An independent arts researcher, writer and consultant, Dr Susan Jones brings nuanced knowledge and insight on the social and political environment for contemporary visual arts to her work with individual artists, artist-led ventures and professional development programmes and when contributing to arts and cultural policy development.
She has contributed to artists’ research and development programmes including Aspex Artists' Associates, Bradford Producing Hub, Castlefield Gallery Associates, CAMP, Centre for Cultural Value, Creative Land Trust, East Street Arts, Helix Arts, Mark Devereux Arts, New Bridge Project, Original Projects, Social Art Network Norfolk, S1 Sheffield, Somerset Art Works, SteamHouse West Midlands, Test Space Sunderland, Visual Arts South West and West Midlands Cultural Leadership.
Major independent research programmes are Measuring the experience: the scope and value of artist-led organisations (1994-96); Artists in arts policy (2015-2023), Artists in the pandemic: a study of artists' conditions in a time of great social and economic upheaval (2021-23) and Artists' lives: ecologies of resilience (2024-25). Writing and commentary has been published by Arts Professional, Art Monthly, Art Review, Corridor 8, Sluice, Cultural Trends, Engage Journal, The Guardian, The Double Negative, TransArtists, a-n The Artists Information Company and Thames and Hudson. See also the Research section of this site.
Contributions to UK and international peer networks, conferences, symposia and think-tanks include Is artists' exploitation inevitable? Aberdeen mini-summit, Gray's School of Art (2023), Razing the agenda, Original Projects (2023), HIVE/East Street Arts (2023) Social Role of Artists, Centre for Cultural Value (2022), Work and Social Justice in Art, Craft and Design, UAL (2022), a-n Assembly: Blackpool (2021), Contemporary Visual Arts Network Equity Group (2021), Desire Lines: Proforma (2021), Temporary Contemporary (2021), Powering up: SameSkies (2121), Another Artworld: Manifestations and Conditions of Equity in Visual Arts (2020), What we don’t talk about when we talk about the artist-led ERS/LJMU (2020), WTF symposium Creative Factory Middlesbrough (2018) and ELIA NXT Making a living in the arts (2017).