Artists from the Making Space, a co-operatively run workshop space in the centre of Huddersfield, celebrated the launch of their 10th birthday book at the Byram Arcade.

The book ‘Making Space in Huddersfield: celebrating 10 years of The Making Space’ details 10 years of eclectic artistic interventions by their members in Huddersfield and the surrounding area.

In that time they’ve staged an exhibition inspired by beetroot featuring work by seven artists, installed beehives on a town centre shopping centre roof for two years, created a “bone listening” sound installation where people listened to sounds through their chin, responded to the Covid pandemic by creatively re-imagining safe distance floor markings which they installed on the floor of Cafe Ollo in Huddersfield’s Media Centre, collaborated with artificial intelligence to make a new artwork for an exhibition and brought art and culture to the high street in three empty shops.

Founded in 2014, and based since 2016 in LG13, a basement room at Huddersfield Media Centre, among the 30 participants over the years are artists, puppet makers, textile designers, mechanical and electrical engineers, sound artists, electronics hackers, programmers and poets.

LG13 has been a workshop, a materials and tools store, hosted skills and knowledge sharing sessions, music rehearsal and recording, film screenings, tidying-up parties and numerous meetings to plan and produce exhibitions and events.

Having The Making Space in LG13 also created a clearing house for second hand furniture, diverting tables and chairs being thrown away by other tenants of the Media Centre out of landfill and into continued use by community organisations such as Thread Republic, Collaborarti and ame, all based at the Piazza Arts Centre.

 

 

Amy Hirst, who started the project with fellow artist Rachel Walker, said: “Rachel and I started The Making Space in 2014 because we wanted to create a place where people from different disciplines could come together and share different types of making, whether that be crafting, art, engineering, textile design or digital.

“We set it up using a co-operative model so that whoever joined us would help shape its direction.

“What’s given me the greatest joy over the last 10 years hasn’t been my own things but seeing the fabulous creations and collaborations that have come about through this shared space we initiated.

“Without all our members’ commitment, energy and skills, our initial idea in 2014 wouldn’t have evolved into the diverse collective that it is today and we send all members past and present a huge vote of thanks on our 10th birthday.

“We’re also incredibly grateful to the Media Centre who backed our idea by offering us a permanent space in 2016.

“Until then we’d used lots of temporary spaces and didn’t have a place where people could work on projects together.

“We are always open to new people getting involved, everybody can make something. Everyone who joins is an expert in something and a beginner in other things – they just have to be interested in learning and sharing.”

 

 

The artists from The Making Space hope that by sharing their story through their new book they can have a wider impact.

Andrew Wilson, one of the founder members of The Making Space, said: “We believe there is a growing body of evidence that shows that initiatives like the Making Space, alongside scrap stores, artist-run studios and music venues with a similar ethos have a hugely positive impact on towns and cities across the UK.

“We think that regeneration of high streets can happen best through local government support for the work of multiple small local organisations, both arts and cultural organisations and locally-owned commercial businesses, rather than through risky investments in multi-million pound demolition and new building schemes.”

The book is available to buy from:

Byram Art & Design Studio,
36, Byram Arcade,
Westgate,
Huddersfield,
HD1 1ND.

To buy a copy of the book or explore being involved with The Making Space in Huddersfield, e-mail or visit their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/themakingspacehudds

Launch images by: Zak Brierley