Interview: Will Strong, Co-director of The newbridge project, newcastle upon tyne
by zara worth
In the first of a series of interviews over the next year, new PEEL Editor in Chief, Zara Worth, speaks to one of the co-directors and founders of the Newcastle gallery and studios (amongst other things), The Newbridge Project. For more information about events and exhibitions at The Newbridge Project please see their website: http://thenewbridgeproject.com/
Zara Worth: Could you begin by describing the origins of The Newbridge Project?
Will Strong: Will Marshall and I graduated in 2009 from Newcastle University, from the Fine Art course, I had a series of jobs which I wasn’t happy really happy doing and Will was looking for work. We both wanted to keep an art practice going before applying to a Masters; we wanted to work, to make some money and get a portfolio together. But, it kind of didn’t really work like that, we had a studio with some commercial studio spaces in Newcastle, which were more than we could afford really, and we had been really looking forward to moving into the studios for the sense of community; that peer to peer support framework that you have at University, but we lost when we left and didn’t find it at these studios either, everyone locked themselves away and I think the only interaction we ever had with anyone was when we were told to turn our music down. Around this time we found about a small amount of money from an organisation called the DCLG being used to solve the problem of empty shops, we applied, were successful and it was originally going to be a four month residency in the Newgate shopping centre, in the old Guitar Guitar space, for Will Marshal and myself, along with six other artists, it was going to be like an open studio but also a residency for the eight of us to generate some work.
ZW Were you putting on shows then or just making work?
WS We really wanted to keep it as flexible as possible; our ideas were quite open and it was quite experimental. Trying to almost simulate the University environment in a way but without the same kind of rules, we thought it was quite an interesting project as a piece of work in itself.
We realised that there was quite a swathe of empty buildings in this city [Newcastle upon Tyne], with the recession and with these redevelopments that are happening, so we looked at various other properties, including our old gallery space on the corner and we initially thought it was a bit small, but the estate agent said they would only be interested if we took the building above it as well. So quite quickly our plan for this project changed, now had a year to build into now, so it became quite clear that we wouldn’t be the artists that would be practicing, that we would be kind of running the organisation.
ZW Enablers?
WS Yeah, there’s alot of kind of words like that, I guess we didn’t really think about it too much. We thought we only had the space for a year and then year two came and it looked like we might have it for a bit longer, and I suppose at a year and a half we realised we should really think in terms of maybe a three year plan.
Now the inevitable redevelopment [of the building] seems it could happen soon, and that doesn’t mean we are complacent. But, also with Will [Marshall] leaving, the dynamic has changed, and its provided an opportunity for us to develop what we are doing and to consolidate what our strategy will be for the next five years.
In terms of what the project aims to do, its mission, its vision and its values as an organisation hasn’t really changed that much. The idea has always been to provide low cost, affordable space, for people to work in. The model that we’ve chosen to use is that everyone pays the same amount of money, more as a contribution towards being part of the community.
ZW Rather than literally renting space?
WS Yeah, the idea is that we are not just cheap space. We ask people to submit an application; 6 images of their work and an artists CV. You can tell pretty quickly whether someone is just needing cheap space or if they are going to invest themselves into the community. So thats our criteria if you will, and thats our aim, to provide space but also the framework of support. There’s that kind of network in here, of people just speaking to each other, talking about work, talking about why they’re doing what they’re doing.
ZW So when people are ‘buying in’ almost, its like buying into more than just a space, there are cheap spaces in Newcastle elsewhere and to be honest you could just move into a house with an extra bedroom, but it is buying into an attitude I suppose, an attitude towards a way of working?
WS Yeah, its buying into being part of it, the idea as well is everyone has to pitch in, everything is done on the cheap; trying to make things ourselves, some floors [in the studio areas of the building] look a bit like a shanty town. The whole of the studio spaces continually change as people move in. It was a bit of a funny start, there was this huge building and there was just twenty-five artists.
ZW How many artists have studios here now?
WS I think around 82? Its 80-something, I need to count again! It started off at twenty-five and then we did another call-out for about 15 artists, then another call, and gradually tried to use the space as productively as possible. Because, this building wasn’t designed for this purpose so its taken pretty much three years to figure out how to use it.
ZW It’s [the building] so big, I always forget how much building there actually is behind and above the gallery.
WS Yeah, it is big, and within that it’s an office space, so there’s fire escapes that you have to keep and all that health and safety stuff you have to preserve. It’s four spaces now; Newbridge studios, there’s our project space next door where we host exhibitions, shows, talks, screenings..., there’s this space which we’re sat in now. Which just opened last Thursday, which is our bookshop and hub space; so this will be now our public entrance to the studios. So at twelve o’clock the shutter will come up, you will be able to buy all these publications and this will replace the social space we tried to have on the first floor which didn’t really work because it was too cold and too big. We are going to move the internet down here so people can come and use their laptops, and there’s our bookable project space, a non-public place which we refer to as the annexe. Its a non-curated space which you can book for a maximum of a couple of weeks and you can have a show in their, people have done filming in there, and its free for studio holders and volunteers.
