Keeping the Practice Alive

When I attended Ian Monroe’s lecture How to Make Your Artistic Practice Sustainable, I started to think seriously about what it actually means for an artist to “stay alive” in the real world. Monroe’s career itself felt like a reminder—his large-scale installation was collected by the Saatchi Gallery right after graduating from Goldsmiths, yet he didn’t stop at that early moment of recognition. Instead, he kept building structures around his work: public projects, writing, teaching, collaborations. His path seemed less like a success story and more like a long process of constructing a system that could hold his practice.

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One sentence stayed with me: “Don’t rely on a single system.”

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This idea of multiple pathways made me rethink my own position. I don’t have to find all the answers within one structure—whether it’s the art world, my brand, or academia. Instead, each part can support the others: independent practice, brand work, exhibitions, writing. On their own, they might be fragile, but together they form a kind of resilience.

Monroe also spoke about positioning—about knowing which world you belong to before chasing opportunities. For me, this became an ongoing act of self-adjustment. My practice moves between image, moving image, and installation; between emotional, bodily, and perceptual concerns; between personal reflection and public display. The lecture helped me realise that sustainability isn’t about stability—it’s about continuous recalibration.

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He also emphasised documentation and publication. I used to think of them as peripheral tasks—something outside the artwork—but now I see them as a form of continuation, a way to let the work keep existing in time. That sense of continuation, for me, is perhaps the truest form of sustainability.

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The lecture didn’t offer a formula for survival, but it shifted how I think about practice. It’s not only about producing work, but about building a living system that allows creation to keep happening. It’s fragile and constantly changing, but maybe that’s what makes it alive.