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AGILE STRUCTURES
An artist-led project  interested in trade and exchange, knowledge share, and fair pay. It initiates and works on projects that reconsider visual art’s practices, responsibilities and behaviours, and celebrate the ability of arts workers to flex and respond to new situations.


Agile Structures grew from conversations between artists Sovay Berriman and Sara Bowler who began organising projects as Agiles Structures in 2020.  Sara died in spring 2024 following a long illness. Her spirit continues to feed into Agile Structures and its work and thinking.

Sovay Berriman currently organises Agile Structures independantly, working with different collaborators for various projects.

Working Mission Statement Feb 2021 onwards

Agile Structures (AS) is born of the movement of the UK to exit the European Union, of the questions this development raises with regard to perspectives, identity, culture, family, and traditional and future routes. AS is focused on open dialogues, and building relationships, through practical outcomes.

We see AS as having long-term potential with a focus on networks and networking within and beyond contemporary visual arts practices, but with visual art practices at its core.

We've identified three strands to our aims:
- siting (and citing) Cornwall as the central axis from which to pivot
- advancing & embedding practice-led learning and research
- elevating action and dialogue amongst visual arts practitioners
We plan to make this happen by tapping into existing structures such as:- the Celtic Nations; initially to include Brittany, Cornwall, Wales, Isle of Man, Scotland, Ireland, Galeçia and northern Portugal.
-
Cornish Diaspora.
- existing artists' collectives and networks with similar peripheral status as Cornwall.
- cultural/arts funding and research systems.

We see the following as potential areas for exploration,
- routes/rites of passage over water and land
- cultural relationships with land
- life on the periphery (not only geographic but environmentally, socially, economically, culturally)
- the place of boundaries as meeting and jumping off points
- the evolution of networks and systems.
It's very much a work in progress at the moment but we feel the above captures the essence of how we want to move forward. We see AS as meshing with existing provision by offering an alternative/additional focus for practitioners, where people would learn by participating, organising & developing exchanges, events, exhibitions, publications, seminars and symposia. We want to engage with other disciplines focusing on aspects of our interests to expand the discussion and place artists within these dialogues.

Sara & Sovay, Feb 2021


You may email the Agile Structures team at anytime via, agilestructures@gmail.com. Please bear in mind that Agile Structures is an artist-led project, organised by unsalaried individuals who have additional commitments beyond this project, therefore communications & responses may take a little longer than wished.

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