Launching ASA International — A Free Global Network for Artists
- glenn63work
- Jun 20
- 3 min read
Updated: Jun 26
For the past several months I've been thinking about how I can pay forward the help, advice and guidance that all of us have no doubt experienced at some point in our training and working years.
The advice and help an artist receives in their career are enormously beneficial. Early in my career, a more experienced actor told me about an audition I wouldn't have known about otherwise. A corporate professional I chatted to in an elevator made a phone call that led to a gig in front of 53,000 people. A designer I barely knew gave me an afternoon of her time when I was trying to figure out a production problem I was nutting through with frustration. And in my first year after graduating from WAAPA, Margaret Ford — an older actress who took the time to explain to a young fresher why we don't whistle in the theatre. And these are just a very small hand-full of examples. None of these people were obliged to help. They just did. Because that's what happens when the culture is right. An artist shares their knowledge.
That culture — of artists and arts supporters looking after their own — is one of the things I love most about this industry.
Artists Supporting Artists International is a small contribution and it's now open.
The idea is straightforward. A free global network — for artists, organisations, and creative professionals of all kinds — where you can create a profile, connect with opportunities, and be discovered by collaborators around the world. Where organisations with something to offer — grants, residencies, jobs, mentorships, rehearsal space — can post those opportunities and have them seen by the people who need them. No gatekeepers. No fees. No hierarchy.
Just the industry, looking after its own.
The arts doesn't run on artists alone. It runs on the work of people who never set foot on a stage but without whom nothing gets made. Arts administrators. Marketing professionals who understand what it takes to build an audience for creative work. Lawyers who offer pro bono services to artists. Social media managers. Producers and presenters looking for new collaborators. ASA is for all of them.
Great work rarely happens in isolation. It happens when the right people find each other. ASA is possibly where that finding starts.
I've seen this kind of network work in smaller, more accidental ways my entire career — a contact made in the right room, a piece of information that arrived at exactly the right moment, a collaboration that changed the direction of a project - or a career. ASA is an attempt to make those things happen more often and less by chance.
The hope is - that ASA is useful. Not inspiring. Not community-building in the vague sense that phrase usually means. Actually useful — in the way a good contact or a well-timed piece of information is useful. The kind of useful that changes what happens next.
In a time when too many conversations between artists are about have you got work and can you get me a job, ASA can be a part of shifting that conversation — away from the endless job talk and back toward what it should be about. The craft. What we're going to build next. What we're genuinely curious about.
ASA is an attempt to make that process a little less accidental.
ASA International lives in three verticals...
Global Network. Whether you're an artist seeking connections or an organisation with something to offer — this is your network. Free to join. Open to all who work in the arts.
The Artists Directory. List your profile and be found by the people who need you. Search for who you need. A free network built by artists
Noticeboard. Grants, open calls, auditions, residencies. For artists looking and organisations offering.
What you put in is what goes up.
Before registering, please take a moment to read the guidelines. The listings are automated, and I'm running these pages voluntarily, so I won't always have time to chase up corrections. I also have several generous and very clever friends to thank for helping make that automation possible.
Welcome. Let's see what gets built.
A note for early registrants: if your listing doesn't look quite right but you're confident the information you entered is correct — don't panic. We're in our first month and there are bound to be a few teething moments along the way. Rest assured, we're monitoring the pages closely and we'll be onto any issues as they come up.
Comments