New artists studios opened at Chiswick House Gardens

Image: Chiswick House; Photograph Andre Pattenden

London’s Deputy Mayor for Culture and the Creative Industries drops in to cut the ribbon on the first phase of a £6.4m project to secure Chiswick House & Gardens’ future

The new artists’ studios at Chiswick House were opened this morning by the Deputy Mayor for London Justine Simons OBE and Deputy Leader of Hounslow Cllr Tom Bruce.

The Grade I listed gardeners’ outhouses have been refurbished over the last five months to create 19 studios with money from both the Mayor’s office and LB Hounslow and other organisations.

Images: New artists studios

“Inundated with interest from artists”

Chiswick House Trust has been inundated with interest from artists, Director Xanthe Arvanitakis told those who were invited to the opening.

“Not everyone was fully behind the new uses,” she said, “but we have been working with multiple community groups; we had 250 expressions of interest and 50 of the artists and makers who have been shortlisted came to have a look around yesterday.”

The artists are being encouraged to pair up and share space so the new studios are able to house as many as possible. The rent will be ‘affordable’, which in this instance means it is subsidised to be less than the market value. The artists are expected to move in over the summer.

Images: Interior of one of the empty studios; LB Hounslow Deputy Leader Cllr Tom Bruce with Director of Chiswick House & Gardens Trust Xanthe Arvanitakis

A new revenue stream for Chiswick House Trust

The aim is to address the shortage of studio space available for artists and makers, but also to provide Chiswick House Trust with a new revenue stream.

Xanthe said she had come into her new job as Director of Chiswick House Trust in March 2020 just before the Pandemic had started shutting everything down. They had made the decision to keep the gardens open.

“It demonstrated even more the great demand for outdoor space,” she said, but at the same time they faced huge financial problems because of the loss of revenue from events and have sought ever since to put their finances on a more sustainable footing. The artists’ rent will provide a new revenue stream for the Trust.

Image: Deputy Mayor of London Justine Simons and Xanthe Arvanitakis with a group in the Kitchen Garden

Phase ‘1A’ of the Creative Campus

The opening of the artists’ studios this summer is phase “1A” of the creation of a ‘Creative Campus’ with future plans including getting rid of what she called “the asbestos shed” to launch a new learning facility for schools.

They had hoped to rescue a 17th Century walled garden to create a community Fruit Garden as well, but may have to rethink this part of the plan because they found out just last week the results of the soil samples, which found a heavy presence of lead.

Image: Justine Simons and Xanthe Arvanitakis ‘flower pounding’, to make a design on a handkerchief with the imprint of the flowers

“London is a city of makers”

The gardens are looking magnificent, especially the Kitchen Garden, where the deputy mayor met volunteers on their mid-morning coffee break from weeding. She was offered a biscuit and decided against a chocolate one, agreeing that the combination of her spotless white dress and chocolate biscuits would be “a disaster waiting to happen.”

She also had a go at ‘flower pounding’ – hammering cut flowers between two pieces of cloth to make a design on a handkerchief with the imprint of the flowers.

“What an honour to open the Creative Campus at Chiswick House and Gardens,” she said. “For the artists and makers – they won’t be lost for inspiration in 65 acres of natural beauty. It’s a very special place.”

Image: The Kitchen Garden looking glorious

Justine Simons was appointed Deputy Mayor for Culture and the Creative Industries by Sadiq Khan but she has also worked with Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson, playing a central role in the cultural transformation of London for two decades.

She led the capital’s biggest ever festival for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games with over 5000 events, and established the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square. She has also been instrumental in creating London’s Creative Enterprise Zones, shaping the investment strategy for the creative industries covering film, fashion, games and design.

Image: (L to R) LB Hounslow Cabinet Member for Culture Cllr Salman Shaheen; LB Hounslow Depty Leader Cllr Tom Bruce; Director of Chiswick House & Gardens Trust Xanthe Arvanitakis; Deputy Mayor for Culture and the Creative Industries Justine Simons; Chiswick House & Gardens Trustee Taz Virdee; Department for Culture, Media & Sport Rachel Wadsworth; LB Hounslow Interim Chief Executive Mandy Skinner

She described London as “a city of makers, doers and dreamers. From fashion to film, art to architecture, music to design. The creative industries are a vital thread in the dynamic fabric of our city. In fact, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that London runs on creative energy – it’s the fuel that drives us.

“And even though times are incredibly tough, London’s creative economy is fighting back.”

The creative industries generate £63bn a year, she told the audience, but culture is also about supporting health and wellbeing, offering young people a positive life path, revitalizing our neighbourhoods and bringing our communities together.

Image: Chiswick House Trust Head Gardener Rosie Fyles with LB Hounslow Cabinet Member for Culture Cllr Salman Shaheen in one of the new artists’ studios, formerly a stable

Across London 67% of affordable creative spaces have closed since 2014. What the Mayor’s office is trying to do is to ensure artists can afford to carry on working in London, and to that end Justine said she and  Mayor Sadiq Khan had set up Creative Enterprise Zones across London to “future-proof” London as “a world creative capital.

“And the good news is – they are working… By next year we will have delivered a massive 71,000 square meters of new affordable creative workspace. Helped over 5,000 young Londoners to get into the creative industries. And supported 1000 creative businesses. At least 40% of which will have diverse leadership. So the impact is clear.”

She ended her speech with an apt quote from Audrey Hepburn: “To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.”

Image: Chiswick House Gardens volunteers on their morning coffee break

Chiswick House Creative Campus part of broader west London strategy for the arts

Cllr Tom Bruce thanked Xanthe for what she had achieved at Chiswick House, saying he and his family really enjoyed using the gardens.

“This sort of thing really matters to us,” he said, “the potential and the opportunities it presents.”

Hounslow was one of the first six boroughs to benefit from funding for a Creative Enterprise Zone, enabling it to support young people with programmes to help them get work in the arts and to create permanent and affordable creative spaces, with match funding from the creative industries. The borough is applying for re-accreditation this summer.

It has enabled them to create the ‘Digital Dock’ on Brentford High Street, providing space for collaboration, skills development and networking, and they have just given planning permission for The Vinyl Factory to create new film production facilities at the Gillette Building. They also support Brentford artists’ Creative Mile open studios in September.

Image: Produce from the Kitchen Garden

The studios at Chiswick House have been developed in partnership with the charity ASC (Artist Studio Company). Among the artists who have expressed an interest are graphic artists, painters, textile artists, ceramicists and a puppet maker.

The studios, and the wider Community and Creative Campus of which they form a part, have been made possible by generous support from a range of funders including Mayor of London, the London Borough of Hounslow, National Lottery Heritage Fund, The Linbury Trust, Garfield Weston Foundation, The Wolfson Foundation, Kusuma Trust, Foyle Foundation, Clore Duffield Foundation, Bernard Sunley Foundation, The Swire Charitable Trust and the Architectural Heritage Foundation.

The Trust has already secured over £4.4m of the £6.4m budget for the Community & Creative Campus, of which Hounslow has committed £1.2 million.  The Mayor’s office contributed £180,000 to this first phase, the development of the artists studios, and Hounslow put in £200,000.

Image: Produce from the Kitchen Garden

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