DIY Photography

Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time

  • News
  • Inspiration
  • Reviews
  • Tutorials
  • DIY
  • Gear
Search

Submit A Story

The Thursday Society is the world’s first global open artists collective

Sep 1, 2021 by Alex Baker Leave a Comment

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

Thursday Society, the world’s first open global artists’ collective, launches simultaneously tomorrow (Thursday) in six international cities: London and Leeds in the UK; Indianapolis and New York in the USA; and in Europe, Vienna, Austria and Valencia, Spain. Based on ideas of ‘open collaboration’, the collective plans to make creative support and education freely available to all artists (including photographers), both online and in real life. 

Any artists and creatives are encouraged to participate from anywhere in the world, particularly photographers and visual artists. Participation will begin through Instagram and will feature the hashtag #ThurSoc.

Thursday Society was conceived by artist and educator Bay Backner while she researched inclusive creativity for an upcoming book. Bay had previously founded a women’s arts collective in her home city of Valencia, Spain, and had used open collaboration in her work with open source software developers.   

“During the pandemic, I’d seen how essential communities are for our work, mental health, and sustaining creativity,” explains Bay. “I wanted to open supportive communities to many more of us, particularly to those artists who traditionally work alone.”

Bay Backner, artist, in her now usual habitat on a screen.

In fact, the recent and ongoing struggles of photographers and artists during the pandemic draw direct parallels to similar struggles felt by Japanese woodblock artists during the Second World War. Together they formed the First Thursday Society where once a month, artists would meet in each other’s houses and discuss their work, and generally support and inspire one another. The movement was essential in reviving the post-war art and print scene, and Bay is hoping that her version of the Thursday Society will do the same, albeit in a modern-day incarnation.

“Thursday Society is using open collaboration and social media to help creatives connect. We’re then helping members to create artist communities and networks, both locally and internationally. I’m interested in taking it offline because that’s usually when deeper creative connections happen between people,” Bay tells me.

Online is great, but there’s no substitute for real-life interactions.

Open Collaboration (often called Open Source) originated in software development as a way of coordinating creativity towards a shared goal. It’s a principle that underlies successful innovation projects including Bitcoin, TEDx and Wikipedia. 

Thursday Society launches this week (September 2nd) with a social media event called Instagram Thursday. Happening on the first Thursday of each month, this encourages members to connect through images with time-specific hashtags. The images act to open conversations around the month’s theme, and hashtags are sent to members the day before the event.

Thursday Society welcomes anyone currently making or planning any creative work, including photographers and filmmakers. Interested readers can find full information and join the collective at the Thursday Society website. Once signed up members will be sent a toolkit and newsletter for participation or you can simply participate on Instagram using the hashtag #ThursdaySociety.

FIND THIS INTERESTING? SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

Related posts:

Thursday’s Lens Rain: Nikon, Lomography, and Lensbaby Canon Australia’s “Canon Collective” shuts down due to COVID-19 after almost a decade Photobook Collective is a perfect place if you love photography books Sony unleashes world’s largest and highest resolution 128-megapixel global shutter CMOS sensor

Filed Under: news Tagged With: art, Artist inspiration, creatives, mental health

About Alex Baker

Alex Baker is a portrait and lifestyle driven photographer based in Valencia, Spain. She works on a range of projects from commercial to fine art and has had work featured in publications such as The Daily Mail, Conde Nast Traveller and El Mundo, and has exhibited work across Europe

« Unusual improvised camera stabilisers – including a few you might not have thought of
Shooting with the Canon 1D twenty years later: How does it hold up? »

Submit A Story

Get our FREE Lighting Book

DIYP lighting book cover

* download requires newsletter signup
DIYPhotography

Recent Comments

Free Resources

Advanced lighting book

Recent Posts

  • How I shot abstract light orbs with a 360 camera and camera rotation
  • Color theory, RAW files, and RAW developers
  • Freewell K2 is yet another magnetic filter holder system
  • Apply to this Maldives resort to ‘win’ a 3 week job as Honeymoon photographer
  • Reviving a Legend: Repairing a Mamiya RB67

Alex Baker is a portrait and lifestyle driven photographer based in Valencia, Spain. She works on a range of projects from commercial to fine art and has had work featured in publications such as The Daily Mail, Conde Nast Traveller and El Mundo, and has exhibited work across Europe

Dave Williams is an accomplished travel photographer, writer, and best-selling author from the UK. He is also a photography educator and published Aurora expert. Dave has traveled extensively in recent years, capturing stunning images from around the world in a modified van. His work has been featured in various publications and he has worked with notable brands such as Skoda, EE, Boeing, Huawei, Microsoft, BMW, Conde Nast, Electronic Arts, Discovery, BBC, The Guardian, ESPN, NBC, and many others.

John Aldred is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter - and occasional beta tester - of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.

Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.

Copyright © DIYPhotography 2006 - 2023 | About | Contact | Advertise | Write for DIYP | Full Disclosure | Privacy Policy