speaker-0 (00:00.354)
Hello everyone and welcome to the My Local Market podcast. I'm Maria and today I'm speaking with Susanne Clausen from Open Hand Open Space. Susanne, hello and welcome to the podcast. How are you?

All right, thanks for having me.

My pleasure. Well, I've been desperate to get you on for quite a while because there's some very important matters regarding open hand open space, which we'll discuss later on. But first of all, could you please just describe what is open hand open space?

Okay, Open Hand Open Space is a very long standing arts organisation in Reading. We've actually been here for about 40 years. We're located in an old military keep on the Oxford Road in Reading and we house about 15 artists studios here and have done so for a very long time.

And we also have a gallery where we organize a number of different exhibitions all year round, also workshops, community events. And Open Hand Open Space was founded by graduates, an artist from the University of Reading in the eighties, late eighties, and actually had some famous artists here who had their first studios.

speaker-0 (01:17.164)
I feel like so much has come from the university because obviously Launchpad as well was founded by university students. This was founded by university students. So it feels as if there's a lot.

Yeah, because this is something that we have students graduating and then where we go. And actually to say this, we are the only dedicated long-term studio providers for where artists could have a studio after they graduate, for example. And we're also the only dedicated contemporary art gallery in Reading.

I do feel like Open Hand Open Space is one of Reading's best kept secrets because I lived on Oxford Road for years. I did not know this was here and I was not too far from it. But because it's the old keep, I think people assume it's part of the military base rather than its own studio.

Yes, you might not see that's from the outside. We do try and advertise and it's obviously gone through phases where let's say the gallery or the public program has been quieter. I guess in the last two years, it's become a lot more active and we also work with a number of community partners who activate our space. But we are a charity, we're an artist run space. So all our artists here have their own art practice.

and do their day-to-day lives. we could be bigger, we could be louder and more visible, but I think it's been a kind of important thing in the step of development for many artists. And really there are no other spaces and it's also, it's an affordable studio space. The building is zoned by Reading Borough Council who have supported us over those last 40 years.

speaker-1 (03:02.136)
by maintaining the building, but it is in quite a precarious state. So there is no heating. It is really very much a summer place.

that explains if people are watching like any of the visual clips that's why we're sitting in codes. That's a bit of a different look. Well I was going to ask you where Open Hand Open Space fits into the Reading community which I think you've already elaborated on there to a degree. So it's the only contemporary art gallery in Reading and it's the only one to provide long-term artists studios. Is that right? Is that where it fits in? It fills in those two gaps.

Yes, I think that's where it kind of really sits important. And actually probably any other town of a comparable size or even smaller sizes would have probably even more artist studio space or been provider of those. Because if you develop talent and you want to keep it in your town, you also have to provide spaces for it.

never really thought of that before the evolution that's an artist or anyone really with a creative career goes through because you're right it's fine having home but not everyone has space at home. The studios upstairs they're beautiful you walk through and each studio feels like it's totally different because you've got the artist who's made it their home effectively they're lovely. Do you want to say a bit more about a sample of the artists that we have here at the moment?

Yes, we have a whole different group of artists. We have Guler artist who is an artist originally from Turkey who lives in Reading, but also works in London a lot, is very active exhibiting. And she's also here organized, she's done her own work, some of the work in partnership with Reading refugees. She's organized workshops here with Reading refugees. That's also quite an important part for us.

speaker-1 (04:49.164)
We have another artist, or actually a member, and he's a curator, Charles Wong, who has recently curated a series of exhibitions with artists who have moved from Hong Kong to Reading. And that was also in partnership with the Reading Hong Kongers, CIC, who's a very big community of Hong Kongers in Reading. so Charles is an independent curator and he's brought various artists here from London.

to show what for us, which was very interesting. We have another artist here, Pavlo Keresty. He is originally from Ukraine and he has a painting practice, is also very active. And he's put his knowledge in and organized various exhibitions where he connected with communities in Ukraine, but also brought artists here from Ukraine. So we had a big event last winter and

a collective walk in the summer where we had groups of artists in Kiev, in Berlin and in Reading want on a parallel walk together. At the same time and place, our group through Little Park in Reading and then kind of had online meetings about it and we had a workshop here. So just give you a bit of a breadth of activity that we do. We have other artists with their individual practices, but artists do painting.

They do installation, different things.

