News - Chalkwell Hall

METAL gets the go ahead for its ambitions plans to create a carbon neutral artist’s residency space in Southend-on-Sea.

The Grade II listed property, based in the well used, public, Chalkwell Park will become a catalyst for debate and creative projects, led by artists, that brings together local expertise with international ideas across disciplines and sectors. 

Architect, Bill Dunster at Zedfactory, and visual artists, Ackroyd and Harvey have been working with Metal to design the house, and build a set of ideas for future activities within the local landscape. 

Planning permission has now been granted for the proposed renovations, with work due to start in May 2008. 

The building will reopen in March 2009.

Working in partnership with Southend Borough Council, Arts Council England East (ACEE) and East of England Developent Agency, Metal put together a creative design team to work with us on the possibilities for the renovated house.

We invited Ackroyd and Harvey, and Bill Dunster from Zedfactory Architects to work with us.  We set out with the ambition to create a carbon neutral space within a Grade II listed building that provides an inspirational, comfortable, ‘domestic’ space for artists and the community to find common ground in ideas and aspirations for art and culture in civic life. 

The refurbishment of the house has been designed to create four rooms for accommodation to enable the best of international, national and local artists to reside and work at Chalkwell Hall.

An extended ground floor gives us a flexible, shared space for a variety of arts activities including workshops, exhibitions, discussion, debate, professional development, sharing ideas and experience, seminars, arts courses for all ages and across disciplines and sectors.  The house is ideally situated to attract all ages and backgrounds to participate in events and opportunities being situated in a public park when passers by are at leisure with time on their hands.

We have designed the house to work on a number of levels, and be the embodiment of the activities and philosophy that will be continued within the space by Metal.

The top floor has been specifically and carefully designed to create the ‘crown’ of the building providing a stunning space from both inside and out.  Led by the desire to incorporate sufficient renewable technologies, to ensure that the house has the best chance of operating on a carbon neutral basis, the design that we have agreed also acts as a beacon for the house locally.  Wind turbines and glass photovoltaic tiles send a clear signal of its reinvigorated purpose within the local community (the house has been unused for many years), and provides a bold statement about the intentions for contemporary and relevant debate and activity, whilst respecting and maintaining the best of the building’s history and past.

The interior of the roof space will play a very significant role in the work that Metal does by providing an inspiring and meaningful space to house the ‘artist’s think tank’  - the vehicle by which Metal will work with artists, policy makers, government representatives and other sectors to ensure that the thinking and experience of work on the ground level is articulated, shared and used in thinking at policy level. 

Activities

The house will support a number of different activities, as follows:-

Sharing the space   

A project space that builds a relationship with its immediate environment, locality and community, inviting local groups to utilise the space as a venue for their events, classes, meetings, seminars, showing work, sharing ideas, workshops etc. 

In this way,Chalkwell Hall will bring out current ‘hidden’ activity and give it a visibility that will enable it to attract greater participation, more support and make a larger contribution to the cultural life of the Borough.

Developing and Delivering projects        

Creating opportunities and finding funding for a wide variety of arts projects to be developed, both at the house, and elsewhere throughout the region – with an emphasis on advocating the role of culture, and promoting new ideas and new thinking in areas of regeneration and change.

In this way, Metal aims to create direct relationships with projects and partnerships throughout the Thames Gateway region – to find opportunities for culture, and to fully participate in making a contribution to the developing region.

Artists in Residence

Inviting artists (from across the UK and overseas) of all disciplines to come and live in the house for short             periods of time to develop ideas, relationships and work.  These residencies will be process-led and developmental but will inevitably lead to creative events, projects and outcomes.

In this way, Metal aims to ensure that the debates, ideas, networks and projects are constantly being re-invigorated with external perceptions, experience, knowledge and inspiration.

An Artist – led Think Tank  

A series of debates, conversation, commissioned writing and a bi – annual event that will bring together artists from around the world with individuals from other sectors (community, business, politics, regeneration etc) to exchange opinions, ideas, find common ground, locate opportunity etc.  The emphasis will be on discussing creative approaches to current issues / challenges and opportunities facing Britain today. 

The 3 current issues Metal has identified as a focus in forming the think tank are:- climate change; social cohesion and the current massive drive in urban regeneration.

In this way, Metal aims to ensure that ideas and opportunities find the best internal support networks, as well as the widest audience in terms of disseminating thinking and successful process.

AGA dinner series   

Ongoing, informal conversations / debates around home cooked food.

In this way, Metal will ensure constant dialogue, conversation, relationships and networking across disciplines, cultures and sectors on an on-going, intimate scale.

 

Ambitions For Chalkwell Hall

Local

The house has the potential to create a facility that can unify the currently large and lively creativity that exists in Southend Borough, but that has traditionally existed in ‘pockets’ of activity that can easily hide it from general view.  Bringing this together to create on-going conversation, shared resources, ideas, strengthened relationships and a common purpose will make a significant contribution to a strengthened local cultural ecology.

