Mission Statement

Fish is a journal and project promoting critical and accessible writing and thinking about arts and visual culture. Our publications, workshops and participatory opportunities are forums for exploration and debate – connecting organisations, artists, writers, researchers and audiences, and supporting creativity across the city and region.

The objectives of The Critical Fish are to:

To work collaboratively alongside local communities, artists,and organisations to promote critical engagement with arts and visual culture.
To connect people with different ideas and perspectives through critical and accessible debate, research-led writing, and opportunities for reflection and conversation about arts and visual culture.
To explore the relationships between critical writing, contextual theory, and creative practice.
To develop processes and outcomes that are critical, collaborative, inclusive, and accessible based on the belief that ‘culture is our common property’.
To support a broad range of approaches to art and writing with a particular emphasis on new and experimental ways of writing about visual culture.
To develop and raise the profile of Hull and the region as a centre for critical, academic,and research-led writing and thinking through outward facing conversation.
To support and showcase local talent and to promote the value of our creative industries through working with writers, contributors,and artists.
To place environmental and climate crisis at the forefront of our work – through our everyday practices and activities, our published work, and through research and debate. To support each other in negotiating these complex issues and the role of culture within these challenging times.

The things that we do to support our objectives include:

Working as co-creatively as possible to create an archive of writing, art, and experiential records which support the organisation’s objectives, which may be published in print and/or online.
Commissioning writers, artists,and facilitators (with a particular focus on local practitioners) on a freelance basis
Developing broad opportunities for critical engagement with the arts and a culture of enquiry, sharing, confidence building, and support for artists and participants wherever they are on their creative journey(public call-outs, participatory projects, workshops, reading groups etc.).
Seeking funding streams and partnerships to support the realisation and outcomes of our objectives. This may include raising funds- applying for and obtaining contributions, grants, commissions, subscriptions, fees, and donations.
Supporting artists to critically engage with their work and providing a platform to share their writing, art, and ideas.
Serving as a forum/platform for research and subsequent discussion relating to arts and visual culture.