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Nottingham studios plight
In December 2008 the owner of Oldknows factory announced to the leaseholders of CAN, Egerton and Oldknows Studio groups based at the Oldknows Factory Nottingham, that their leases would not be renewed.
This in effect draws to a halt over twenty years of tenancy in the Victorian lace factory, making it extremely difficult for many of the thirty artists based there to continue with their present practice, as well as closing three in-studio research and exhibition venues. The Stone Soup Project, one of the companies based in the building, wants these spaces for their expansion plans, and persuaded the owner that they can get funding required to fulfil the vision of turning the building into a centre for the 'creative industries'. Yes that's right, contemporary visual art apparently no longer counts as part of the creative industries. In a meeting these studio spaces were referred to as "empty space full of artists", perhaps typifying the status of art in this rapidly crumbling capitalist society. To be fair to the collaboration between Stone Soup and the landlord, they have offered to relocate some members from the three artists groups into fewer spaces elsewhere in the building, but each artist would make an individual agreement with them. But there is hope: most of the artists in the building prefer to retain a group ethos and have rejected the landlord's offer to relocate,...
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