As well as artists, there are also the public because you do put on exhibitions and have things for the general public, you?

speaker-1 (06:23.82)
Yes, all our exhibitions are free, they're open to the public and everyone can come along. I think that's also a little bit what we see is our educational remit that we offer these opportunities to see artwork that you wouldn't otherwise be able to encounter. We could probably do more of this, but because we are all basically volunteers, it has certain limits. And it's kind of very much dependent on volunteers to come here and invigilate, but also the artists.

who are willing to work with us and show their work here.

How do you promote what you do to the public? Because like you said, you're volunteers, it's very hard to do, I know, to actually get visibility. How do you put yourself out there in front of the public or different groups that you need to?

I think it's mostly working with our partners. They're helping us. offer them space like the engine room, which is a local art collective who don't have a space, who meet in spaces that are offered to them and they meet here regularly, but they also organize workshops. So last Monday we just had an open workshop here. So that's a way for us promoting in all these other different groups that I mentioned. Otherwise, I think it's very much.

word of mouth, we advertise through our social media, we are on what's on Reading and we also try and connect with the community of art students because I also work at the university.

speaker-0 (07:51.8)
Well, actually, we should probably say a bit more about you. He said you have various hats and you do various things. So could you say a bit more about your art practice and what you do at

Yes, so I'm an artist myself and I make a range of things at the moment. I produce drawings and paintings and I've also made sculptures, actually puppets and organized sets for these puppets. And I just had an exhibition together with Pablo Carrister actually in a gallery in Miami where we showed this work. So that was very interesting.

But then I also, my other hat is that I'm a professor of fine art at the University of Reading. And I also hold a studio here and I've only recently become the chair of Open Hand Open Space. And I am also the director of another organization called Reading International, which is run out of the university through which we commission international artists to come and work with us. And actually we just also made a partnership.

with Open Hand Open Space. We have a partnership. We had a whole big international exhibition here organized through Reading International a few years ago at Open Hand Open Space.

You do so much, but it's all focused around art so I suppose that makes it easier that it's all sort of feeding into each other.

speaker-1 (09:11.886)
Yes, I live in Reading and have been living here for a few years and then you realize, okay, you can just invest a little bit in that place and see what it needs or with the communities that I work with following a little bit that need and demand. And that is very much what we hear from artists who are here and who live in Reading that there isn't enough for them. And there was actually, there's a bit of a lack of support. There's different, the museums.

show a little bit of art, but they all have other businesses to do, right? They are museums, so they have a different remit. in terms of, and Reading is very good on theatre and very good on music, but on visual arts, it's actually not very much. So that's where we come in and hopefully can do help a little bit.

Is there a particular stage at which you feel Reading needs to improve in helping artists? Is it, because I imagine the early stages through university, they've got quite a bit of Is it the latest stage where they're developing outside of education, where they need a space, need to grow an exhibit? Is it that space?

I think so. think so. I think, needs a visual arts center. Maybe Oxford is a different place, but it has Modern Art Oxford, which has a kind of international remit. Also does a lot of community work. It provides a lot of opportunities for local artists as well as other artists. And I think Reading needs something like this. Places like Milton Keynes have Milton Keynes Gallery. I think it's called Contemporary Art Gallery. They have something else, but...

We're also part of the Contemporary Visual Arts Network of the Southeast, which is a network of arts organizations. And you kind of see which places provide for visual art and they actually do very well out of this. And there's something a little bit about Reading that Reading thinks it does more for visual arts than it actually does because Reading has a cultural and heritage strategy.

speaker-1 (11:12.012)
where they do say that they want to support artists and places for artists and places for artists to exhibit. Because that's the other thing, if you are an artist, even a local artist, there's very few opportunities where you could show your work. And you you professionalise yourself as an artist when you're not always just in your own little circle. When you actually meet and network with artists from outside, because that takes you elsewhere. That's your opportunity to grow.

And so that is something that Reading could improve on.

Well, like you said, I mean, you've exhibited, you said recently in Miami. So yeah, I think it's important to grow and go international because it does develop, I imagine, lot of skills when you're going to different places and showing your art in different spaces.

It is, it is. think it's the only way. It's for your own development, but also for developing the work, for professionalizing, for making work commercially more viable.

I suppose it's also developing the brand of Reading outside of Reading, because if you're going somewhere and they say where you're from, you say Reading.

speaker-1 (12:19.672)
That is very true.

