About Peer Matters
Peer Matters is an artist-led development programme connecting practitioners across the UK through peer learning and collaborative making.
Initiated in 2023 by Photoworks, the project invited Eva Jonas, Ezra Evans and Margot Minnot-Thomas to develop a new framework for creative learning – building on their earlier work with the group (re)structure, which they also facilitated.
Why Peer Matters
Peer Matters was created in response to the lack of sustained, accessible development opportunities within the arts and education sectors – particularly those that exist beyond institutional or financial barriers.
Instead of offering one-off opportunities, the project proposed a longer-term model rooted in reciprocity, care and collective growth. It aimed to create a space where artistic development could unfold collaboratively, without the usual pressures of professionalisation or precarity.
How It Worked
The sessions were facilitated with an emphasis on creating a structure that encouraged shared responsibility and collective authorship, beginning with a skill share in the first meeting that opened the door for continued exchange of ideas and resources, while offering tools and approaches that could be carried forward into each artist’s own practice and community.
Alongside elements such as workshops and guest talks – many of which were proposed and shaped by the group – emerged a series of softer, more experimental methods: a shared Miro board for visual thinking and picture editing, informal brew times to gently ‘brew’ on life and artistic practice, and grounding exercises that ranged from sensory and movement-based activities to prompts for mapping one’s recent goings-on.
This sat alongside other more traditional learning elements such as workshops and talks from guest speakers, which the group had a hand in shaping.
This intentional framing helped build a sense of group ownership from the beginning – laying the foundation for more horizontal, peer-led ways of working.
On the Name
The title Peer Matters holds a dual meaning: a quiet assertion that peer learning matters, and a playful nod to the everyday conversations, “matters,” and exchanges that shape artistic life.
This reflects the project’s core belief: that making is not only a formal act but a deeply social one. Through casual conversation, shared curiosity and mutual support, participants surfaced personal interests, exchanged knowledge and formed lasting connections. In these moments, a collective understanding of what it means to grow and make together began to emerge.
What we did
The group was asked to curate a part of the Photoworks Weekender festival. They responded with a multifaceted offering consisting of public workshops, talks, an exhibition and an interactive installation. Each element of this echoed the group’s sessions – an exercise reimagined, a theme expanded, a question made public. It offered a moment to step out of computer screens and into a shared physical space – fully present, together.
In response to a shared desire to trace their session dialogues, a collaborative transcription exercise emerged – artists reflected, edited one another’s responses, and distilled fragments into five visual records, traces of collective noticing, lingering and questioning.
Titled Muddling Through, these five prints function not as statements, but as soft artefacts – gestures toward the uncertainty, messiness and generative fluidity that define peer-led dialogue. They might find their way onto the wall beside your desk, within a space you return to, or as a bookmark – companions to your own ways of muddling through.
(un)common outcomes, a constellation of finished and unfinished works reflected a non-hierarchical ethos. Set against this backdrop featuring each individual’s work, the day unfolded through hands-on workshops rooted in process and play. Participants engaged with material prompts in zine-making with Sebastian, image-text reflections with Anna, Emile and Georgina, and a photo walk with Sergey.
Mirroring their online sessions, conversations deepened as the day progressed. Alexandra and Margot addressed sustaining creative drive amid daily demands, and Eva, Siddharth and Ezra gathered everyone around nothing is fixed, closing with tactile, intuitive responses to images, impermanence and shared authorship.
By opening up to the public, a space emerged for continued growth and collaboration. Through listening, asking, responding and questioning, initial intentions were reaffirmed: that practices, roles, and even outcomes are fluid – and that meaning often lies not in the final work, but in the process itself.
Created by Phil Hill.
What’s Next
The group is now co-facilitated by its members, who continue to meet regularly, share work and introduce new ideas and projects. Current initiatives include a self-organised residency in Wales, the production of printed matter for inclusion in book fairs and ongoing conversations around future collaborations – including exhibitions, public workshops and other collective endeavours.
Peer Matters members
Alexandra Davenport | Anna Sellen | Chiara Zandonà | Ed Sykes | Emile Kees | Eva Jonas | Ezra Evans | Georgina McNamara | Marguerite Minnot Thomas | Phil Hill | Polly Palmerini | Roz Doherty | Sebastian F. Mahon | Sergey Novikov | Siddharth Khajuria
