ABOUT
" The ability to create and express is a right, people should have access to the space, resources, agency and opportunity to do so."
Organisational Values
[ Culture that people can access, shape and belong to ]
We remove barriers for artists, partners, communities and audiences to engage in the cultural ecology. This includes bringing art into public and heritage spaces, co-designing programmes with communities, keeping opportunities free to access, and creating alternative routes into skills so people feel equipped and empowered to participate.
[ The right to create and express ]
We believe creating and expressing ourselves is a right. We value the freedom to express, experiment and explore without everything needing a predetermined outcome or economic justification.
[ Mutual aid & fair exchange ]
We value relationships where people support one another and where time, knowledge, skills, resources and opportunities are exchanged fairly. Exchange does not always have to be financial, but it should not be extractive.
[ Agency ]
We value people having agency over their own ideas. We develop projects in ways that allow artists, communities and partners to influence and shape what happens, with their ideas and feedback respected and genuinely considered.
[ Transparency ]
We value understanding where decisions and values come from, how things work, and how opportunities and resources can be accessed. We aim to be open about our processes, decisions and the conditions within which we work.
Philosophy
Asylum takes its name and inspiration from the Prinzhorn Collection — an extraordinary body of work created by people living in psychiatric institutions in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The collection demonstrated the importance of creative expression beyond the boundaries of the established art world, and the capacity of making to provide a means of expression when other forms of communication may be restricted.
That idea remains fundamental to Asylum: that the ability to create and express is a right, and that people should have access to the space, resources, agency and opportunity to do so.
Since our Foundation, in September 2014, we have staged over 160 exhibitions showcasing a varied body of work, by artists both emerging and established. Encompassing a diverse and multi-disciplinary range of artistic practices including: Painting, Sculpture, Printmaking, Illustration, Photography, Sound, Video and Performance Art. We have supported artists to showcase both within our spaces and externally with local partners.
We have also provided work placements through a number of initiatives such as Erasmus +, Gecko programme, University placements, ACTIVATE and Learnplay.
We first and foremost are artist mentors who support our collective of studio holders to develop their practise and run their own programme in our spaces.
We also actively develop and manage projects in partnerships with multiple stakeholders which actively question and support regeneration in the locale through the arts, integrating people powered producing into the method of delivery.
