I've been watching the recession bite into the high street with eagerness. I know that as shops empty out, artists move in. And seeing all those huge high white empty spaces brings out the curator in me. There's so much potential, not going un-noticed. So the Guardian has taken a look at some artists using empty shops, and tagged it the Slack space movement, which I love.
New Curator blog also throws in some interesting thoughts:
Slack Space: Empty Shops as Exhibition Space | new curator
I wonder what a slack space could be for the wider museum industry? One thought is part of a project’s community outreach, especially if a museum is outside the city centre. Or it could be temporary exhibition space for more of the collection to be on display, hopefully allowing some of the more crackpot objects museums tend to have in their storerooms. Hell, maybe even temporary storerooms where groups of volunteers can gather in a space to get stuck into a collection management project.
The way to really make this work would be a scheme set up by the local government to force work with property developers to make this happen. Very short-term minimal-or-no cost leases for creative and cultural purposes.
But I think we need to raise the game a bit from the usual local artist suspects get together and borrow an empty shop in which to display and sell their work. We could create a national slack space network, where participants would agree to exchange shows. So, rather than gather your usual bunch of artist friends of varying quality, you put together a show from the Slack space network - curating artists to your desires. Then, you tour that show or versions of it to other slack spaces around the country. OK, plenty of details to work out there - but come on artists, let's use this recession and get with the plan.
Artists' creative use of vacant shops brings life to desolate high streets
Slack space movement
Project co-ordinator Karen Hilliard (centre) has secured a parade of disused buildings in Dursley, Gloucestershire, to be used as art galleries. Photograph: Adrian Sherratt/Guardian
To most, the ring of hammer on nail as shop windows are boarded up on Britain's struggling high streets can only mean unemployment and decline. But for a growing band of optimists, it heralds a golden opportunity.
Artists and curators have begun colonising "slack space" freed up by the recession and are transforming vacant shops into "creative squats", galleries and studios.
Former branches of shops including Woolworths and Carphone Warehouse, as well as independent stores, have been colonised to house community cafes and performance art events and promote the work of local artists.
The slack space movement has echoes in previous slumps when many now successful architects, magazine publishers and artists moved into vacant premises. There is certainly room for creativity again. One in six shops will be vacant by the end of the year, according to the data company Experian. It predicts that 72,000 retail outlets could close during 2009, more than doubling the number of empty units to 135,000 in the UK.
