Making Spaces
Our lives are increasingly dominated by the virtual world, but we need face-to-face contact to keep us well, and we need shared spaces to explore our creativity.
Financial pressures are reducing our options of where we can socialise, share stories, develop relationships and be creative. Increasingly, culture has become commodified - are we consuming rather than creating?
What actual (non-virtual) spaces do we need to explore our creativity in the future, how will they operate, how will they be funded?
A tiny area of central Reading (London/Silver Street, East/South Street), offers some insights. From squatting to arts centres, community participation to global solidarity, what will our future hold?
Background
In 2025, Reading multi-function art spaces, face an existential threat.
The long-standing supporter of independent arts, and owner of the Rising Sun Arts Centre, Felix Brunner, passed away in December 2024. The future of the arts centre is uncertain.
21 South Street Arts Centres' programming, will move to a newly built theatre space next to the Hexagon in May 2027. Again, what will happen to 21 South Street, is not known.
The Global Cafe at RISC (Reading International Solidarity Centre), shut during Covid and never reopened.
Two of these building were originally squats - 21 South Street was squatted in 1984. The Rising Sun Arts Centre was also originally a squat. It became an arts centre in 1990, when a group of artists rescued it from a semi-derelict state.
The Making Spaces action research project
This small area of Reading has an amazingly strong tradition of creative work.
As well as RISC, RSAC and 21 South Street; Central Club and the Caribbean/Paradise/After Dark club hosted music events for decades. As did the building that became Shehnai, which was the historic Olympia Hall, that hosted acts such as The Rolling Stones, The Who, Rod Stewart, and included a cinema. It will be demolished soon and replaced with flats. In the 80s, East Street was also home to the Reading Unemployment Centre, which hosted events and participatory arts activities, printing, magazine design, music and much more.
This small area represents a critical case study to illustrate the way our public spaces are being lost. Given the way the economic climate has changed, the entire public sphere is under threat. It’s not just the arts, in 2020, over 2000 pubs in England have permanently closed, and pubs also often offer creative events, bands, comedy, etc.
The future isn’t looking good. The Making Spaces project will look at the past and future of multi-use arts venues in Reading (using the creative magic triangle of: Silver/London/South Street as a focus). What’s important about these venues is it’s not just the physical space - it’s the communities they create and support.
Once we lose these spaces they cannot be replaced, and the social impact, support and sense of community will be lost. This will particularly hit the most marginalised and economically challenged in the town.
Initial research
These venues constitute important community facilities, they support an amazing range of activities, groups, artists, art forms. They provide cheap and often free access for disadvantaged people, it’s unlikely that for instance, the new theatre at the Hexagon will play the same role. Also, these centres, hold out against the way funding increasingly silos work into art form or community. These are multi-purpose venues that target work to those most in need. They are a part of the incubator for the UK’s brilliant creative economy.
Can we keep these centres alive?
We are exploring what these centres offer, why they are significant, and what economic or management structures could take them forward.
The research will provide information and a network to take us forward, and provide evidence for the wider case, to support organisations such as these, not just in Reading but across the UK.
Get involved
Initially Real Time is interviewing key stakeholders to get a sense of what the main issues are. Real Time has an archive of over 40 years of participatory video in Reading, including these venues.
Do you have old photos, videos, articles, etc., that might support the research? Can you suggest who we might interview? Do you have ideas about building a network to support keeping our public spaces accessible to all, particularly the more marginalised groups in our town?
Clive Robertson, Tom Zajac
RealTimeVideo