A Belfast-based arts collective is calling for more funding for the arts in Northern Ireland and more affordable studio space to help the country’s thriving creative sector.
Vault Artist Studios was formed in 2017 as a community driven, non-profit charity, with the initial intention to transform derelict buildings by bringing them back to life, all while providing much-needed affordable artist studio space.
The multi-disciplinary collective has over 100 members consisting of musicians, circus performers, visual artists, photographers and more. Up until this month, the group had spent three years between studio space on Victoria Street in Belfast city centre and at the Shankill Mission building.
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Prior to this, the group had been based on Tower Street in East Belfast for five years, with the building recently demolished to make way for affordable housing. Now, the group has moved into a new home in Bankmore House on Bedford Street, which gives studio space to 30 artists, as well as a gallery and project space.
Further studio space will come from a move back to the East of the city, with a hub opening soon in the former Masonic Lodge on the lower Newtownards Road.
Speaking to Belfast Live, Rob Hilken, a visual artist on the board of trustees for Vault Artist Studios, said they’re delighted with their new space on Bedford Street.
“This is the best building we’ve ever had,” he said. “The gallery space is incredible and our studios are great here, we’re in a busy part of town with lots of businesses, a lot of developments in the are, so it’s a real opportunity for us to engage with the local community.
“This space is going to be essential for us to manage keeping our studio rents affordable because artists are some of the lowest paid workers in the economy. We use these rentable spaces to continue to be affordable to those who would otherwise struggle.
“We’ve designed the space to be multifunctional and we’re working really closely with Linen Quarter BID and they’re going to be taking on the space to run wellbeing workshops for local people and businesses at lunchtime.
“We have one exhibition a month that we programme for Late Night Art, but in between that, there are groups of artists who come and rent our space and put on their own exhibitions here.”
Reflecting on the nomad status of Vault Artist Studio, with moving from derelict building to derelict building being in the collective’s DNA, Rob said: “With these buildings, there’s always a long-term plan for them which we’re not a part of because we can’t pay commercial rents, so we occupy on a short-term basis.
“When we move in we work hard to get a space immediately working for us. We haven’t got unlimited energy to do this, but we’ve got good energy to make things happen in a short space of time.”
The collective’s first exhibition in their new space is titled ‘Mayday Mayday’, a fitting theme in their new temporary home, with the term being both a distress signal and a rallying call for workers to come together.
It comes as funding for the arts in Northern Ireland is less than a quarter of the sum invested in the Republic of Ireland, and half of that in Wales. Of the estimated 14,500 artists in NI, only 29% can work full-time in the arts, with the majority supplementing their income by taking on multiple jobs.
Visual artist Cathy Scullion curated the exhibition, and took a week off on holiday from her day job to put it together. She said: “The exhibition is all about celebrating workers and the working classes. For me personally, there’s a real worry that as the cost of being an artist rises, we’re basically eliminating the ability for working class people to be able to do this type of work and exist in this world.
“It’s something we should all be really concerned about as working class people have a lot of really important and interesting things to say. I come from a working class background myself and I went back to university later in life because when you were younger it was very much drummed into you that that isn’t for you.
“There are still certain parts of the art world you can feel like you don’t belong, so that’s why this exhibition was personally really important to me to be the first thing to launch this new space.”
As for the importance of collectives such as Vault at a time when the costs of being an artist are on the rise, Rob sadi: “We provide studios to people that don’t necessarily make a full-time living from their art, which is very hard to do. Most people have other work, but to justify having a studio that is expensive would just push a lot of people out of the sector.
“So by having this affordable studio space we can include people of all demographics. The whole spectrum of the arts is here, so that’s really important to the city and brings an energy to this place that is so unique.”
Such groups also add to the fabric of the city, with exhibitions being a central part of the monthly Late Night Art event on the first Thursday of each month at galleries around the city.
Rob said it provides a vital space to get people interested in the arts and to meet new people, with community engagement a vital part of Vault’s mission.
He said: “We have a lot of students who come to the exhibitions, young artists moving to the city who want to meet other artists and embed themselves in the scene. The gallery does a lot for lots of different people.
“We’re hoping local people, the businesses and communities in the local area start to see us as a place where they can come and socialise. Some people don’t necessarily want to go to a pub, or maybe they don’t know anybody in the area, but it’s quite easy to just talk to somebody about a piece of art on the wall.
“On the other side of us there are flats, there are people living in this immediate area. We always have a goal to have an impact locally, we see ourselves as a community of artists and artists in the community as very much a two-sided thing about why we exist.”
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