professional practice

 Tom Hackett 

Tom Hackett is an artist working in a range of areas but mainly focusing on sculpture, instillation and performative. In our talk Tom described himself as an artist that works with places, spaces and situations, this quite unique approach is something I really enjoyed hearing about and when looking at examples of his works and projects its clearly evident how these are the factors that feed into the work, work with high themes of communication with others, places and spaces like bodies of water or literally working to a space like the installation works. 

When talking about navigating his art world Tom mentioned how he made the choice to split his working life into two, working some of the week as a higher education art tutor and the other days as his himself as an artist. This choice to split his working time by working in a teaching capacity creates Finacle stability whilst not sacrificing his life as an artist. I mean there's obviously this forced wider idea of the 'starving artist', people finding about about the choice to do an art degree and being met with remarks about it not being a sustainable career. But i guess this is just reassuring that there are multiple ways to make your art world work for you, it is possible. During the talk I found Tom put huge emphasis on the need for communication with others and being pro active in your practice, he spoke about the value in creating good relationships with others in the art community, less so the idea of networking but more just working relationships were people are allies to each other. There was also huge emphasis on this need to be pro active, that opportunities don't often just come to a person  but you have to actively seek them, he also spoke about about his own experience in taking part in DIY exhibitions and just reminding us that its an option. 

 I found this talk to be really helpful and insightful when thinking about ways of navigating the future. I enjoyed seeing the examples of the works, I think this is both because of wanting to have a nosey at the things our tutor works on and creates but also just because of a liking of things like the performative videos and touch of humour in some pieces. I think  my favourite piece being the 100 yard stare video.