"Carlisle's all about edges, borders, the delineation of one thing and another. It's on the edge of England, or maybe the edge of Scotland. It's a border town, a frontier place, a fringe; the edge of every empire that the ...Read More
The third stop on the Empty Shops Network tour (the second, Shoreham, was so manic it goes unblogged) is Carlisle. It's a bewildering, beautiful and bewitching city. I'm staying in a moderately grotty guesthouse a few minutes outside the city centre. ...Read More
A couple of years ago I ran a small local arts organisation, the Revolutionary Arts Group, struggling with no resources to stage artist-led festivals and open studio events, and using non-traditional venues for exhibitions- an old bakers, a functioning church, ...Read More
A week ago, I joined a small group of other people running organisations exploring meanwhile projects and temporary spaces, to see how we could work together and collaborate. One of the ideas I put forward was a touring project, creating a ...Read More
I've probably made some old Tory very happy today; I got on my bike in search of work. Specifically, hunting down empty shops to use in Shoreham-by-Sea. In the Empty Shops Network's home town of Worthing, the Borough Council has forged ...Read More
What makes towns tick? I've been visiting a lot of town centres on the quest to fill empty shops. Why is Lewes such a lovely place to spend time, while Worthing feels a bit of a wasteland? It's more than just ...Read More
I spent 2009 looking long and hard at empty shops, and where the high street was going wrong. The best bit of all that work was finding the bits where the high street gets it right; the Best Shops in ...Read More
As I've had time and space to work on ideas for empty shops this year, and as I've been able to support others in their work, I've become ever more keenly interested in the ideas, inspiration and ideology behind the ...Read More
The a, b, c, of Empty Shops “The fact that the trees are in blossom very briefly is what makes them important to us.” Tim Anselm (The Beekeepers blog, 1st Apil 2009) This is an agenda for people using empty shops, ...Read More
