrates her identity as a female artist and her fascination with the natural world.
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A Handcrafted Christmas
From unique handmade stocking-fillers to creative masterclasses, we have compiled a brilliant list of virtual market experiences, workshops, and Zealous makers for you to check out this Christmas (and beyond).
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Making the perfect writing award application
Writing awards can be daunting, particularly for those new to the craft. To help you navigate the process, we asked three industry professionals: ‘what do you look for in a writing awards application?’ These firsthand insights will equip you with the knowledge that you need to take the plunge, and submit to that opportunity you’ve…
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Trends for Running Competitions in 2021
Much has changed in 2020. For that reason, we’ve compiled our top tips on things to take into consideration when planning & running a successful competition in 2021.
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Creative Resources: Self-Promotion
Many creatives shy away from self-promotion fearing they’ll be branded arrogant, but their fear is misplaced. If you don’t tell people about what you do – and why you do it – how will they know? If you want to create a sustainable business then you’re going to need customers, supporters and champions. Self-promotion will…
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Oasis
Zealous Stories Illustration winner, Jie Gao, is a London based visual artist and graphic designer. Her winning series, Oasis, uses digital art techniques to express deep-seated loneliness, as the main character gradually looses herself, paralysed by the modern world.
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Fairy Words
Zealous Stories: Short Story winner, Kate MacRitchie, grew up in a small town in the heart of Scotland – a place of Fingalian legend and high, windy fields. Her writing is driven by the shadow selves we keep secret, collective memory and the meeting of landscape and language.
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Creative Questions: How Do I Get My Name Out There?
We’re tackling those all-important questions asked by our creative community. In this article we explore: how to get your name out there. Three arts professionals share their wisdom to provide you with a series of valuable insights.
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Top sites to list your writing competition on
Boost submissions to your writing contests by listing them on these amazing sites.
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Creative Resources: Studio Spaces
The right studio space can enable artists to develop their practice, network with other creative practitioners and gain access to opportunities which stem from their environment. We have compiled a list of studio resources to help you find the perfect workspace to suit your needs.
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The Story of Miss Ruby Ribbon
Zealous Stories: Print winner, Rebecca Carrington, blends prints and embellishments into lively womenswear designs with an innovative twist. Her winning collection, ‘The story of Miss Ruby Ribbon’, is based on a playful narrative, inspired by her childhood and a tribute to her parrot Ruby.
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A Networked Performance
Zealous Stories: Digital Art winner, Francesca Fini, is an interdisciplinary artist focused on experimental cinema, installation and performance art. Conceived during lockdown, her winning work is a fascinating exploration of the deserted Italian squares.
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Creating opportunity in adversity
our months ago, the rules that governed society turned inside out. This left communities isolated, lead to freelancers losing their income and forced organisations to reinvent themselves. Cambridge City Council Supporting communities by commissioning talent With schools closed, parents working from home and the elderly under lockdown, families have either found themselves alone in isolation…
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The Power of Performance
Zealous Stories: Performance winner, Lanre Malaolu, is a director, choreographer, writer and performance artist based in London. Lanre’s work is an unflinching exploration of social and political worldviews, which aims to enhance, challenge and rouse conversation about our own ideals.
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The Fragile Texture of our Desires
Zealous Stories: Sculpture winner, Camilla Hanney, is an Irish artist living and working in London. Camilla’s practice explores themes of time, sexuality, cultural identity and the corporeal. Her winning installation investigates both the fragility of the human condition and the complex nature of our desires.
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Embracing Creativity as an Agent of Change
How long will it take before we return to normality? Is the world of yesterday really the world that we want for tomorrow? And in this period of change, how do we make sure we are able to cope with so much uncertainty, both as individuals and businesses?
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Exploring the Rocky Outcrops
Zealous Stories: Mixed Media winner, Alysia Webster, is a visual artist based in Northern England. Alysia’s energetic work aims to recreate the feeling of being immersed in the landscape, and the ever-changing weather against the unyielding mass of the mountains.
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English Journey
Zealous Stories Photography winner, John Angerson, explores the different languages of documentary photography, focusing on how specific communities form, shift and develop. John sets out to report England as it really is, and was; embracing the spirit of English novelist J. B. Priestley.
