Spike Island Reinvents Studio Model For The 21st Century
Open Weekend Launches New Vision For Artist Workspace

Spike Island, a leading national centre for the production and exhibition of contemporary art in the UK, has completed a £2.25m redevelopment by award-winning architects Caruso St John with substantial contribution to the redesign by artists Hayley Tompkins and Sue Tompkins. The project has recently been short-listed for an RIBA Award. Spike Island is re-launching on May Bank Holiday (4/6 May) with an open studios weekend and an opportunity to see current exhibitions by Mark Lewis and Mahali O'Hare.

Press Preview: Thursday 3 May, 11.30hrs - 15.00hrs. Full information including an itinerary from London is attached.

Spike Island has reinvented the studio model creating a varied and flexible series of facilities that respond to the needs of artists and others developing their careers within the contemporary visual arts. The new infrastructure not only provides excellent research and work space, but Caruso St John has designed highly impressive exhibition spaces at the heart of the building, creating some of the best gallery space in the UK for showing contemporary art. Investing in the development of new work is a key priority. Whether it is through the international residency programme or through links made to the fast growing arts community in Bristol, Spike Island is a unique hub for a broad range of visual arts practice, supporting emerging and established artists equally.

The thriving artists' complex houses seventy large, affordable studios able to accommodate a wide range of artists. Amongst the more established are: Eamon O'Kane, Mariele Neudecker, John Wood & Paul Harrison, Andrew Mania and Mahali O'Hare. The new gallery spaces will showcase work commissioned through the Residency Programme, for which Spike Island has become renowned. In 2007 Spike Island will host artists including: Can Altay from Turkey; Terhi Heino, Tanja Koistila and Olli Keranen from Finland and Andre Sousa from Portugal. Birmingham based artist Ruth Claxton has been selected for the Arts Council South West Residency for 2007 and projects with Sonia Boyce, David Blandy and Becky Shaw will also take place this year.

The newly launched Associate Programme complements the studio spaces and provides further flexible facilities for artists, writers and curators who need different sorts of information and working environments. Situated within a new library and production space, the programme is devoted to the development of 'an ideas culture', inviting shared knowledge and a habit of collaboration.

Spike Island will always be led by the visual arts and aims for a sustainable economy. In addition to the rental of the artists' studios, the organisation makes over two thirds of its annual turnover through letting to creative companies. The University of the West of England base their entire Fine Art Undergraduate programme within the building. In April, Spike Design will open, offering desk space, advice and mentoring to over 20 new design companies. Spike Design will foster a new generation of designers. The impact of this mix under one roof is felt across the creative community in Bristol. Spike Island's new energies and comprehensive vision increases Bristol's rich cultural offer, and further supports the city's aspiration as a dynamic centre of excellence in the UK.

Lucy Byatt, Artistic Director, Spike Island says: "'We remain close to the values of the artist led origins of Spike Island. However this development has been a fantastic opportunity to re-invent the studio model of the 80's, take from it all that we continue to require and identify a set of new priorities for the 21st century. Investment in the development of new work is vital here. Through the residency programme or through the work we do within the fast growing arts community in Bristol, Spike Island plays an essential role in ensuring a lively, informed and dynamic arts community. We can offer an active and stimulating environment and some of the best facilities in the UK to artists and others working within the contemporary visual arts"

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FORTHCOMING EXHIBITIONS AT SPIKE ISLAND

5 April - 27 May 2006
Gallery 2
Mark Lewis
Howlin' Wolf

Mark Lewis' films are remarkable not only for their rich and highly seductive qualities, but also for their extraordinary ability to undermine those characteristics that define mainstream and avant-garde cinema. Lewis draws parallels between the film and art worlds and suggests that the evolution of film and technology are intrinsically linked to other visual cultures.

