The Trouble with Rents

Addressing the question of how young artists can afford to live and work in the face of rocketing UK rents, this panel discusses experiences of renting artists’ studios and exhibition spaces. Considering the role of artists and creative organisations in relation to urban regeneration - both to positive and negative effect – panellists will discuss historical artists’ initiatives who have made creative use of empty spaces. In addition, the panel will look to the future, consider current reforms and discuss strategies with which to tackle the problem of soaring rents.

Chaired by Ben Campkin, Director of the UCL Urban Laboratory and Senior Lecturer in Architectural History and Theory at the Bartlett School of Architecture, the panel includes: Tara Cranswick, Director of V22, artist James Balmforth, Alice Vaughan from 3Space, and Helen Legg, Director, Spike Island.