The ambition is to invite local individuals, groups, schools and others in to the space to create work and help think through issues with artists.  This will manifest in a number of different ways – from one to one meeting’s, facilitated seminars and workshops through to light, small-scale production of work, and will always have a focus / starting point in an artist’s idea, thought or ambition.

The available rooms and space at the Hall will be shared with other local groups needing space for meetings, courses and other appropriate activities.

Partnerships throughout Southend Borough will be actively sought with a wide variety of artists, organisations, groups, individuals, institutions, agencies and business.  In particular, Chalkwell Hall will aim to feed in to the stated ambitions of Southend Borough Council to become the cultural hub of the East of England, and with Renaissance Southend and the University of Essex Southend Campus on the developing masterplan and cultural ambitions for the centre of Southend.

 

Regional

We would like to use our experience, partnerships and excellent national and international networks to build a programme of work throughout the region – residencies, projects, training/development opportunities, action research, commissions – that will all feed back into the think tank at Chalkwell Hall.

Thames Gateway and Thurrock has been identified as London’s major growth area.  It is the first and biggest of the Government's four growth areas identified in the Sustainable Communities Plan, launched by the Deputy Prime Minister in February 2003.  It spans 40 miles and includes an estimated 142,000 new homes and 235,000 new jobs over the next 15 years.

Stated aims for the region in relation to arts and culture present Metal with a very real opportunity to develop and realise our vision within the Thames Gateway and Thurrock.  Conversations and partnerships that Metal has already begun in the region support this belief.

By developing this programme of work in Thurrock and Thames Gateway we are ensuring that we maximise the unique set of circumstances that currently exist in this region.   As an identified national priority for regeneration, innovative ideas and solutions developed within this region will be well placed to attract interest from policy makers and those who can influence attitudes at a governmental level.  This region is also well situated for artists to create a relationship with, and for, the cultural Olympiad over the following four years, due for 2012. 

The plan for Chalkwell hall demonstrates a regional aspiration to take brave, new and imaginative thinking around culture and the arts and embed it into community and civic life.

 

National

Metal believes that in the future artists can play a more central role in the thinking, planning and actualising of community and civic life – and in particular at times of change and regeneration.

Our ambition is that Chalkwell Hall will develop a national profile for creating the best examples of innovative and experimental thinking – alongside ‘on the ground’ projects that demonstrate and test new ideas and ways of working.

We will develop methodologies for ensuring that the ideas, work and conversations created have the ability and the profile to make an impact at a regional and national policy level, and we will investigate ways in which projects can be transportable and apply to different towns, cities, regions, institutions and organisations. 

The current UK Government focus on communities, neighbourhoods and regeneration presents an opportunity to maximise the visibility of our programme of work, and in particular the think tank.

Metal are well placed with our experience, reputation and track record with artists and others to ensure that our programme has artistic integrity, and is planned strategically with other agencies and stakeholders to maximise impact.

International

A key part of the work at Chalkwell Hall will be the invitation to respected artists and thinkers from overseas to live and work at the house for short periods of time to develop projects, share knowledge and experience and bring international perspective to the conversations and debates. 

Our ambition is that Chalkwell Hall will develop an international profile for creating the best examples of innovative and experimental thinking – alongside including and learning from examples from other countries, and projects being led by artists overseas.

Through the think tank, and ongoing opportunities for conversation, debate and international exchange we aim to provide and strengthen the network between local, regional and UK based artists, and artists overseas.

 

The Think Tank

The UK is currently facing some huge challenges around climate change, citizenship, education and opportunity that require imaginative thinking, communicating, planning and solutions.  At the same time we are undergoing the biggest rebuilding and regeneration drive since the Victorian era. 

Metal believes that there is a fundamental role that artist’s can fulfil in helping to find innovative and lateral solutions to these challenges facing us in our civic life.

Part of Metal’s aims in the transformation of Chalkwell Hall involves the development of an artist’s ‘think tank’ hub where radical thinking and project activity around the artist’s role can grow from Southend, throughout the Thames Gateway, nationally and internationally. 

The vibrant and creative spaces at Chalkwell are ideally suited to provide an inspiring and meaningful home for this idea.

All Metal’s activity described above would feed into the thinking and development of this think tank – with project outcomes, publications and commissioned writing being disseminated on a regular basis.  Every two years, the think tank would be ‘visualised’ by a bi-annual event that will bring together artists, policy makers, government officials and representatives from other sectors for two weeks for discussion, sharing, debating, networking and relationship building.  The method of ‘engagement’ will be designed and led by the artists and will place an emphasis on individual and personal relationship building and experience – as opposed to the more traditional conference model. 

For two weeks Metal will provide the space and context for creative opinions to be listened to and experiences to be shared, with the aim of inspiring a different kind of thinking and experience for those working at policy level.