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Creating purpose in isolation
This is our time to prove that arts organisations are there for them even in the most adverse of times. Here’s how running a competition can help support our communities now in isolation, give our team a shared purpose and ensure, that when our doors open once again, our audiences return to us and our…
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Part 2: Building Relationships with Art Spaces
We’re tackling those all-important questions asked by our creative community. In this article we explore: how to build and maintain a relationship with art spaces (more specifically galleries). Two arts professionals share their wisdom to provide you with more valuable insights.
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Creative Questions: Building Relationships with Art Spaces
Part 1: We’re tackling those all-important questions asked by our creative community. In this article we explore: how to build and maintain a relationship with art spaces. Three arts professionals share their wisdom to provide you with a series of valuable insights.
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Woodpecker
Zealous Stories: Design winner, Rihards Vitols, is driven by the desire to design speculative devices for different environments. He utilises scientific methodology to explore the relationship between nature and technology.
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Building inclusivity into your call out
Inclusion is often mentioned, but difficult to get right across all of your processes. Here is a brief guide on what to watch out for when running a call out.
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The Dictionary
Zealous Stories: Animation winner, Xiaoying Liang, is a graphic designer whose work destabalises, stretches and interrogates the boundaries of day-to-day objects created by their dictionary definitions. Xiaoying playfully questions the authority of the dictionary, defining her practice through this project of self-discovery.
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Here’s to 2020
As a nation we may not agree with choices that were made in 2019 – but a new decade is upon us and there has been no better time to learn from the past and focus on building a future in a society we wish to live in. That’s exactly what we’re working on, and…
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11 Life Lessons If You’re A Creative
Being a creative can be tough. For all the time you spend doing what you love, you’ve got to put in the same number of hours trying to get others’ attention and making the money you need to sustain yourself. These lessons will help you along the way.
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Forces of Nature
Contemporary landscape painter, Tori Tipton, explores our emotional response and attitudes towards the natural environment. Her work is an amalgamation of recollections, observations and experiences. Amidst these ambivalent forces of nature, one can retreat from civilization and reconnect with the earth.
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6 Books To Read In 2020
The winter break is the perfect time to reflect on the past year and prepare for the challenges of 2020. It’s also a time of frantic Christmas gift buying, where the stresses of inspiration, finances and expectations collide; leaving us clueless on what to get people. To kill two birds with one stone, I’ve compiled…
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Valuing Your Work
We all know how much milk, coffee and sugar are worth, yet why does the creative industry struggle to value its goods, and why does it feel we’re working harder and making less? (Spoiler – It’s very much down to our ability to value ourselves).
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Creative Questions: Curating a Festival
Completing an application can be daunting; particularly when it comes to arts festivals that are often on the look out for new and engaging work. To help you navigate the process, we asked three festival organisers: what do you look for in an application when curating your festival?
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The Language of Making
Zealous Stories: Craft winner, Steven Edwards, aims to share the material / maker relationship with the viewer by creating work that emphasizes implied movement. Fascinated by process-led making, he uses traditional techniques to explore unanticipated outcomes.
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Creative Questions: Finding a Balance
When creating work for specific clients, you may find yourself asking – how do I form a balance between my creativity and client briefs? Here’s what four artists who have long grappled with this issue had to say.
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Writing Engaging Guidelines
Writing clear guidelines can make or break your competition. A lack of information could lead to the wrong content being submitted, too much, and candidates may skip it. Here are a few lessons we’ve learnt from hosting open calls.
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Dones d’Aigua
Zealous Stories: Illustration winner, Sonia Alins, is focused on the creation of art with a poetic narrative. Sonia’s aim, is that through the relationship between the figures and aquatic medium, the viewer can experience the soul, emotion and energy of the character.
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How Love Loses Itself
On a quest to rediscover her creativity, Zealous Stories: Short Story winner, Catherine Sleeman, is an experimental writer and dancer. Catherine is interested in the connection that can be formed between words and movement. Her work, Chemistry, delves into the intricacies of a married couple’s complex relationship.
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Creative Questions: Approaching a Gallery
We’re tackling those all-important questions frequently asked by our creative community. In this article we investigate: what is the best way to approach a gallery? We spoke to five gallery professionals who have drawn on their own knowledge and experience to provide you with a series of valuable insights.
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The Art of Engaging & Placemaking
This short guide highlights steps to better engage with your communities (team, stakeholders, clients, residents) through creative commissions.
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Creative Questions: Stand Out Submissions
In this article, we tackle one of the most frequently asked questions from our creative community – “How do I make my work stand out when applying to opportunities?” Here’s what five industry professionals, directly involved with running or judging art competitions, had to say in response.