ZW How do you see events like ‘Keine Kunst’ [a recent ‘club’ night held in the basement of the gallery] working in relation to the gallery, is it art, or is it just revenue, or somewhere between the two?
WS I guess thats why we called it Keine Kunst - no art! (laughs) ... Its all part of what we do. The Newbridge Project now has become a series of smaller facets under one umbrella.
ZW Its an empire!
WS Yeah! ... So all these things kind of happened quite organically. We started by having similar events on the first floor and it just didn’t work, and I always used to shit myself because there was people drunk running around near studios and you tried to contain it as much as possible.
ZW Its like a house party, you try to contain it but someone always ends up in your bed
WS Exactly, yeah! I just didn’t want to run events like that anymore, but we realised it was really good revenue. Its [Keine Kunst] two guys called Hugh Sherlock and Yaron Golan who have lived here a while and have quite alot of experience running nights. Yaron does alot of gigs at Star and Shadow, I’d heard of Yaron before, and they’re now good friends so we asked them could they use the space and put an event on. So we all pitched in to create the night, and on one hand it provides a revenue but also its nice to create a place that can be used for fun.
ZW It actually fits in with the ethos of the gallery I think, its more than just a work space, and the event encourages that
WS For me its still just another event where people wanted to do something and made it happen with the resources that they had. They were quite lo-fi events, we had about 150 people come to the first one, but this next one we have more famous DJs.
ZW Who’s booked?
WS Horsemeat Disco?
ZW No idea...
WS We’ve sold 80 tickets! The first time we only sold one ticket before the night, I felt like giving her a hat or a crown to say thanks! Its like everything else, you have to find your feet, and I think its going to be the kind of place that Newcastle needs. A place which is just a bit more off the grid. Hugh and Yaron are developing as it independently as a business, we don’t let our mates in for free or give people free drinks, its serious in its intentions. The bookshop was initially going to be the bar actually...
ZW You could tie those two ideas together, ‘Beer and Books’!
WS They’d all just fall asleep! Will [Marshall] went on a trip to Berlin and found a bar which was essentially a concrete room, spray painted strip lights, with just beer and that was it and someone playing music.
ZW Doing something with virtually nothing...
WS Yeah, and also a space which after a show, or a gig or after work you might just go for a pint, and instead of spending like £4 on some pretentious European lager, you just pay a couple of quid for standard beer here. Unfortunately, our landlords cottoned on quickly to what we were proposing so instead we went for the bookshop idea. I think this turned out to be a better use of the space.
ZW You can just serve coffee instead of booze...
WS Ha, yes we are going to do that!
ZW So what’s next? Things seem to have moved very quickly in a very short space of time, are there more changes to come?
WS At the moment we’re in a bit of a state of flux, two new people are joining the team; Charlie Gregory, who is going to be the next co-director, and Alexia Mellor (‘Participatory Program Director’), whose artistic practice is about participation and engagement within groups of people, and will bring excitement and energy to the program. Alexia’s position marks an exciting new route for Newbridge; these appointments mark us consolidating what we are doing, returning to the nuts and bolts of our ‘mission’, and it has changed but not drastically, its just become a little bit more settled and focused than it was when we first started; how can we be more diverse with our funding streams, how can we include studio holders in a much more ‘real’ way...
ZW From what you are saying there is more potential for people’s involvement
WS Yes, I’m a bit more excited now than perhaps I have been in the past, the thing that has been a bit stifling has been it has just been myself, Will and Laura [Cresser, Management Assistant] really running things and its just been a huge job. Maybe a little too big and you start to call in all your favours and ironically the people that are helpful end up getting penalised a little bit because they’re the ones that pick up the phone and come and help. Now each individual will be responsible for fund raising for different things so there’s more involvement and opportunities in that sense. There’s opportunity to sell work and publications through the shop, there’s now quite a few studio holders selling their work here.
The obvious thing for me is that we have only really been in a position to think this way recently, there is also some stabilisation in the fact that we are unlikely to be moving immediately and its meant we can look ahead. The real goal is to move into a permanent premises, which would change the organisation a little, but I know that this building is going to get knocked down at some point, the building has been condemned for a long time, that might be in five or ten years but it will happen. To not bear that in mind would be disingenuous to all the studio holders and those who have invested themselves in what we are doing, so we mustn’t rely on this space. What I want to be is a commercial client, contributing to the infrastructure of the city, with more of a voice as a part of the machine of regeneration. You become part of it, rather than just as result of it. I think culturally it could be relevant, we have good links with both the Universities and other institutions in the region, and there are other institutions similar to us, not the same but similar and thats what I think Newcastle needs.
