Following The Falmouth Convention, a three-day international conference held in May 2010, Cornwall-based artists and curators emphasised the need for further critical activity to sustain momentum and contribute to the region’s international profile and connectedness. Some artists and curators also expressed a desire to talk specifically about their own work and projects in Cornwall.

The Cornwall Workshop aims to benefit the region by providing professional development opportunities for artists, curators and critics who live and work in Cornwall and the South West, by creating a forum for dialogue and exchange with international colleagues, and by offering opportunities to experience and participate in ground-breaking international contemporary art.

The Cornwall Workshop aims to attract artists, curators and arts writers who have experience of working independently and of initiating projects or making publications, exhibitions and public events. See 2011, 2013, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2022, and 2024 sections of the Archive for details of the participants in these events.

Feedback and evaluation is a key aim and outcome of the Workshops. Participants and workshop leaders are asked for oral feedback throughout the Workshop and are required to provide written evaluations as a condition of their participation. They are also encouraged to contribute to the continuing legacy of the Workshop by sharing debates and ideas with artists and arts practitioners in the region.

A digest of participants’ responses is included in the Responses section of each workshop archive.

The Falmouth Convention was a three-day conference in unconventional form, with an emphasis on exchange of views and experiences. Conceived as an international meeting of artists, curators and writers to explore the significance of time and place in relation to contemporary art and exhibition making, it was planned to respond to the situation in Cornwall and other such dispersed, rural areas.

Building on the legacy of The Falmouth Convention, The Penzance Convention was a three-day conference in expanded form. It reflected on the theme of extraction, with reference both to the social and environmental narratives of Cornwall’s extractive industries – mining and fishing in particular – and to the processes by which artists draw meaning from history and site.

Kestle Barton is an ancient Cornish farmstead situated above the Helford River. Over the last five years the farmhouse has been carefully restored and the barns converted into a gallery and holiday cottages.

The Cornubian Arts & Science Trust (CAST) is an educational charity, inaugurated in 2012 and operating in Cornwall. It aims to promote participation, appreciation and learning in the visual arts and to encourage interdisciplinary dialogue and collaboration across the arts and sciences.