You've mentioned the types that you do in the exhibition you've done recently. Is there a particular message or something you try to do with your art or something you're trying to communicate with it? I'm always fascinated by processes of messages that artists have.

It probably would need a little bit more time. I don't have a specific message with my artwork. And it's usually actually artists very rarely have a particular, we're not activists, we're not kind of doing political work, but it's actually much wider and you try and engage viewers in a particular way of how you might experience the world, how you interpret the world through your art practice.

I think that's a very good point there because quite a lot of art which I think is very prominent and that I see in different galleries is activism in some way. They're trying to say a point or point to political situations or figures.

What they might do, art is always political in a way that it puts itself in a context, but it's rarely can be limited to singular messages. It's often the interpretation of someone that writes about the art or the museum that has to put a particular message on the artwork who tries to do that.

speaker-0 (13:37.782)
one piece of art with multiple interpretations.

Yeah, or kind of being open to different ways of interpreting art.

We better not go too far down that rabbit hole because I love interpretations that could take us off quite a while. So what challenges have you faced for open hand, open space? As you said, everyone's a volunteer. So I imagine that's one. But could you expand on the other challenges which I know you face?

The biggest challenge that we're facing at OHOS is that our situation here in the building is very precarious. In as that last year, Reading Borough Council decided to sell the building without giving us any indication of what would happen to us as an organization. And that's put us in a very difficult position. However, we have really pulled together.

and we have put all our networks and contacts and all the people we know and gathered a group of supporters of experts, of specialists and have put in a bit in ourselves to take over the freehold of Brockkeep of this old building. Because also we think it's actually ideally placed on the Oxford Road, which is probably a road that

speaker-1 (14:56.022)
in the communities here would benefit from this being developed and becoming even more open center, but it's actually quite an important location. There's not much else in terms of culture in this area of Reading. So we developed a cultural bit. We do not have money. We can't buy the building, but we put in, I think, a very solid proposal.

to fundraise, to develop, work with these partners. We have heritage specialists, we have architects on board, we have experts in fundraising who have all promised to help us with this. We also started a campaign or a petition, which has, I think, gathered a substantial amount of support from people in Reading who wanted OHS to remain in the building for public benefit. And originally Reading Borough Councils

clauses in the application form or in the application process also included that whoever bid for it would have to include some public benefit. And I think that's what we demonstrated very well. We presented this to council. We did not really get a response. The only thing that we heard was that the sale was put on hold for the moment because some of the policies were to be revised. We're not entirely sure what that is.

The problem is that we cannot fundraise. can't do anything because the situation is precarious and no one will fund us if we could be kicked out any moment. I think at the moment we are determined to stick with it. We would also be open to any suggestions to moving to another space. We do think the Oxford Road is a very good place for artists to work in and where we could be a really

real benefit or we are of benefit to the community, but we're not against moving anywhere else. We can't afford to move to a big commercial space because our artists cannot pay commercial rents. We also want something that is central so really the public can access us.

speaker-0 (17:05.486)
very difficult, I think, because there is no decision. So I was going to ask, how can people support you? What can people do to help open hand, open space?

Well, anyone who wants to help us, you could sign our petition and leave notes. You can also email us if there's anything, if you feel that Open Hand Open Space is a good place and you want places like this, you could also speak to your local counsellors or write to your counsellor to say that you appreciate having places like Open Hand Open Space and that you would like to have more access to art and culture. Because I think it's showing the evidence that this is needed.

would be helpful. Also, if anyone is out there and has information about other spaces, because actually there's so many empty shops still in Reading.

Well, fingers crossed this gets sorted soon. Where is the petition?

The petition is on change.org and it's called Save Open Hand Open Space Protect Reading's Cultural Lifeline at Brock Keep.

speaker-0 (18:08.492)
Lovely. So I will put the link for that on the landing page. If anyone's interested, please go ahead, please sign the petition, please write to your local MP. And hopefully if someone's listening to this at some point in the future, I'll add updates to the landing page and hopefully this will be resolved and it'll be a happy ending. So is there anything Susanne that you'd like to leave our listeners with today?

along to one of our events. You will see them on What's On Reading. We'd love to see you here.

I'm so glad I got to come here again. do love this space. Please do come down and see the next exhibition. It's a beautiful building.

Thank you very much.