Will Strong: Will Marshall and I graduated in 2009 from Newcastle University, from the Fine Art course, I had a series of jobs which I wasn’t happy really happy doing and Will was looking for work. We both wanted to keep an art practice going before applying to a Masters; we wanted to work, to make some money and get a portfolio together. But, it kind of didn’t really work like that, we had a studio with some commercial studio spaces in Newcastle, which were more than we could afford really, and we had been really looking forward to moving into the studios for the sense of community; that peer to peer support framework that you have at University, but we lost when we left and didn’t find it at these studios either, everyone locked themselves away and I think the only interaction we ever had with anyone was when we were told to turn our music down. Around this time we found about a small amount of money from an organisation called the DCLG being used to solve the problem of empty shops, we applied, were successful and it was originally going to be a four month residency in the Newgate shopping centre, in the old Guitar Guitar space, for Will Marshal and myself, along with six other artists, it was going to be like an open studio but also a residency for the eight of us to generate some work.
ZW Were you putting on shows then or just making work?
WS We really wanted to keep it as flexible as possible; our ideas were quite open and it was quite experimental. Trying to almost simulate the University environment in a way but without the same kind of rules, we thought it was quite an interesting project as a piece of work in itself.
We realised that there was quite a swathe of empty buildings in this city [Newcastle upon Tyne], with the recession and with these redevelopments that are happening, so we looked at various other properties, including our old gallery space on the corner and we initially thought it was a bit small, but the estate agent said they would only be interested if we took the building above it as well. So quite quickly our plan for this project changed, now had a year to build into now, so it became quite clear that we wouldn’t be the artists that would be practicing, that we would be kind of running the organisation.
ZW Enablers?
WS Yeah, there’s alot of kind of words like that, I guess we didn’t really think about it too much. We thought we only had the space for a year and then year two came and it looked like we might have it for a bit longer, and I suppose at a year and a half we realised we should really think in terms of maybe a three year plan.
Now the inevitable redevelopment [of the building] seems it could happen soon, and that doesn’t mean we are complacent. But, also with Will [Marshall] leaving, the dynamic has changed, and its provided an opportunity for us to develop what we are doing and to consolidate what our strategy will be for the next five years.
In terms of what the project aims to do, its mission, its vision and its values as an organisation hasn’t really changed that much. The idea has always been to provide low cost, affordable space, for people to work in. The model that we’ve chosen to use is that everyone pays the same amount of money, more as a contribution towards being part of the community.
ZW Rather than literally renting space?
WS Yeah, the idea is that we are not just cheap space. We ask people to submit an application; 6 images of their work and an artists CV. You can tell pretty quickly whether someone is just needing cheap space or if they are going to invest themselves into the community. So thats our criteria if you will, and thats our aim, to provide space but also the framework of support. There’s that kind of network in here, of people just speaking to each other, talking about work, talking about why they’re doing what they’re doing.
ZW So when people are ‘buying in’ almost, its like buying into more than just a space, there are cheap spaces in Newcastle elsewhere and to be honest you could just move into a house with an extra bedroom, but it is buying into an attitude I suppose, an attitude towards a way of working?
WS Yeah, its buying into being part of it, the idea as well is everyone has to pitch in, everything is done on the cheap; trying to make things ourselves, some floors [in the studio areas of the building] look a bit like a shanty town. The whole of the studio spaces continually change as people move in. It was a bit of a funny start, there was this huge building and there was just twenty-five artists.
ZW How many artists have studios here now?
WS I think around 82? Its 80-something, I need to count again! It started off at twenty-five and then we did another call-out for about 15 artists, then another call, and gradually tried to use the space as productively as possible. Because, this building wasn’t designed for this purpose so its taken pretty much three years to figure out how to use it.
ZW It’s [the building] so big, I always forget how much building there actually is behind and above the gallery.
WS Yeah, it is big, and within that it’s an office space, so there’s fire escapes that you have to keep and all that health and safety stuff you have to preserve. It’s four spaces now; Newbridge studios, there’s our project space next door where we host exhibitions, shows, talks, screenings..., there’s this space which we’re sat in now. Which just opened last Thursday, which is our bookshop and hub space; so this will be now our public entrance to the studios. So at twelve o’clock the shutter will come up, you will be able to buy all these publications and this will replace the social space we tried to have on the first floor which didn’t really work because it was too cold and too big. We are going to move the internet down here so people can come and use their laptops, and there’s our bookable project space, a non-public place which we refer to as the annexe. Its a non-curated space which you can book for a maximum of a couple of weeks and you can have a show in their, people have done filming in there, and its free for studio holders and volunteers.
