residence, community/cultural, event
Apparata, 2020
A House for Artists (AHFA) is an experiment in communal living and working, that seeks to embed artists very directly into the local community in a meaningful way. The model combines 12 rented flats, occupied by artists and their families/flatmates, with a ground floor community/work space. Each artist in the house volunteers their time to shape different strands of a growing public programme.
Barking
Barking
5, 238
A House for Artists is less than 10 minutes walk from Barking Station.
The apartments are accessed via level ground, then a choice of either stairs or lift.
Seating will be provided in our downstairs space where visitors will be hosted for the workshop and talk.
A House for Artists was commissioned to provide flexible living space for artists and their families, with ground-floor shared workspaces and a public programming space.
This combination of public-facing spaces and artist studios is a first in the UK as a housing model. Almost five years on the artists living in AHFA are focussed on maintaining the long term sustainability of this approach to being embedded in the local community.
A House for Artists was co-commissioned by Create London and London Borough of Barking & Dagenham, and designed by APPARATA, an architecture, design and research practice based in East London.
So far our free arts programme has grown to include:
- an intergenerational family arts club
- still life and life drawing classes
- a ceramics studio offering workshops and long term courses
- a community cinema and community darkroom for processing super8 and 16mm film
- a book club
- photography workshops
Each resident works on a strand of the programme, drawing on the expertise of their artistic practice and collaborations with other artists/cultural organisations.
Rehearsal Spaces Fellowship is a programme by Kin Structures, funding artist fellowship placements in summer/autumn 2026. A House for Artists will be working with Kin Structures this year to host our first external artist in residence, providing an opportunity to explore ideas around place-based, spatial justice issues that connect to our work as an artist-led space in London.
As we continue to develop a sustainable working model and governance structure for AHFA we're inviting the artist to explore and dream alongside us as we question:
● What our role can/should be as artists working in the community in this way
● What it could look like to base an artistic practice around being of ‘use’ to a neighbourhood
● How our thinking might shift from the hyper-local to a wider community of artists and artists-led spaces?
● How we translate experimental and process driven ways of creating to organising within AHFA?