Spike Island is delighted to be showing a series of works by Mark Lewis. Rear Projection (Molly Parker) and Rear Projection (Golden Rod) were commissioned by FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology) in partnership with the British Film Institute and Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporaneo. Funded by Film London through the London Artists' Film and Video Awards and Arts Council England. Other works have been made available courtesy of the artist and the Arts Council Collection.

Gallery 1
Mahali O'Hare
Kindling Wood

Mahali O'Hare's paintings are small. They are of a size that makes every minute detail of vital importance; from the depth of the stretcher to the edge and fold of the canvas. The way in which they are hung in the space does not instruct a narrative but it is difficult to resist building one's own. The images seem to have been painted somewhere beneath the surface of the paint. O'Hare is sparing with her information yet we know that each work has emerged from photography, not the large glamorous silky image but the slightly dog eared photograph that might be found in the pages of an old book or at the back of a drawer.

Project Space
INTER Exchange
Helsinki to Bristol and back again

Olli Keränen - Terhi Heino - Tanja Koistila - Karen Di Franco - Toby Huddlestone - John Lawrence - Lisa Scantlebury

This project has been made possible through funding and support by; FRAME, HIAP, Spike Island, STATION and Arts Council South West.

Funding Organisations
The development of Spike Island has been funded by Arts Council England Lottery, South West RDA, Bristol City Council, The Rayne Foundation, The Rootstien Hopkins Trust.

About Spike Island
Spike Island, formerly Bristol Art Space, began as an artist-run initiative in the late 1970s. Since then it has become recognised as a national centre for the research and development of contemporary visual arts. It now offers 70 studio spaces for artists and following the capital development, will provide artists with the space, time and opportunity to research, produce and present work relating to the visual arts within a supportive and stimulating environment. These opportunities are offered within the context of an international programme of projects, events and exhibitions.

The capital redevelopment has made the most of Spike Island's large spaces and a number of new initiatives have been established as part of the capital development. These include:

Residency Programme
Since the 1980s, Spike Island has placed a strong emphasis on international exchange. The Henry Moore Foundation, Gulbenkian Foundation, Visiting Arts and the Arts Council England have all supported the programme, bringing a considerable number of artists to Spike Island from across the UK and from many other countries. The residency programme has provided the majority of the exhibitions at Spike Island in the past. Recently a distinction has been made between Production Residencies where artists have been invited to make work for an exhibition, and Research Residencies where there is no expectation of a culminating show, but the development of an event or studio practice.

Artists' residencies before the re-development have led to new commissions by Lucy Gunning, Runa Islam and Jaqueline Donachie, Kevin Reid and Ganghut and James Ireland. Curatorial residencies have included Juliana Engberg, now Director of ACCA in Melbourne and Nav Haq, curator at Gasworks. For full details of the past programme, please see www.spikeisland.org.uk.

About Caruso St John Architects
Caruso St John Architects was established by Adam Caruso and Peter St John in 1990, and has since gained an international reputation for excellence in designing contemporary projects in the public realm. The practice is perhaps best known for the New Art Gallery in Walsall, a commission won in an international competition in 1995. The £16 million new building contains spaces for temporary exhibitions and for a large permanent collection, together with extensive educational facilities. The gallery opened to wide public acclaim in 2000, and has won awards for its architecture, its programmes and its outreach.

Since the completion of the New Art Gallery, the practice has worked for many institutional and private clients in the field of museums and galleries. They have worked for the National Gallery and for the V&A on the refurbishment and extension of the Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green and most recently they have been appointed architects to Tate Britain. In 2004 they completed the new Gagosian Gallery in Britannia Street, Kings Cross, and they are currently on site with a new Centre for Contemporary Art in Nottingham, due to open in 2008. Their sensitivity to the installation of a wide range of art has also led to invitations to design exhibitions at a number of leading institutions, including the British Museum, Hayward Gallery, Tate Britain, Tate Modern, the Cartier Foundation in Paris, the Pitti Palace in Florence, and the Kunsthaus Bregenz.

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