Artist Support Work

WHAT’S ON OFFER
Bookable sessions offering support for artists at all stages of their careers across the fields of visual and sonic art, dance, theatre, performance and live art.

Walk and talk — 1.5 hour artist strategy sessions to talk through half-finished ideas, shape an idea for an application, work on time management, set goals, and all the sticky, indescribable stuff in-between.

Funding application writing support* — 1 day+ support planning, shaping, editing, scribing and writing a funding application.

*If you are dyslexic, neurodiverse or identify as disabled and applying for funding from the Arts Council of Wales, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Creative Scotland or Arts Council England, you may be entitled (for free, the funder pays the support worker directly) to an access support worker to help you write your funding application. Jo regularly works in this role and can support artists to navigate these funding models in ways that best suit their needs.

RATES
These rates take into account Jo’s experience, access needs and are guided by the current access support available for application support from national arts councils.






Walk & talk — Strategy session (online, 1.5 hours): £100

Application — Editing and consultancy (online, day rate): £300

Some one-off applications (e.g.: for commissions, residencies) offer a set fee and I am open to taking on this work for the fee offered by the organisation/opportunity.

PRIORITIES
Jo’s services are open to all; however, they always prioritise artists who are disabled, neurodivergent, femme, non-binary or trans.

CREDIT - nothing is created in a vacuum
Jo would like to give credit to those who have been key in shaping how they work; none of their working strategies would have been made possible without Phoebe Davies, Sam Trotman, Kathryn Cutler-Mackenzie, Emma Jayne Park and Michelle Beckett.

BIO
Joanne (Jo/Jojo) Matthews is an artist, producer/project manager and radio show host based in Scotland. Their work is often undertaken at a systems-based level, guided by the ecofeminist tenets of collaboration, entanglement and environmental awareness. This way of working involves radical listening practices, as well as futuring practices, that seek to articulate and actualise more care-full and equitable strategies in the arts.

The projects that Jo usually works on as a producer do not fit into clear-cut categories, and sit across visual and sonic art, live art, theatre and dance. Jo often works at the development stage of projects, setting things up to ensure their longevity. These projects mainly happen in unusual spaces or as process-based works, drawing upon Jo’s experience in cross-sector collaboration, real-time problem solving, as well as the articulation and delivery of work in the in-between. 


SPECIALISMS
Jo has built a career, knowledge of and skills working in the key areas of accessibility and disability, transfeminist ecology, and performance art & activism. 

Jo is an artist with lived experience of disability, and has an embodied knowledge of collective access practices. 

They are especially good at “the interesting sticky stuff” and at supporting artists to develop and organise thoughts, strategies and ideas. 

Jo’s experience and interest in accessibility, equity and environmentally-focused working has led them to be a key player in shaping policy and working practices in organisations across the United Kingdom.
 

WHO JO HAS WORKED WITH
Over their 15-year-long career, Jo has worked with leading arts organisations to create, deliver and manage projects, artist bursary programmes, residencies, festivals and learning programmes.

Select clients include Scottish Sculpture Workshop (Aberdeenshire) where Jo recently worked for two years as Programme Manager, Battersea Arts Centre (London), Artsadmin (London), British Council (UK & Lebanon), Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, Aberdeen Performing Arts, Unlimited (Wakefield), Yaraqa (Beirut), Dance Base (Edinburgh), Art Walk Porty (Edinburgh) and Embassy Gallery (Edinburgh). Jo has recently joined Creative Scotland’s cohort of Access support workers - a pilot programme to pair support workers with Artists to help them write funding applications.

Jo has worked with countless artists over the years whose work spans activism, public interventions, performance, film, sculpture, dance, education, sound art and research.

Jo has been selected to take part in several international labs, including the Cifas Producer Academy 2023 (Belgium), Artsadmin Imagine 2020 Summer Lab (London) and the 2018 Emerging Producers Development Programme at Edinburgh Fringe with British Council.