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A Search for Structure
Zealous Stories: Print winner, Carol Wyss, adopts the human skeleton as the framework through which she examines the relationship of human structures to their surroundings. Through her methodical search for what holds things together, Carol broadens the possibilities for interpretation.
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The best sites to list your art competition on
Getting your art competition seen by as many people as possible is always key to bringing in more submissions. Taking a little time to list it on external sites is always a great way to increase exposure. To save you time here are the top sites you can market your call on. (Updated Jan 6th…
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Dirt: A Graphic Novel
Artist and Illustrator Lewis Darley is the winner of the Cass Art Award and the Batsford Prize 2019. His winning project “Dirt” is a graphic novel which explores the whimsical tale of Percy and Sue as they navigate a series of unusual predicaments.
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Finding a Balance: Social Media for Creatives
Navigating the world of social media is not a simple feat. With an abundance of tips and tricks at our fingertips, it’s no wonder it has become a growing concern for emerging creatives. For those grappling with the ever-evolving trends, this article aims to help you find the perfect balance between online promotion and creative…
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The State of Emerging Creativity
Nurturing emerging creators is pivotal in unlocking the creative sectors full potential. To shed light on the challenges faced by those early in their creative careers, we asked 1,800 individuals breaking into the industry how they felt about creating in the UK.
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Imagery to get your competition attention
In an increasingly fast-paced world, getting attention to your competition is difficult. Using the right imagery plays a huge part in making users notice you and eventually submit to your opportunity. This guide will take you through 6 tips that will help you get you the most exposure you can from the imagery you use.
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Dust: Transforming Contemporary Dance
Zealous Stories: Digital winners, Andrej Boleslavský and Mária Júdová have been investigating the creative potential of technology for over a decade. Their work combines the exploration of technologically informed dance practices with participatory performances, body movement, time and space.
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Freelancer Survival Guide
There’s no one size fits all approach when it comes to managing your freelance business. Whether you’re already self-employed, or thinking about taking the plunge, our survival guide highlights some of the vital factors that will make diving into these uncharted waters a little less daunting!
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Illustrating the Everyday
Introducing four illustrators on Zealous who consistently produce engaging work and seamlessly merge illustration with storytelling. These artists share an inviting playful aesthetic, illuminating familiar themes encountered in everyday life.
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Enhancing Your Creative Environment
Creativity cannot function in a void; it needs an effective environment to flourish. Whether it’s our bedroom, office or studio, the spaces that we spend time in impact our productivity, thinking and work ethic. We’ve compiled some of our top-tips to help you both maximise and appreciate your surroundings.
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The Art of Changing Humanity
How can we rebalance society in a world where politics, core beliefs, and knowledge have become increasingly extreme.
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How to best schedule your open call
A short guide on how long you should keep submissions open for, how long you should give judges and when you should be making your selection.
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Recreating Natural Phenomena
Zealous Stories Sculpture winner, Daria Jelonek, is a media artist, researcher and designer based in London. Her work is situated in the field of interactive design and immersive art installations, often focusing on the relationship between nature and technology.
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Marta Soul on the Interplay Between Reality and Fiction
Marta Soul, participant in the artist-led project 209 Women, creates photographs which generate visual reflections of the interaction between social constructs, aesthetics and behaviour. Born in Madrid and based in the UK, Marta’s relationship with people is essential to raising profound about stereotypes.
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5 Podcasts to Feed Your Creativity
If you’re looking for ways to unleash your creativity, unpack art history and gain practical insight from creative industry professionals – here’s five podcasts you’re sure to enjoy.
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Sculptural Landscapes and Performative Spaces
Meet Candida Powell-Williams, winner of Mother Art Prize 2018, hosted by Procreate Project on Zealous. Candida creates sculptural landscapes which function as platforms for performance. By referring to our identity as subjects straddling physical and digital culture, Candida confronts the ways in which our online experience is impacting sculptural discourse.
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Ariadna Dane on Organic Wreaths and Imitating Nature
Meet Ariadna Dane, UK based artist and winner of Zealous Stories Mixed Media. Through her upbringing in Siberia, Ariadna has discovered a deep-rooted connection to nature that is fundamental to her ever-evolving practice. Ariadna creates organic forms that are reminiscent of celestial structures, coral wreaths and woodland. Each element is entirely unique and cannot be…
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Meet Chynna
Meet Chynna Guyat, Brighton based Photographer and winner of Zealous Stories Photography. Practicing between Brighton and London, Chynna’s style is heavily influenced by film, showing how even the most basic moments could be a scene from a film through colour, style, composition and drama.
