‘Belfast arts collective looking to the future after setting up first city centre location’
Jonathan Brennan of Vault Artist Studios in their new city centre gallery
(Image: Justin Kernoghan/Belfast Live)
Jane Corscadden Sat 14 Oct 2023.
Belfast Live came to speak with us on the launch of our new Gallery / Project Space in Belfast city centre:
An art collective in Belfast is looking to the future after opening its first location in the city centre.
Vault Artist Studios has over 100 members and is the only multi-disciplinary studio space in Northern Ireland. The group, which offers affordable studio space, was evicted from its previous location on Tower Street in East Belfast after five years as the building is to be demolished to make way for affordable housing.
Following this move, the collective has opened new spaces on Victoria Street in the city centre and at the Shankill Mission building.
Their city centre location, Marlborough House, is available for a maximum of two years as plans have been submitted to develop the site into 120 luxury apartments. This would involve the partial demolition of the building and redevelopment of an attached listed building.
The collective's lease at the Shankill Mission building is for a longer period of nine years, giving the group a sense of permanency.
We headed down to the collective's new gallery and project space in the city centre for a chat with creatives involved in Vault, to see what they love about being involved and what having their first city centre space means to them.
Jonathan Brennan from Vault Artist Studios told Belfast Live: "At a time when a lot of studio buildings have had to move out of the city due to redevelopment, it's great to be in the city centre; it's a great location. We've had people just calling in to find out what's going on.
"There were hundreds of people in here on Thursday night for our launch event. Pulling together the space and event was a nice moment for our community, as it pulled together our work and artists from both buildings in terms of getting the space and artwork together.
"For ourselves, we've found that sense of community again, but we all love having people in. We had old faces who had followed us from the old building, and new people who work in the city and maybe don't know about our Late Night Art series - it's a visible spot so can attract people in."
Over the past week or so of their new building, people have been calling in to find out what Vault is all about. Their new gallery exhibition 'It's All Your Vault' features artworks inspired by the past, present, and future of the collective, providing a retrospective look over their past six years.
The team highlighted the lack of government support and funding for the arts industry, despite Northern Ireland's vast number of creatives working hard to make the region unique.
"The lack of a permanent studio space is telling. Belfast has a lot of studios compared to other places, but even in places like Dublin they're trying things like an artist living wage and there's more funding," Jonathan explained.
"Everybody here is a professional artist, it can be a difficult environment with a lack of support. A lot of time arts can be pitted against important areas like health for funding.
"Hopefully this city centre presence and getting more people into events can help change attitudes or even highlight the cool things happening.
"There can be concerns of places becoming homogenous. We tread a line where it's thanks to a developer we have this building, and it's got us to where we are now."
Elaine Taylor is a visual artist specialising in wire sculpture, who owns her own business, Anann's Arch, and has been involved with Vault since the beginning.
She said she is proud to be part of the community at Vault, and highlighted that it is one of the only affordable studio spaces in the city. Elaine said she's hoping their new locations will lead to more people finding out about the great projects happening within Belfast.
"I don't know if I'd be an artist if I didn't take it and get involved with Vault, if I would've made the connections - one of the first jobs I got was through connections I made with people in the building," she added.
"Our whole model is based on the fact we can go into any building, occupy it, and leave whenever the owners get their planning permission. Ideally, I would love a permanent space, but any other spaces I can't afford.
"It means we can keep our rents affordable, it's great. Every time you go past, it's great to see this here, instead of a building that's going to lie empty for a few years. You see people going past and wondering what the building is about."
Sally O'Dowd and her husband Rob Hilken are both visual artists who run Studio Disco, and have both been Vaulters from the beginning too.
Sally said creating their new gallery space has really brought their community together and allowed them to reflect on the past few years.
She said: "We were all feeling quite disjointed and just being in there, whether it was knocking down walls or hoovering up dust, being with other Vaulters and working with other people to a deadline, and opening the doors to over 500 people there on Thursday night. It was a great feeling.
"People were so happy and excited to see another gallery and project space in the centre of the city. To see so many of our posters and events we've done over the past six years made me stop and think that this is really good.
"Belfast is busting with artists and creative people. We have so many people looking for studios and the number of people coming to events really highlights the buzz."
Read the full article on Belfast Live.