Part 2 of a six-part conversation on fixing the art world system: see www.artquest.org.uk/articles/view/system_failure.
The relationship between artists and urban regeneration is long and contentious. In London, the activities of developers, businesses and governments have worked for hundreds of years to move poorer residents - often including visual artists - around the city. Whether artists are the avant grade of regeneration or merely its unwilling pawns remain the subject of divided opinion, but surprisingly little hard research.
What seems more certain is that artists have been both benefitted and hindered by regeneration’s inevitable march. Unfashionable or insalubrious quarters of town - starting from Soho to Covent Garden, then to Clerkenwell, Shoreditch, Dalston and other part of Hackney today, alongside south and south-east London - have always been cheaper for low paid workers like artists, but are eventually replaced with luxury developments that sometimes return again to decay. Artists, as low paid workers, tend toward areas of low rent for accommodation and studios, and are priced out when development begins again. But the difference today is that London as a whole is undergoing enormous regeneration at a faster pace, with whole-scale redevelopment happening quicker than any proposed public interventions.
How can we build truly affordable and sustainable property into London’s fabric, ensuring that artists - and other low-paid workers - can continue to benefit the city? And what responsibilities do artists have to effect this process?
