(ABOUT US)
*This is an archive of DATEAGLE ART, an online platform that was active from 2017 to 2022.
DATEAGLE ART was a London-based platform built around a simple idea: go to where artists actually work, spend time with them, and share what we learnt. Founded in 2017 by curators Martin Mayorga and Vanessa Murrell, and led by Murrell from 2022, we spent five years doing weekly studio visits and interviews with emerging artists who deserved more attention than they were getting. Everything was done in person, with care.
We kept the content ad-free, and never tried to fit artists into fixed categories. Painting, photography, performance, sculpture — we followed the work in whatever form it took. Over the years we interviewed and visited artists including Helen Beard, Sara Naim, Adébayo Bolaji, Florence Peake, and Shawanda Corbett, among many others. For a number of them, these were among their earliest published interviews. Some of that content has since been archived at the request of artists who have moved on from where they were then. People change, and so does their work.
We also opened the platform to writers. Through the journal, we gave space to emerging voices — critics, thinkers, and writers early in their careers — to write about art, and whatever felt urgent to them at the time.
We shot everything on 35mm film. That was a deliberate choice, a way of slowing down and paying attention, of making something that felt considered rather than instant. The images were never edited or polished. What you see is what the studio visit actually looked like.
We ran a Mix series too, where artists shared the playlists they were listening to in the studio — a small window into the music and mood behind the work.
We also took the platform off the screen when we could, curating exhibitions nomadically across the UK in whatever spaces felt right — living rooms, warehouses, galleries. Each exhibition responded to the place itself and the context around us in the moment, be that social, political, or otherwise.
DATEAGLE ART is no longer active. Vanessa Murrell maintains this archive occasionally while pursuing her own independent work. If you’d like to get in touch, you still can via: studio@dateagle.art. Responses may take a while!
(FORMER COLLABORATORS)
(CONTACT)
studio@dateagle.art