The economic value generated by artists is widely recognised, as well as their significance as the underlying foundation of one of the biggest industries in London, the creative industry. However, in a city with ever increasing land prices and ever diminishing availability of spaces, existing artists communities are being quickly replaced and displaced, and the natural and maybe inevitable fate of artist’s studio providers is to move out of London. But if artists are the basis for social and cultural innovativeness, what does this mean for the city in the long term? What is the cultural and social value of keeping artists' studios in the city?

This research project, a collaboration with SPACE, proposes to adopt relational mapping as a tool to investigate, visualise, understand and communicate the ecosystem of cultural and social relations between artists and the city and, by constructing London’s cultural map from its foundations, the artists themselves, it aims to give tangibility to what is lost when the city is emptied of its content.

Keywords: social value, creative industries, creative entreprise zones, affordable workspaces, existing city, urban transformation, relational mapping, socio-spatial relationships, interdependencies, artists’ studios, cultural impact, urban replacement, displacement.

WHO IS ABOARD?

Collaborators:
Eline van der Vlist - SPACE  
Fiona Furness - SPACE 

Researchers:
Carsten Jungfer - Aboard and UEL 
Fernanda Palmieri - Aboard, UEL and CSM
Oscar Brito-Gonzalez - CSM

Co-researchers:
Hackney Team (UEL): Agata Nyckowska, Aya Nasr, Federica Guarini, Haleema Ahmed, Mariam Touray, Michael Ngam, Robert Venning, Roos Boerma.
Fish Island Team (CSM): April Chen, Asha De Lanerolle, Daria Stanuica, Piers Woodward, Star Charles, Torben Lillegraven.

Research Participants:
30 London based artists and 2 creative enterprises - SPACE members

Status: ongoing

Support: SPACE, and the Mayor of London (GLA - CEZ Team)

This project is an extension of the teaching work we do at University of East London and Central Saint Martins.

Students aboard:

UEL BA Architecture design studio - Unit A - academic year 2022-2023: Tutors: Carsten Jungfer and Fernanda Palmieri

Year 3: Adrienne Raleigh, Karen Moussaid, Milesa Khan, Mohamed Dif, Sami Begum, Samuel Littlewood, Sonia-Elena Stefanescu, Tobias Scriven, Zoe Kalou.
Year 2: Agata Nyckowska, Daniel Ferrari, Gonzalo Belil, Kledjan Mangaj, Maharshikumar Patel, Marwan Tawfik, Tatiana Teca Nsamba.

CSM BA Architecture design studio - Studio 2 - academic year 2022-2023:
Tutors: Oscar Brito-Gonzalez and Fernanda Palmieri

Year 3: Star Charles, Shih-yin Chen, Asha De Ianerolle, Mariia Ivanova, Torben Lillegraven, Lily Livermore, Alina Sili, Daria-ioana Stainuica, Piers Woodward
Year 2: Zhiyue Ma, Zaineb Abbaci, Matt Cheung, Sirui Li, James Owens, Valentin Purgin, Oscar Roberts, Mert Tektas, Yujin Wang, Belle Zhai.