POP UP STUDIOS
Pop Up Studios - Providing creative workspace for creative small businesses....
Our mission is to provide low cost creative art space in the centre of Lewes, in a series of small studios in the old fire brigade building. An emphasis is placed on providing space for practitioners who work in a community setting and have an ethos of environmental sustainability.
Back History
Pop Up Studios was created in 2008 by a small group of 5 artists. They found the semi-derelict building, a former Communication Control Building for East Sussex Fire Service, on the delapitated Phoenix Estate. At the time, the only artists studios on the estate were Zu Studios...The building was built mid 1980's we think.
The building had been empty for many year prior to Pop Up being created, having formerly been squatted over the years, and the car park/gardens being used as a local teenage party hangout. The group approached the then landlord Charles Styles of Angel Properties, who agreed to let a small handful of artists use his properties initially for nothing, but to pay the council rates in exchange.
Jessie, Lex, Matt & Dorothy came in & refurbished the building, initially only using the top floor studios. Gradually over the years the growing artists community refurbished the whole building, creating more studio spaces on the first floor and a rehearsal space on the ground floor.
The Present Story
Sixteen years on we are now a thriving Arts Co-operative of 26 core members using inside studio spaces, with additional people using Pop Up Studios for storage of their key arts materials, for rehearsals and space sharing
We have developed our former abandoned grass area to a beautiful permaculture garden growing seasonal vegetables and flowers, which occasionaly hosts learning groups like local schools, 3VA and The Permaculture Association holding permaculture workshops.
We also have an outside Carpentry area which is available for outside users to hire for shorter projects which need carpentry tools. Please contact us for details about this if you are interested.
We meet monthly at our Community meet up, to decide collectively [by consensus] on key decisions about the running of Pop Up.
If you are interested in joining us as an artist or want to contribute your art to our outside space do contact us through our contacts page.
Hopes & Inspirations
We love Pop Up Studios and know that our members contribute a lot to the town of Lewes and our local community... Check out our audit above to see how much we contribute! Of course, we would love to keep growing our wonderful Arts co-op, stay in our building and keep supporting all the artists/ creatives who work within us.
We know our site may be developed in the years to come and so if you have a building in Lewes which could possibly house our amazing arts community please do get in touch. We'd love to hear from you as we grow into the future.
We are actively now looking for a low cost arts studio to relocate to in the next year as a community.
