Measuring A Unit of One Year
HELEN MURPHY AND NICK PELLING
For one precise year, a young artist, Bee Nicholls, initiated, set-up and ran the ‘Unit 2’ Art Space at the sea-end of London Road. It was her vision and her gamble. She did not and could not, of course, do it on her own: she was helped immensely by her friends and family and her indefatigable partner and fellow artist, Luke ‘Mully’ Mulligan. As the year has just ended, we caught up with her to see how she felt about her experiment in the heart of what she calls “The St Leonards Universe.”
Unit 2: The Last Picture Show
We asked first what it felt like to set up a gallery in the current cultural and economic climate. She began by politely dismantling the question: what they had created at Unit 2 wasn’t quite a ‘gallery’ as such. “The word that doesn’t quite fit with the spirit of Unit 2.” What they were trying to do instead was create a space that was “a resource: led by artists for artists.”
She elaborated the general idea that they were simply creating an environment in which artists could grow, both in terms of creative ideas but, just as importantly, as someone validated by other like-minded refuseniks. It was, she admits, exhausting at times but the “enthusiasm from the local artistic community gave me energy”.
GRIT IN THE NORMALITY MACHINE
Bee herself studied Fine Art at the Slade School and now has a studio in the Old Ambulance Station in Bexhill. But, she was clear that “The St Leonards art scene is like no other, the sheer volume of artists working and living here is next level – there is great quality but also some grit to it.” This last comment we interpreted to be a reference to the dogged refusal to give in to normality that seems to hang in the sea air over this town.
Of course, financing such a venture would always be a headache. Extraordinarily, Unit 2 did not take commission on work sold, and the price charged for hire of the space was just what it took to meet the bills and therefore “at a workable price point”. Low costs were fundamentally made possible by the fact that it was run entirely by volunteers – indeed the whole venture was run on a not-for-profit basis. The artists often hung their own work and, if so motivated, brought their own bar! In the process, relative novices could learn to curate and talk (and drink) at the same time.
THE WHITE ROOMS OF POSSIBILITY
But running such a space also came with the sort of problems that often send artists running away screaming. As Bee put it: “The building itself was a wild ride – dealing with damp and rotten floor boards was a bit outside of my skill set.” (Suddenly, we realised that this was what might have happened to Edvard Munch.) But Bee’s artsy entourage set-to with paint brushes and hammered the space into the white rooms of possibility that defined Unit 2.
Undoubtedly, one of the great achievements of Unit 2 was the fact that over 500 artists – ranging from the occasional art superstar to hundreds of first-timers just setting out on the rocky road of art-being – were given a forum in a total of 36 shows in one frantic year. Bee added that “It’s also a credit to the local scene that so many people wanted to come here – we hosted artists and curators from London, Brighton, Scotland and even Italy, the Netherlands and Poland.” Evidently, St Leonards has some sort of gravitational pull of its own.
NO GATES, NO GIFTS
Unit 2 was by any measure a great success. It signed off with a wonderful last show, Epigeal, which was heaving with people. Unit 2 brought home the simple fact that physical space, where people can just be, is vital to the breathing spirit of art. The art experience does not have to be sifted and sold downwards by what Bee calls “gatekeepers”, with the inevitable gift shop at the end. It can spring into being from artists themselves. And in that demotic fact surely lies the essence of Bee’s wonderful achievement. We thank you.
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