Lewisham ARthouse

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The Lewisham ARthouse was, at the end of 1994, the first organisation of its type to become a Registered Friendly Society with charitable status. This new position enables us to make agreements with interested parties, to receive grant funding and to expand our size and activities.
In August 1992 a substantial group of Artists, Designers, and Crafts-people who had met during the IVth Lewisham Visual Arts Festival formed the Lewisham ARthouse to act as a focus for Art and Artists in Lewisham. Constituted as a club, composed of artists primarily from Lewisham, the ARthouse occupied, under license, a large school on Hilly Fields in Brockley. The site provided studios to over 80 artists with numbers expanding as the building reached full capacity and an Associate Member Scheme was realised. A Gallery, Workshops, and Education Programmes including Artists Residencies were quickly successful.
In March 1994 the ARthouse moved and occupied, again under license from the London Borough of Lewisham, an impressive italianate listed building, originally Deptford library. It needed and still needs substantial works to make it habitable, despite this, the new ARthouse is able to provide studio space for over 40 Artists, a functioning Gallery and a Workshop area.
A fundamental part of our ethos is to provide affordable studio space as without this none of our other aims will be realised. The ARthouse has looked to build on our base of active working artists to promote both interest in and the study of the visual arts, establishing itself as a resource for the local community.
Defining and strengthening our visual identity was an important step in re-establishing ourselves. Developing a style of our own has reinforced the ARthouse as a serious centre for the visual arts. It has made easier the need to identify the ARthouse as a place and as an idea.
Through an Education sub-group we have established regular courses, classes and workshops, including life drawing, pre foundation courses for students and visual arts for people with learning difficulties. The ceramics studio with its kiln and screen printing room, are available to ARthouse members and the community. The agreed Education programme, partly funded by Lewisham Arts Team, is already running until June 1995.
A Friends of Lewisham ARthouse scheme is already in place, to involve people who are not studio members. Active members of the local community are invited to participate in the sub-groups. The ARthouse structure consists of sub-groups that focus on a particular activity, the group decides its level of autonomy, reporting back to general and committee meetings.

The ARthouse is an independent co-operative, run voluntarily by artists.
Lewisham ARthouse Limited Registered Charity No.28058R Registered in England
140 Lewisham Way SE14 6PD tel: 0181 694 9011