Within my art, I have realised the importance of “creating alternative spaces” to me. I am very passionate about questioning the way in which we behave in and treat art spaces, whether that is the rave, the gallery or community clubs centred around the arts. I am also interested in merging these differing spaces together, allowing for norms of each “scene” to exist in others where they usually wouldn’t. Conceptualising this idea of the interspace has felt difficult, as my need for it stems from my own personal aversions to certain traits of both the underground music scenes and the art worlds which I traverse in.

My work for Gallery 46 was a short film entitled Circular Intersections, which was my first exploration of this idea of the interspace. Visuals of rave / dance spaces were paired in sequences with visuals of gallery spaces. These were also constrasted with visuals of nature, music making in the private sphere, and dances from South African tribal traditions. I was attempting to contextualise how interwined these differing visuals were, forging connections between my hobbies, education, and heritage.

The soundtrack that accompanied Circular Intersections used techniques such as musique concrete, dubbing techniques, live instrumentation and original synthesis to create music that spanned between ambient, minimal / glitch house, and industrial breaks. I believe it is important that, like Circular Intersections demonstrated, we are able to emjoy a multitude of sounds together in the same space, and across the different spaces that we traverse. I therefore want to create spaces that can fascilitate this idea, and art that acts as so- and that is what I will design the interspace to be.

Based on my experience of cultural freehaven spaces such as Het Groene Veld in Amsterdam, I have seen that spaces such as these do exist, and can exist in perfect coexistence with our everyday lives. This will be an important feature of the interspace, as I have found that a lot of art spaces are only accessible at certain times, which may not coincide with the schedules of people wanting to immerse themselves in the environment. This is most clearly seen in the fact that the majority of (London) raves occur in the late hours of the night into the early hours of the morning. People with dayjobs, children, or even those wanting to optimise their sleep health therefore cannot particpate in raves, regardless of wanting to. Many gallery spaces, on the other hand, may only be opened from the hours on 10am to 5pm, again becoming inaccessible to those with dayjobs, amongst a host of other groups. Perhaps this points to why the UK has a large pub culture, as it is the most accessible social hub for most people.

Continuing to define the interspace will be a research process I work alongside my exploration of cultural freehavens. I will immerse myself in such environments, documenting them through photo, video, and most importantly, audio interview. Whilst this will be a basis for my research in documenting the cultural freehaven, it will also be utilised as material to repurpose within my art.