#48 Working with displaced artists
50 stories from The Acme Archive
One of the 50 opportunities highlighted this year is the Artists At Risk residency which provides relocation support to artists fleeing conflict. This residency is not the first time that Acme has provided support to artists fleeing conflict. This story looks at two of the artists previously supported by Acme.
Oleg Kudryashov left the Soviet Union in 1974, and was not allowed to take any of his work with him. He arrived in the UK via refugee camps in Austria and Italy, and Acme were asked by the government to provide support for him. The minutes of the board meeting in 1974 show that their ‘special circumstances’ meant ‘necessitous queue jumping’ and the first edition of the Acme Echo in September 1974 welcomes Oleg and Etina to their home on Campbell Road. In 1976, Kudryashov has his first UK exhibition, Drypoints, at the Acme Gallery.
Louis Maqhubela fled apartheid in 1973 and eventually settled in London in 1978 supported by Acme, having been introduced by the British Council. He was initially housed in an Acme house in Southwark. He went on to study at Goldsmiths College and the Slade School of Art, before taking up an Acme studio in the Galleria building in South London and often recalled the support provided by Acme in his early years in London to Acme staff.