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£1m lifeline for artists displaced by Crossrail
Ruth Bloomfield5 Jun 2009
More than 200 young entrepreneurs who faced losing their workplace because of Crossrail have been given a £1million lifeline.
The fashion designers, illustrators, artists, architects and craftspeople are based at Great Western Studios in Paddington.
Their businesses have been in jeopardy since it emerged their base will be demolished in September to make way for the east-west rail link through London.
But now a nearby derelict warehouse will be converted for them.
Adam Withington, studio manager at Great Western Studios, was hugely relieved. "It will enable us to continue with our mission to provide affordable workspace for artists, designers and craftspeople and create a vibrant, new cultural centre for the borough of Westminster," he said.
The new site, in Alfred Road, is owned by Transport for London and has been empty for several years.
It will host 91 studio spaces along with a café and exhibition gallery area on three floors covering 50,000 square feet. The Regent's Canal waterfront outside the building will be decorated with sculptures and people will be able to walk straight from the towpath into the building.
The companies based there will be charged about half the usual market rent - £15 per square foot rather than the average £27 in the area.
Great Western Studios was set up in a vacant railway warehouse just over a decade ago to provide an inexpensive haven for young artists and designers. It hosts a range of creative industries, from jewellery design and ceramics to millinery, sculpture, textiles and painting. The studios open to the public twice a year - the next event is on Saturday, with artists and craftspeople selling their work before the move.
Brian Connell, Westminster's economic development chief, said: "We want to create a lasting legacy for this area, providing a permanent home where the creative industries can flourish.
"Westminster boasts some of the greatest museums, galleries and theatres on earth, and it makes perfect sense to build on these cultural strengths by making sure creative people can work here." Work began last month on the £16billion Crossrail project, which will run from Maidenhead in the west to Shenfield in the east via Heathrow, Paddington, the West End, City and Docklands.
In March the Evening Standard reported that Finsbury Circus Gardens - a Grade II-listed "hidden gem" - was to be dug up as part of the work.
…and castmate is fined over sex tape
A Home and Away actor has been reprimanded for filming a sex tape with a teenager and showing the footage to castmates.
Australia's Channel 7 TV network have disciplined the actor, with the 21-year-old understood to have been given counselling.
Lincoln Lewis, the son of a respected Australian rugby league player, said he deeply regretted his behaviour.
“You do stupid things when you are young,” he said. “But your learn from your mistakes, that's part of growing up. This mistake, and what I have learnt, will contribute a lot to making me a better person.”
Reader views (1)
As a working craftsman myself, I've never understood why it's become assumed that practising an art or craft is axiomatically worthy of subsidy. Obviously as displaced tenants these people deserve consideration, but subsidy? It's worth observing that artists have made the biggest economic impact over the last generation by migrating to where the rents are cheapest,giving that place a vibe, and helping revive it economically. After all, Chelsea was a bit down-at-heel once; Hackney's come up, Hoxton's probably just passed its peak; right now here in poor old Waltham Forest the artists are moving into empty Woolworths stores and playing the same role: may they thrive!
If culture can be broadly defined as what people do, and the values they express, when left to themselves, the idea of subsidy is a distortion. You get the oxymoron of 'cutting-edge funded art'. Noone ever said 'X is so good, he's got a Council grant!' - at least not outside the Soviet Union.
- Mdj E10, london uk, 04/06/2009 15:07
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