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a-n launched its current series of UK-wide one-day Assembly events at Paradise Works, Salford with a packed day of discussion that included presentations exploring how to create and sustain a building-based artist-led organisation. Writer and curator Tom Emery reports.

With the recent announcement by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland that both QSS and Paragon Studios in Belfast have lost all their annual funding, Damian Magee addresses the impact of the decision on the city’s artist community and argues that it is indicative of a general lack of support for artists living and working in Northern Ireland.

Liverpool’s largest artist-led gallery and studios The Royal Standard is celebrating ten years in the city with a major exhibition featuring 23 artists. Artist, curator and former TRS director Kevin Hunt explains the important role the organisation has for artists in Liverpool and its context in the wider artist-led scene.

A recent event in Leeds organised by Arts Fundraising and Philanthropy asked whether artists were the key to making a step change in arts and culture giving. Amelia Crouch went along and found that the issue of low pay for artists was all-but ignored – but that the idea of artists as fundraisers may not be all bad.

Written in response to the Alias annual gathering event, Moving Forward and Staying the Same: Artist Led Evolutions, AirSpace Gallery co-director Glen Stoker considers the continued importance of artist-led activity to the UK’s visual arts ecology.

Manchester-based artist Maurice Carlin recently co-organised a public discussion on artist-led spaces during his current residency at HomeShop, Beijing. He reports on how it went and the issues and solutions that were raised.

Hosted by Eastside Projects in Birmingham, over two days the recent Artist Run Multiverse Summit brought together artists from a wide range of projects and organisations to consider the past, present and future of the artist-run sphere. Lydia Ashman reports.

For the final Assembly event in the current series, a-n was in Cardiff for a day of discussion and debate around how to survive as a creative practitioner. Trevor H. Smith reports.

The latest in a-n’s series of artist-organised events explored the challenges and advantages of physical outposts for a sustained artist-led practice. Robyn Woolston, herself based in the rural outpost of the Cairngorms National Park, reports.

When artist and writer Alistair Gentry first shared his experiences of depression earlier this year it resulted in a flood of private feedback and led a-n to commission a series on artists and mental health for our Resources section. Drawing on the conversations he’s had with artists and arts workers, he argues for more openness about mental illness and wellness in the arts.

Taking place on the idyllic Dartington Estate in Devon the a-n-supported Jamboree 2018 brought together 150 artists, curators and programmers from across the UK for lively discussion and the exchange of ideas. Hannah Pierce, a-n’s external programmes and partnerships manager, shares the key things she learnt from the event’s four days.

The second event in a-n’s Assembly series was hosted by Eastside Projects in Birmingham and aimed to address the increasing amount of development taking place across the city region and the opportunities this might offer for artists. Confirmed conference sceptic and Birmingham-based artist Pete Ashton reports.

Build Your Own Art World was a one-day seminar at OSR Projects in Somerset that considered what it means to be artist-led and if there is an alternative to a global gallery system. For Julie McCalden, it highlighted the need for artists to resist the behaviours the art world encourages them to adopt.

Writing for a-n News in August 2016, Hull-based artist Paul Collinson called on the City of Culture legacy team to “set foot outside their fortress and talk to those who will be left behind to carry on the good work”. Now, after the city’s high-profile year of cultural activity, he looks back over the year and asks, “Where next?”

With too many artists’ residencies excluding those who don’t have independent means of support or who have responsibilities at home, Alistair Gentry welcomes Wysing Art Centre’s new residency programme and calls for more of the same from building-based arts organisations.

A group of artists in Bristol has coordinated a united front in the face of an Arts Council England visual arts review in which they feel they weren’t offered an equal seat at the table. They outline their intervention in a recent public consultation event while proposing a new approach for the city’s art ecology.

The debate around gentrification and the role that artists play in this contested area is increasingly being discussed and debated by artists themselves. But, asks Anna Francis in a piece originally published by The Conversation, is it right to accuse artists who work with regeneration projects of being part of the problem?

The recent Artist Hotel event organised by Bristol’s Knowle West Media Centre involved an overnight stay in a community centre as part of a wide-ranging discussion about community art and artist-led regeneration. Rowan Lear reports.

The UK has the most highly developed arts infrastructure in the world. But, asks 2016-17 Clore Visual Artist Fellow Maurice Carlin in the first of two short provocations, imagine if it all disappeared overnight. Would it make a difference to your career? Would you still make art? And what do we want this infrastructure to do?

One half of the London-based performance company There There with Dana Olărescu, Bojana Janković argues that the economic pressures more and more artists face are ultimately shaping the kind of work that gets made, especially by emerging artists, with profound and long-term consequences.

Being a mother of young children and continuing your art practice is incredibly difficult. Inspired by a recent symposium exploring the challenges of being a ‘mother artist’, Frances Bossom – who presents a ‘Proposal for a Guide for Art Parents’ at June’s a-n Assembly event in Bristol – calls for an approach that values the complex reality of motherhood.

Disabled artist Beth Davis-Hofbauer recently produced the self-initiated report, Autism Matters: Making Galleries and Museums ASD/SPD Friendly. She explains what prompted her research, why it is a problem that needs to be addressed, and what galleries can do to become genuinely accessible to all.

As Washington DC prepares for the 20 January presidential inauguration and the rest of the world is gripped/appalled by the latest predictably narcissistic Donald Trump Twitter outburst, London-based artist Sonya Dyer – who was on a residency in Nebraska during the election – reflects on her US experience and considers what the new era means for art and artists.

a-n’s Executive Director Jeanie Scott reflects on an incredibly busy year for the organisation that has seen the publication of the Paying Artists Exhibition Payment Guidance, wide-ranging support for artists through a-n bursaries, and membership reach a record high. And, despite an increasingly messy global situation, says there’s much to look forward to in 2017.

As many of the city’s artists bemoan their exclusion from next year’s UK City of Culture celebrations, Hull-based painter Paul Collinson looks beyond the 2017 spectacle and asks what the legacy will be for those living and working there.