Visual Arts Plymouth (VAP) is a Community Interest Company (CIC) made up of a diverse group of volunteers who represent visual arts organisations, communities and independent artists and curators from across the city, forming after the British Art Show 7 toured to Plymouth in 2011 and as appetite for more city wide visual art activity grew, VAP initiated the Plymouth Art Weekender in 2015.
Plymouth Art Weekender is an ambitious three day event that takes place annually across the city, made possible with generous support from sponsors, Plymouth City Council, partner art organisations in the city, project grant funding from Arts Council England; and more recently, Plymouth Culture’s ‘Horizon’, a two-year visual arts programme from Art Council England’s ‘Ambition for Excellence’ funding programme for Plymouth in 2017-2018. The Weekender confidently celebrates Plymouth, its people and the visual arts, promoting the city as an exciting contemporary art destination.
The Plymouth Art Weekender provides a free listing platform which enables participants to experiment with new ideas, engage audiences and be ambitious with their delivery. Each year VAP has made an active decision to take artistic and programming risks and set up voluntary task sub-groups whilst still advocating a lack of overriding hierarchy. The Weekender brand and ethos transmits a can-do DIY attitude, one that promotes participation in the visual arts whilst having a high impact in the city. As part of this commitment, each year several pots of seed-funding are made available for PAW projects to pitch for.