The Extraordinary Exchange

EOP has always been imagined as a network built on personal connections and mutual support.

The Extra Ordinary Exchange aims to bring together members across the UK and beyond, pairing peers and opening up space for new creative conversations. The main focus of The Exchange is to develop new professional relationships and friendships between artists who wouldn’t otherwise be able to connect, and it is ultimately an open-ended process with no limits or boundaries, simply framed by the invitation to begin a discussion.

Between September 2023 and February 2024 EOP Members Freya Johnson Ross and Kevin Hunt, Luminara Florescu and Rhiannon Evans, Jashvigha Vickramasingam and Maia Trotman-Lucas, Rebecca Crowley and Sabrina Dunkley, Kuch Bhogal  and M.T. Giddings, Alex Billingham and Tomilola Olumide, Alex Parry and Jessie Tam, Shivani Khoshia and Jay Ottewell, Vitesh Vithlani and Jamal Lloyd Davis, Sarah Karen and Polly Brandt, Becky Warnock and Rhona Eve Clews, Carolyn Morton and Alys Scott-Hawkins and Taey Iohe and Ngo Chun Tse will connect and share practices.

The project will culminate in the Extra Ordinary Exchange Summit, where participants will come together to share experiences and outcomes of the collaborations.

The Extra Ordinary Exchange builds on The Exchange (2021) and The Exchange 2 (2022). In these previous iterations of the project 60 artists were paired together from different art organisations, including Eastside Projects (EOP, Birmingham), CAMP (Plymouth), Castlefield Gallery Associates (Manchester), The NewBridge Project (Newcastle), Primary (Nottingham), Spike Associates (Bristol), G39 (Cardiff) and Turf Projects (Croydon). Artists who participated valued the connection with another peer and the opportunity to support and think alongside another person. Although there was no expectation of a formal outcome most artists did make together, producing everything from videos, online video games and sacred knotting installations to performances and walking trails. There were a variety of responses, connections, outcomes and conversations with some artists being in touch only during the Exchange and others who continued to talk and collaborate long beyond.