What is Show Up?
Show Up is a free 7-day challenge for artists, photographers and creatives.
For one week, we’re going to show up for our practices together. There’s one small action each day: make some work, share something in progress, work alongside other creatives, ask for help or finally do one (or two!) of those tasks you’ve been avoiding.
This isn’t about finding seven spare days and suddenly becoming incredibly fake productive. Most of us are fitting our practices around jobs, families, caring responsibilities, whilst attempting to stay healthy and everything else.
This free challenge is about giving your practice some proper attention each day and having the group energy of creatives doing the same thing alongside you.
You don’t need to prepare anything. Just bring yourself, your practice and have an idea of what you’d like to get busy with.
Taught by an artist who’s done it
I’ve been an artist and educator for over 20 years. I studied at the Royal College of Art, my work is held in numerous collections, and I’ve spent years teaching as a Senior Lecturer of Photography at UAL alongside building my own practice.
But having a long CV doesn’t mean I always find showing up easy.
Over the past few years, I’ve had to work at making space for my own practice again. One of the things that has made a real difference has been getting visible: sharing what I’m working on via a consistent weekly ‘Meanwhile in the Studio Post, I talk about the challenging bits, the ups and downs, going to exhibitions, meeting people and allowing the work to be seen before it feels fully resolved.
Since taking consistent small steps of action this year I realised the more I showed up, the more things started happening for the work.
That’s part of why I wanted to run this challenge. I want to help you give your practice some attention and do some of the things you keep meaning to do and putting off for too long.
Showing up together - because you don’t have to do this alone
One of the hardest things about having a creative practice is how much of it happens on your own.
You can spend weeks making decisions in your own head. You put off asking the question because you’re not sure who to ask. You have an idea, lose confidence in it, pick it up again six months later. Meanwhile everyone else appears to be getting on brilliantly.
Being around other creatives changes that.
It’s one of the things I see again and again inside Work Show Grow and Expansion. People work alongside each other, bring unfinished work to crits, swap opportunities, read applications, meet at exhibitions and have people they can actually ask when they’re stuck.
Sometimes you need advice. Sometimes you need feedback. Sometime you just need to have a moan. And sometimes you just need to know that at 6pm on a Tuesday, somebody else is also sitting down to tackle some work. And prioritising their practice.
For these seven days, that’s what we’re going to do together.
Here’s exactly what happens, day by day
Day 1 - Show Up
Choose one thing you want to work on during the week and share what it is. Not ten things. One.
Day 2 - Work Alongside
Make some time for your practice and work alongside other on the ‘Show up’ challenge. You can join the live co-working or work in your own time and check back in afterwards.
Day 3 - Share Something Unfinished
A contact sheet, sketch, test, bit of writing, fragment of an idea or work-in-progress. Share something before it feels resolved.
Day 4 - Ask for Help
What are you stuck on? Ask one question. It can be about the work, an application, pricing, funding, editing or simply what to do next.
Day 5 - Do the Thing You’ve Been Putting Off
You know the one. Send the email. Photograph the work. Update the website. Book the studio. Start the application. Give it sometime today.
Day 6 - Support Someone Else
Take a little time to respond to another artist, photographer or creative. Give useful feedback, share something that might help them, make an introduction or simply take an interest in what they’re doing.
Day 7 - Keep Going
Look back at what you did this week. What helped? What was difficult? What’s one thing you want to keep doing after the challenge finishes?
You don’t have to spend hours on any of this. The point is to show up and take action to do something.
If this is you, you already know …
You make work, but your practice keeps slipping down the priority list.
You have ideas but don’t always follow them through.
You want to share more of your work but keep waiting until it feels resolved.
You spend far too much time thinking about doing things instead of actually doing them.
Or perhaps you’ve been squirreling away making for years but still feel slightly uncomfortable saying:
I’m an artist. I’m a photographer. Or simply I’m a creative.
Come and spend seven days treating your practice like it deserves a place in your life.
Make the work. Talk about it. Ask the question. Let people see it.
Show up.
What will you get from doing this?
I don’t want to tell you that seven days is going to transform your creative career. It won’t.
But a week is long enough to notice a few things.
You might discover that you get far more done when you’ve told somebody else what you’re going to do. You might realise that co-working stops you disappearing down a three-hour research hole. You might finally send an email you’ve been thinking about for a month.
You might share an unfinished piece of work and get a response that helps you see it differently. Or meet another creative whose work you want to keep following the week is over.
Most importantly, I want you to finish the week having moved something forward.
Not thought about moving it forward. Not written another gigantic to do list.
Actually, done something.
I’ll be there every step of the week. Cheerleading you! Woooing for you! Egging you on! Energy is infectious and I’ve got sooooo much to share with you during ‘Show up’.
Natasha x
Hello, I'm Natasha!
Image credit: Megan Jepson
I started from a challenging background, with free school dinners and discouragement from studying art, to now embarking on a two-month global creative reset to gather inspiration for my next big creative project with my family. My journey has been anything but ordinary.
This Christmas, dealing with my late mother's debts revealed the full extent of the financial struggles she had shielded from us, her five children. As a single mother, she faced immense challenges in managing the household's finances. Growing up with the fear of bailiffs and the shame of financial insecurity deeply affected my view of money, instilling a scarcity mindset that took years to overcome. Being the first in my family to attend university was a pivotal moment for me. It was there that I began to see money as a tool rather than a source of fear.
Today, I'm an award-winning artist and Senior Lecturer of Photography at the University of the Arts London, and I earned my MA from the Royal College of Art. My work, spanning photography, moving image, and installation, has been showcased globally at renowned venues such as Paris Photo and the International Center of Photography in New York. Throughout my career, I have secured multiple awards from places like Arts Council England and have been supported by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.
My goal is not just to create work but to help other creatives navigate the often intimidating landscape of arts funding. With the right knowledge and tools, I believe securing funding is not just a dream but an achievable goal - transforming not only your practice but also your life.