SME Partner

Anna Harding, SPACE

Academic Partner

Dr Melanie Dodd, Central St Martins, University of the Arts London

Project Title

Mapping the Distributed Audience: SPACE and the City

Project Description

Charity SPACE runs 18 artist studio buildings across seven London boroughs, providing affordable creative workspace and support programmes for artists such as exhibitions, artists residencies and training opportunities. SPACE also delivers learning projects for schools, young people and communities to promote engagement with creativity and the arts.

SPACE initiated this project due to concerns that affordable premises for creative workspace in London are at risk, wanting to have a stronger advocacy tool than reports and statistics. The project helped to work out key messages and consider the complexities of conveying certain concepts – for instance a creative hub or an eco-system, which are challenging to explain or quantify. It explored new ways of visualising data to make a stronger case for our work and the work of the artists and designers who we support, who form an important part of London’s creative economy but can be under-represented because their incomes are persistently low and they do not create a lot of new jobs.

Spatial architecture and digital specialists produced 3D drawings of each of the studio buildings and developed experimental digital tracking systems which were used as a pilot on a small group of volunteer artists working with MA Architecture students from Central St Martins. The collaboration hope to be able to share this experience with other organisations who are interested in innovative advocacy tools and data visualisation.