Social Network Launches Table Book

Arts network Central Station is celebrating 35,000 works of art by launching a new table book on Friday December 3rd.

Central Station is an online community linking artists, writers, filmmakers and photographers from all over the UK at every stage of their career.

Launched in 2009 with funding from Channel 4 and Creative Scotland, the Glasgow-based project aimed to showcase new talent, to promote collaboration and interaction, to inspire new content and to deliver innovative funding solutions.

Eighteen months later, Central Station is celebrating its achievements with the launch of a collectable new book featuring works from the website.  The book also profiles site members and looks at the impact the project has had.

Up and coming artists can use the site to display work and network with other artists.  So far it has helped promote illustrator Johanna Basford, who designed the cover of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival brochure, Dagmar Vyhnalkova, whose photography was picked up by Channel 4 for its 4Beauty website, and American artist Stephanie Spindler, who used the network to create a series of collaborative exhibitions around Glasgow International Festival.

There is also a curated space on the site called Collections, bringing together names like painter Toby Paterson and Turner Prize-winner Gillian Wearing.  The British Council have made a collection from its archives available on the site, and Channel 4 and Film4 followed suit with collections on public art and artist-directed films by Douglas Gordon and Steve McQueen.

Damien Smith, Central Station founding producer, said: “The site recognises a gap: new and emergent talent are looking to find their way in the world and need a space where they can make connections, find opportunities and promote themselves. It’s a space that takes creative work seriously and has tangible results, such as new work and activity, in the physical world as well as the virtual space.

From a relatively modest initial concept it has grown into a dynamic platform shaped by the thousands of members who have become an active part of it.”