Artistic spaces in the north of England can often be overshadowed or underfunded, especially when the British government deems it beneficial to cut funds on cultural schemes, or when some of the most prominent creative spaces exist only in London and other surrounding areas. Often places like Yorkshire and elsewhere can be ignored and people who may want access to places where they can pursue a cultural venture, are left behind or forced to find new routes to explore. Therefore when I found out about the work Open Source Arts were doing, I was eager to talk to them to find out what it was they were doing to help create accessible spaces where people can attend workshops or show off their art, through self funded community based projects.
Bessie: Why don’t you tell me what Open Source Arts do and your aims?
Ottilie: In the most broad sense we are a social business, so what that means is all the profit we make from the avenues in which we work goes back into cultural schemes to help the community. Almost as if we have two spans of the business, so we do a lot with corporate clients, mainly something called event activation which is where a client will come to us and ask us to promote their new initiative or ideas. The team we have is about 10 people from different backgrounds and we have a variety of resources so we can set up events alongside experiential marketing which is setting up something and helping people get involved. Because we are an arts organisation and being in the cultural sector, we have links with lots of artists, so we can do branding and everything else in house. So, essentially, the bigger business side of things help us support lots of our community schemes.
Bessie: I really want to hear about these community schemes, what is it that you are able to offer and organise?
Ottilie: The main thing that all these things allow us to support is our artist residencies, so we have a resource hub and then round the corner we have a number of artist studios and we can subsidise those as a result of our work with our corporate clients. This means plenty of artists can come and take advantage of them as they are made more accessible and affordable. We see a number of talents flourish like oil painting, or even animation. We also run workshops, so being able to subsidise these spaces is one of the main things that we try to achieve. We also have a scheme for associate artists which allows artists to work with us and we can support them and they can use our spaces for free. They can also associate themselves with our organisation which supports them when they are making funding goods.
Bessie: Why do we need spaces like yours, what makes the work you are doing so valuable yet hard to come by?
Ottilie: One of the great things about the space is that there is so much you can do with it, we have artists produce all kinds of art, which the public can come and see at open studio days. For example one of my favourites being an electronic piece of art where an artist had a piece that you sit in front of, modelled like an alien head which had eyes which followed you around. You could see the laptop next to it, something which you wouldn’t think of as art in the traditional sense. One of the benefits of the Artist residencies is the fact that we have all the tools which most people may not have access to,as for many people, being an artist isn’t sustainable. Things like a dark room, or a printing machine.
Bessie: I’m sure there are plenty of community based events people would be interested in, what kinds of occasions do you hold?
Ottilie: So we have of course, the artist residencies, and we have open days when people can come see what the artists have been creating. One of the big things we have happening is the opening of a community centre in Leeds, but we also have a Winter Showcase on the 22nd of November as well as a Fire Jam. There will be lots of performances so people can see what the dance spaces are being used for. Again, it can be so hard for people to find affordable and available spaces for dance and the arts. As I said, we organise a lot of workshops as well, like circus skills, improv, and are always looking for people to volunteer, especially with the building of the community centre. We just want to give back to the community and give them a space that they can actually use for their benefit.