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Mind the Gender Gap
It has been a little more than a hundred years since women were first given a voice in UK politics; yet the last couple of years have still demonstrated a real chasm in securing women’s equal footing within our society. So how is the UK doing? Presently, 74% of UK companies still pay higher rates…
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Online talks to boost your creativity
We all turn to creativity for different reasons. Changing the way that Hollywood looks at filmmaking, turning a craft hobby into a full-time business, and preserving heritage through film and music are just some of the ways in which these creative speakers have excelled in their practice.
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Meet Yijin
Meet Yijin Huo, Product and Experience Designer and winner of Zealous Stories Ceramics. Based between London and Beijing, Yijin focuses on data visualisation, material research, emotional expression, cultural experience and cross-sectoral experiments, presented in the form of product design, spatial design, sculpture and installations.
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Meet Oskar
Meet Oskar Krajewski, winner of It’s Art Call 2018, hosted by The Cult House on Zealous. Inspired by visions, dreams, technological and spiritual studies and practice, Oskar invests his time in solid and complex sculptures that are thought-provoking, interactive and incredibly detailed.
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Meet Phil
Phil has been engaged in development and humanitarian work for over thirty years, and much of his work focuses on conflict and how we, as humans respond to it. Writing has played a significant role in his professional life and this, combined with a love of words, meant it was only a matter of time before…
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Free Resources for Creatives
Want to improve your creative skills, manage your time better or send more traffic to your website? The internet has tons of free resources to help you develop your practice. From project organisation tools to industry insights and creative classes, here are some great websites that we think you’ll love.
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Global creativity, the UK and the arts
The creative industries account for 14.6% of the UK’s GVA. But in a complex political climate and a rapidly developing world; how can the UK retain its edge?
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Meet Michelle
Meet Michelle Loa Kum Cheung, winner of the the Secret Art Prize 2018, hosted by Curious Duke Gallery on Zealous. Michelle creates fictional environments exploiting the tactility and raw materiality of wood. Using techniques including pyrography and painting, her art focuses on landscape and displaced heritage, as a response to her own cultural heritage and identity…
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Meet Jess
Meet Jess Burgess, MA Fine Art graduate and winner of the first Zealous Stories, open to UK-based painters. Jess’ practice asks questions surrounding the virtual screen, and has in turn driven her desire to explore painting as a slower medium. A fascination with recipe books has allowed her to break into new grounds, creating her…
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10 photographers on World Photography Day
As you may have guessed by now, we love celebrating creative talent, and what better opportunity to share some of the most awe-inspiring works by our photography community than on World Photography Day! Here are 10 photographers to watch.
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Website builders for creatives
Choosing the best website builder to showcase and/or sell your work can be a little overwhelming. There are so many options available, and what works well for a filmmaker might not have the same benefits for a visual artist. Our blog on coding tips for creatives will help those of you who are up for…
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7 tips to boost your open call
From making sure your imagery looks great to inviting judges to review your submissions. Here are our 7 top tips to help boost the number of submissions you get for your next opportunity.
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Meet Maxwell, Breantonia and Nicholas
We caught up with Emerge winners Maxwell Rushton (Art Prize), Breantonia (Music Prize) and Nicholas White (Photography Prize).
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Meet the Emerge Winners (pt. 1)
Meet Pinkie Maclure, Katie O’Rourke and Emma-Marie Smith, winners of the Emerge Craft, Design and Creative Writing prize categories.
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Meet Zoe
Meet Zoe Wenban, Textile Design student and winner of the Applied Art Batsford Prize and Cass Art Award 2018, hosted by Pavilion Books. Creating everything from general surface designs and illustrations, to needlepoint and cross stitch pieces, Zoe’s work may appear colourful and celebratory but it often contains a darker conceptual meaning.
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Emerge Awards Ceremony (2018)
We hosted our inaugural Emerge Awards in celebration of the UK’s best emerging creative talent at arts space, Ugly Duck! With cocktails, creative happenings and inspirational company aplenty, the Awards left us feeling excited and hugely optimistic for the future of the creative industries in the UK.
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