THE STUDIOS
“Giving back space to the community and ensuring regeneration through culture by providing a place of exchange that bridges the gap between theory and practice through mentoring and vocational experience.” Director Hannah Taylor
Asylum Art Gallery LTD oversee's the gallery but also the artist studios that comprise of 10 artist studios, a photo-studio, communal art and philosophy library and creative mentoring space.
Due to many years of austerity and systemic failings in power structures to give space back to its public, a lack of space to create and a decline in investment in arts and culture, there is now manifest decline in the visual appearance of the city and a lack of services for the community to access and generate new projects. To regenerate a city and create a client base for new business, there must be a positive and cultural customer experience created within the city through art and culture, promoting visitors and therefore investment. This can be achieved through a common ownership of space and the facilitation of cultural currency.
The cheapest way to transform the aspect of a city (centre), is to encourage artists to be residents. If there is no support structure in place to encourage and grow our local creatives, how do we promote sustainability and a shared responsibility to generate and produce and grow? We must find ways to support graduates to stay and create and live here and to offer alternative pathways for those who do not have the capacity to follow a traditional institutional art route. Therefore it is community and artist led ventures that should lead the way to offering a point of contact for members of the community to network, to successfully develop and deliver projects that regenerate unused space and provide further support and change the face of the city through cultural growth and inclusivity.
The Asylum Art Studios Pre-Regeneration
The Services available
Self sustainability and space for work experience and mentoring including business start ups;
The Asylum Studios.
Funding the core costs of the gallery, the artist studios provide community space and continue the inclusivity of the gallery to its users.
Whilst you are investing in a combination of work experience and culture, it also provides a feeling of trust in the city’s ability to be regenerated through a commitment from the council, renting unused space in disrepair and renovating it by artists for artists, so they can continue to plan cultural events in the city for the communities enjoyment.
Infrastructure like this supports the mental health and job opportunities of the city’s inhabitants, as well as bringing in tourism through positive city experiences, giving the city a long term chance to become a city of culture and build sustainable business.
Through renting artist studios at a low cost, we can also make the gallery space sustainable which restores our faith in our commitment to its values.
It is not just the service users that need support!
The studios consist of the following services;
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Communal area and meeting area
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Computer and printer access and hot-desking available to local businesses and students to start up self employment under a professional gallery.
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An office for mentoring and teaching from the gallery team to develop artists portfolios and work one to one with developing cv’s and presentation of work.
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A point of contact to any opportunities or networks that could be of use in the area.
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10 Artists studios
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A photography studio
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Priority use of the gallery space as a studio holder
The cost of the studio space ranges between £80 - £200 per month depending on the size and includes access to everything mentioned above.
We have officially celebrated our three year anniversary in the space.
If you would like to view and rent a studio please contact the director Hannah on : 07775433314
The Asylum Art Studios: Post Regeneration
Work Experience and Mentoring
We believe that regeneration programs work best when they not only help to transform a derelict landscape, bringing it ‘back to life’, but also endeavour to ‘rebuild’ the aspirations, hopes and dreams of individuals – within and in relation to it. It goes without saying that ‘creativity’ should and, indeed, must be at the heart of this process. Yet our focus, blurred by political rhetoric, appears fixated with a ‘lockdown austerity’ model, outside of which – due to a poverty of imagination – it is hard, if not impossible to see beyond. Consequently, within this entrenched mind-set, the case for investment in creativity is, all too often, criminally overlooked.
And yet creativity, in essence, is about challenging preconceptions, dogma and perceived wisdom as well as helping to ‘fill the gaps’ in our existing knowledge platform. Accordingly, Asylum Art Gallery and studios believes that all artists and, indeed, all creative thinkers and practitioners – irrespective of their chosen form of expression – are ‘agents of change’ and therefore, at the forefront in ‘widening’ our perception of ‘things’, not just as they are but how they could or should be. Therefore we need to state the case for investment.
We are wholly committed to addressing both the lack of investment (both financial and personal / interpersonal development) within the creative sector and, ultimately, realizing ‘our vision’ of a fully integrated regeneration model that places equal importance upon the development of both infrastructure and people within a truly inclusive creative framework.
We offer free mentoring and hot-desking to new students and new graduates and 6 places a year to receive an exhibition residency in the gallery with free mentoring and curation. These places are for those who fill our criteria of a promising artist who is from a disadvantaged position.
We also work with the community and local schools to provide mentoring and work experience.
All vocational work experience would be involved in the studios and the event management of the gallery exhibitions, bridging the gap between education and practical application of artistic skills and self promotion and marketing.
THE STUDIOS ARTISTS
