Future space

AP readers won’t need telling that the creative industries represent one of the most significant sectors of the current economy. But industries are made up of individuals and they don’t come out of nowhere. There’s been much lip service paid to supporting future talent but not much concerted action. So the National Federation of Artists’ Studios Providers (NFASP) Future Space conference last December was a much-needed forum. It brought together some key players to share expertise and advice on some practical approaches to training and retaining successive cohorts of art graduates.

A key reason for graduates leaving the places where they’ve trained is the lack of support and, most crucially, the paucity of affordable work spaces. Now, artists’ studios come in all shapes and sizes – from a few tenants to hundreds – and are usually the result of some sort of community of interest. This may be as basic as the need for work space, but can also be a practical approach to sharing resources or for creating a critical mass to attract attention.

Traditionally artists have taken over the unloved ex-commercial or industrial buildings that fall derelict as times change and the economy shifts direction. They are often made-over on a shoestring budget and were once characterised by short leases and low rents in exchange for basic maintenance. Between 2004 and 2008 the number of studio organisations in England alone rose by 21.5%, from 116 to 141, while the number of studio buildings shot up by 51% from 166 to 251 – and there have been many more setting up since then. But currently, only around 25% of studio buildings in England are permanent.

However, developers are getting wise to the fact that artists make good tenants in mixed use developments and there’s a welcome move towards more secure live/work spaces within building programmes. There is a misconception that artists enter their hard-won studio spaces and close the doors to work in splendid isolation. But this couldn’t be further from the truth. Nearly all studio groups offer public facing programmes, projects and activities that benefit other artists and the communities in which they are rooted. So the developing relationship between artists’ studios and higher education is a natural progression of this.

Some readers will be familiar with a goal in The Visual Arts Blueprint (Creative & Cultural Skills, 2008): “Ensure that visual arts courses have strong, relevant links to the profession so that those entering the sector are properly prepared.” This ambition is to be achieved by 2012. So when NFASP brought together artists’ studio groups and higher education representatives for Future Space, it was to examine a range of initiatives and activities designed to support the next generation of artists and help achieve the Blueprint’s aims.

From ACME’s ground-breaking Knowledge Transfer Partnership project, Double Agents, with Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design; through Spike Island in Bristol hosting the BA and MA courses for the University of the West of England and its Associates programme; and on to Graduate Studio Northumbria, where recent graduates are offered spaces and resources to continue to develop their practice within the university itself, the models are all as valid as they are diverse, and respond to local need and circumstances. In Southampton, the high numbers of artists leaving the city post-graduation prompted the university to collaborate with a space, programming exhibitions of work by students and staff.

However, it’s worth remembering that although not all art graduates continue to practice as artists post-graduation, they can still contribute to cultural life. Grand Union, an artists’ collective which has taken a short-term lease on a building in Birmingham’s Digbeth, factored in a project space that allows fledgling curators to develop their skills and gain feedback as they find their feet. Digbeth is a hive of cultural organisations and artists and curators benefit from that creative density. Opportunities for graduates to work alongside more seasoned professionals offer invaluable insights into professional practice and more practical matters. It also places them within a hub of activity, more likely to attract the attention of curators and collectors trawling for talent.

Sustaining these initiatives, and rolling some out as models for other spaces and places, will be challenging. Art and design schools are being hit by funding cuts, as are the host studio groups as Arts Council England refines it portfolio: those who fall out of it will be chasing the same project funds that have sustained groups such as Grand Union. Meanwhile local authorities’ resources have shrunk and some are under pressure to backtrack on the discretionary business rate relief that the majority of studio groups have benefited from.

But what is saved in short-term cutbacks cannot compensate for the potential and irretrievable loss if new talent isn’t supported and graduates fall away.