#9 Help Yourself to Studio Space (1975)
50 stories from The Acme Archive
In 1975, there was growing demand for space for artists to work. At that time, Acme managed 103 work-live houses for artists and had just opened its first studios at Hetley and Faroe Roads in West London. SPACE were managing 20 studio buildings for over 300 artists.
As the demand for London studios grew, Acme and Space collaborated on ‘Help Yourself To Studio Space’ a pamphlet funded by the Arts Council, who was already providing support to both Acme and SPACE in the form of studio conversion grants and administrative costs respectively. This pamphlet was designed to ‘regionalise’ studio provision; to reduce the flow into London and help groups of artists around the UK to work together to identify potential studio space. It included a flow chart containing the practical steps in obtaining studio space.
It also contained an invitation from both organisations to contact them if advice was needed on identifying properties. This led to the growth of a free advisory service to artists, from Falmouth to Glasgow, from Swansea to Margate, and both Acme and SPACE were much in demand by art schools and universities to provide talks to final year students on survival ‘post-college’.