Artists’ Studio Buildings
V22 currently runs nine studio buildings across London, providing affordable workspace for artists and selected creative enterprises.
We believe that the wide provision of affordable artists’ studios in London is one of the reasons this city is the world’s art capital. This not only directly benefits the creative economy, but also the growth of the city itself.
The Mayor of London recognises the importance of artists’ studios which make “a unique and highly valued contribution to the quality of life and reputation of the boroughs in which they are based”. V22 is part of a Strategy Group set up by the wider London Cultural Strategy Group chairperson – Iwona Blazwick. The Group is keen to support endeavours by its constituents to create sustainable, long term, affordable studio provision for artists.
A 2006 NFASP (National Federation of Artists’ Studio Providers) report estimated that affordable studios subsidise the visual arts economy in England by roughly £16 million a year.
Typically however, art studio buildings are in a constant state of crisis, being temporary, provisional, and subject to the vagaries of urban development processes. V22 believes that the norm for studios to be considered an indirect method of priming buildings and areas for redevelopment, must be challenged. It is unjust to artists, and deleterious to the communities in which they work and settle, that they are so often displaced by the regeneration cycles that they have played a crucial role in stimulating.
V22 aims to secure a more permanent property portfolio to complement its art collection and to ensure that artists will continue to have a settled place to work in central areas of cities.