London Calling

London is “a wonderful international city to live in, and certainly the most interesting place in Europe in terms of art,” or so a young artist who works there told ARTINFO. After New York, the English capital probably offers young artists more opportunities for breaking into successful professional careers than anywhere else in the world. As a consequence it has become a magnet for ambitious young artists from all over the world.

London has always been cosmopolitan, but its student population has grown more diverse over the last couple of decades because of the complex government funding structure that supports degree-level education in Britain. Fees for students from the UK and the European Union are paid directly to universities by the government’s funding council, at levels that it dictates and that many schools find inadequate. Non-EU members are an entirely different matter—schools are at liberty to charge considerably higher fees from these students, who must pay themselves. This year at the Royal College of Art, the most prestigious school in the city, “home” students’ fees are £4,550 ($9,025), while overseas students pay £21,800 ($43,260). This means that whatever other benefits they bring, students from outside the EU are significant cash cows for British universities, who put enormous efforts into attracting them, including running courses designed specifically for them and offering small grants or “bursaries” to somewhat offset the enormous fees. For international students, the deal can be attractive despite the costs, not only because of the quality of the London schools, but because obtaining a student visa is a relatively straightforward means of living and working legally in Britain.

Lucky Lucky
Bianca Brunner is a Swiss photographer of ominous and poetic natural spaces. She came to study in London in 2002 despite what she calls the “vertiginous” fees (Switzerland is not a member of the EU). She attended the London College of Communication (where her fees were almost £10,000 a year at the time) and then the Royal College of Art (where she paid £18,000 a year). Before coming to London, Brunner worked for six years as a graphic designer in Zurich, setting aside money to pay for her studies. In addition she was, as she says, “lucky. I got a scholarship of £8,000 from the city of Zurich, another one for £16,000 from Ikea Switzerland. I had two bursaries from the RCA which came to £6,000 in total, and during the time I was there I won several awards—a further £2,800.” What all this means is that, unlike many recently graduated artists, she is not saddled with student loans or other debts that she racked up during her years as a student. Still, she continues to do graphic design work to support her art career. Brunner is enthusiastic about her time at art school, feeling that both the LCC and the RCA “pushed my work further” and allowed her to make valuable contacts.

A key break came in 2005 when Brunner was recommended by her professors and selected for the major international show “reGeneration: 50 Photographers of Tomorrow,” which was organized by the Musee de l’Elysee in Lausanne, Switzerland, and then kicked off a U.S. tour at the Aperture Foundation in New York. Brunner’s work was used in the publicity for the show, and between that and the exhibition catalogue, produced by Aperture and Thames & Hudson, she got a lot of attention and opportunities. Last October she sold six pieces from a group exhibition, “Eleven Contemporaries,” at Michael Hoppen, the London photography gallery, and she’s been taken up by the Madrid gallery Camara Oscura.

Brunner’s work sells for between £1,000 ($1,985) and £3,800 ($7,540) now, but in a city as financially “tough” as London, as she describes it, she attaches at least as much financial importance to the fact that has an affordable studio. She pays £210 a month, plus storage fees, for a SPACE studio near her home in Hackney, East London. SPACE is a longstanding arts-education charity that subsidizes studios for visual artists and designers in the city. Understandably enough, these studios are in heavy demand; people often wait years to get one. Brunner managed to get hers only because she accepted a place in a building that SPACE was due to lose after only three months. At the last minute, the charity secured a lease for a further two years. “I was lucky again,” she says.