ZW How do you see events like ‘Keine Kunst’ [a recent ‘club’ night held in the basement of the gallery] working in relation to the gallery, is it art, or is it just revenue, or somewhere between the two?
WS I guess thats why we called it Keine Kunst - no art! (laughs) ... Its all part of what we do. The Newbridge Project now has become a series of smaller facets under one umbrella.
ZW Its an empire!
WS Yeah! ... So all these things kind of happened quite organically. We started by having similar events on the first floor and it just didn’t work, and I always used to shit myself because there was people drunk running around near studios and you tried to contain it as much as possible.
ZW Its like a house party, you try to contain it but someone always ends up in your bed
WS Exactly, yeah! I just didn’t want to run events like that anymore, but we realised it was really good revenue. Its [Keine Kunst] two guys called Hugh Sherlock and Yaron Golan who have lived here a while and have quite alot of experience running nights. Yaron does alot of gigs at Star and Shadow, I’d heard of Yaron before, and they’re now good friends so we asked them could they use the space and put an event on. So we all pitched in to create the night, and on one hand it provides a revenue but also its nice to create a place that can be used for fun.
ZW It actually fits in with the ethos of the gallery I think, its more than just a work space, and the event encourages that
WS For me its still just another event where people wanted to do something and made it happen with the resources that they had. They were quite lo-fi events, we had about 150 people come to the first one, but this next one we have more famous DJs.
ZW Who’s booked?
WS Horsemeat Disco?
ZW No idea...
WS We’ve sold 80 tickets! The first time we only sold one ticket before the night, I felt like giving her a hat or a crown to say thanks! Its like everything else, you have to find your feet, and I think its going to be the kind of place that Newcastle needs. A place which is just a bit more off the grid. Hugh and Yaron are developing as it independently as a business, we don’t let our mates in for free or give people free drinks, its serious in its intentions. The bookshop was initially going to be the bar actually...
ZW You could tie those two ideas together, ‘Beer and Books’!
WS They’d all just fall asleep! Will [Marshall] went on a trip to Berlin and found a bar which was essentially a concrete room, spray painted strip lights, with just beer and that was it and someone playing music.
ZW Doing something with virtually nothing...
WS Yeah, and also a space which after a show, or a gig or after work you might just go for a pint, and instead of spending like £4 on some pretentious European lager, you just pay a couple of quid for standard beer here. Unfortunately, our landlords cottoned on quickly to what we were proposing so instead we went for the bookshop idea. I think this turned out to be a better use of the space.
ZW You can just serve coffee instead of booze...
WS Ha, yes we are going to do that!
ZW So what’s next? Things seem to have moved very quickly in a very short space of time, are there more changes to come?
WS At the moment we’re in a bit of a state of flux, two new people are joining the team; Charlie Gregory, who is going to be the next co-director, and Alexia Mellor (‘Participatory Program Director’), whose artistic practice is about participation and engagement within groups of people, and will bring excitement and energy to the program. Alexia’s position marks an exciting new route for Newbridge; these appointments mark us consolidating what we are doing, returning to the nuts and bolts of our ‘mission’, and it has changed but not drastically, its just become a little bit more settled and focused than it was when we first started; how can we be more diverse with our funding streams, how can we include studio holders in a much more ‘real’ way...
ZW From what you are saying there is more potential for people’s involvement
WS Yes, I’m a bit more excited now than perhaps I have been in the past, the thing that has been a bit stifling has been it has just been myself, Will and Laura [Cresser, Management Assistant] really running things and its just been a huge job. Maybe a little too big and you start to call in all your favours and ironically the people that are helpful end up getting penalised a little bit because they’re the ones that pick up the phone and come and help. Now each individual will be responsible for fund raising for different things so there’s more involvement and opportunities in that sense. There’s opportunity to sell work and publications through the shop, there’s now quite a few studio holders selling their work here.
The obvious thing for me is that we have only really been in a position to think this way recently, there is also some stabilisation in the fact that we are unlikely to be moving immediately and its meant we can look ahead. The real goal is to move into a permanent premises, which would change the organisation a little, but I know that this building is going to get knocked down at some point, the building has been condemned for a long time, that might be in five or ten years but it will happen. To not bear that in mind would be disingenuous to all the studio holders and those who have invested themselves in what we are doing, so we mustn’t rely on this space. What I want to be is a commercial client, contributing to the infrastructure of the city, with more of a voice as a part of the machine of regeneration. You become part of it, rather than just as result of it. I think culturally it could be relevant, we have good links with both the Universities and other institutions in the region, and there are other institutions similar to us, not the same but similar and thats what I think Newcastle needs.