As SET opens a new gallery space in the city, Ella Slater asks how non-commercial arts organisations are continuing to thrive in the city despite years of cuts and instability.
SET has long been a ubiquitous presence in the London art world. Since its origins as a Bermondsey gathering spot for a small group of artists in 2016, its studio buildings now house over a thousand artists and are the pinnacle of affordable arts work spaces in the capital. The organisation’s social iterations, such as the former HMRC vault and music venue SET Vault, or SET Social’s Peckham community centre set-up, are frequented by artists and non-artists alike. Its cultural programming, which ranges from an annual film festival to itinerant exhibitions, has formerly occupied a converted Starbucks, a mattress shop, and a Mothercare crèche.
In September of this year, SET opened its first in-house, professionalised gallery: SET91. Located in a shopfront townhouse, the exhibition space is enviable, with an abundance of white walls and large, rounded windows which frame the streets of central Shoreditch. It is a marked shift for an organisation known primarily for its characterful transformations of unoccupied buildings, which – in London – are a rare commodity. The opening of SET91 is also a uniquely positive gesture amidst an environment of austerity cuts and political turmoil which shadows the operation of non-commercial arts organisations. As other beloved nonprofit spaces in the city disappear – such as San Mei and Streatham Space Projects, which both closed earlier this year – SET’s expansion into a professionalised model is significant, exemplary of the organisation’s “against-all-odds” determinism.
The first exhibition at SET91, curated by Ellie Dobbs and Verity Monroe, is titled Scaffolds, a theme which alludes to the ways in which formal and self-imposed limitations can provoke creative affect, as well as the ways in which these restrictions are inherent to London’s cultural climate. Works such as Natasja Mabesoone’s Yeah, and, so (2025) transform ostensibly trivial filler words into pervasive, autonomous expressions, stamped onto the walls. Bellah (2025), a 3D-printed sculptural work by the SET resident Tawfik Naas, depicts a balah (بلح – an unripe date cluster) containing the head of a tulip, transforming the inherited trauma suggested by atavism into an opening of hybridity and expansiveness. All use limitations – aimed to subdue, or oppress – into acts of positivity.
As Roland Fischer-Vousden, one of SET’s founders and directors, tells me, SET91 exemplifies an uncompromising belief that “culture isn’t best served when it’s shaped by the market, but rather when it’s a reflection of the ideas produced by communities making artwork.” For artists themselves, particularly those who are not represented by commercial galleries or cannot make a living from their practice (according to DACS, over eighty per cent of artists experience unstable earnings), the non-commercial and community-focused model is imperative. “One of the best things about being in a community-focused arts organisation is the environment it creates,” Naas tells me. “I haven’t felt that sense of connection since university, and it makes a world of difference”.
Non-commercial gallery spaces are also vital to removing the barriers of entry to exhibiting, allowing artists without such representation to experiment and develop their practices without the pressures of needing to cater to the market. Fischer-Vousden insists that this benefits more than just the art world: “Non-commercial spaces offer neighbourhoods free access to culture, opportunities to participate, and safe, inclusive environments in a city where access is increasingly limited,” he says. “They widen who gets to make and who gets to be seen, so they’re just as much about social justice as they are about art.”
SET’s model relies primarily on its adoption of meanwhile-use buildings, which consists of short-term leases enabling the use of otherwise empty properties. Much of the organisation’s growth in previous years has been facilitated by the increase in these ‘Category B’ sites following the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent uptake in remote working. “We recognised early on in SET’s life that London does not lack buildings,” Fischer-Vousden tells me, “It lacks accessible and affordable ones.”
While the use of these sites enables SET to provide some of the most affordable studio spaces in the city, it also comes with various challenges, the most significant of which is a lack of long-term security. SET Woolwich – a huge former office block which housed hundreds of artist studios, a community café, a shared garden, and the aforementioned SET Vault since 2021 – shut its doors this September, as did SET Ealing. As artist Olivia England, who had a studio in the latter, tells me, “The feasibility of finding a similar space looks slim; demand is so high, and the waiting lists can take years.” Fischer-Vousden is aware of the disruption that this instability can cause, and sees meanwhile-use as a “stepping stone” rather than a conclusive solution: “That is why we are advocating for better policies, longer affordable leases, and the development of permanent centres that can provide the stability artists and communities need.”
Other non-commercial operations have combatted the lack of public funding and increasing competitiveness of grants within the arts with a reliance on private funding. Good Eye Projects is a London-based residency programme founded in 2022 by the artist Anna Woodward and Scott Franklin of Property Guardian Protection (PGP), a company which manages the occupation of temporarily vacant properties. Earlier this year, they altered their funding model to incorporate the support of two major patrons, Gigi Surel of Teaspoon Projects, and Tom Leahy of ARC, who – as well as providing security and financial freedom – have contributed their own artistic experience to Good Eye’s programming.
Models such as these, which incorporate patronage as well as the sharing of expertise and practical support of artists, can provide crucial lifelines to organisations like Good Eye, which don’t have the income stream of studio rent. Woodward is optimistic about their uptake: “I think everyone is slowly coming together to support each other,” she tells me. “Now, in the fourth year of Good Eye Projects, we’re really starting to see these conversations happen.” This is a larger trend within the London art world: two new privately funded nonprofit spaces, Yan Du Projects and Ibraaz, have opened in the city this month. The uptake in these independent galleries allows for programming able to support underrepresented and emerging practices freely, without the constraints of market trends or the conditions of public grants.
Much like meanwhile-use, private funding can be immensely useful, though it is finite and therefore not a sustainable solution. Fisher-Vousden talks of longer lease length security in meanwhile-use contracts, and minimum terms to encourage charitable investment in projects. LAASN, a network of affordable artist studio providers (including SET), has recently developed the Herbert Affordability Formula, which calculates levels of affordability based on artists’ real earnings, rather than market rates. Implementing this standard would support not only individual artists’ incomes, but London’s cultural sector and artistic output as a whole.
The East-London based Auto Italia is an example of the critical discourse, community engagement, and experimental art practices that can emerge when an organisation is granted long-term dedicated space. Having started within a squatted Peckham car garage in 2007, and then moving between a series of donated buildings across London for ten years, Auto Italia has occupied its current Bethnal Green site since 2016. It has since developed a programme of politically engaged exhibitions, and participation events in collaboration with artists, charitable organisations, schools, and community groups. “Dedicated, long-term, affordable space is super important as it allows organisations to develop a strategic vision, form an identity, and thus leverage more funding and opportunities to sustain long-term support and growth,” Dr Maggie Matić, the organisation’s director, tells me.
Auto Italia’s programme is also exemplary of an activist engagement allowed by non-commercial operations. Recent exhibitions by the likes of Bernice Mulenga and Nazanin Noori have emphasised political narratives of resistance and solidarity. “In recent years, we have witnessed two major and intertwined political shifts,” Matić says, “the first being a rising focus on diversity, inclusion and reparative justice, and the second being a retaliatory rise in right-wing populism and fascism.” The result is an uptake in performative inclusion and optics-based politics, as well as censorship and threat to those who engage with discussions surrounding – for example – trans rights, the genocide in Gaza, and Black liberation. As a consequence, the work of spaces protecting this discourse is becoming increasingly important. “We need art spaces that foster critical, rigorous, and meaningful dialogue, encourage experimentation, and provide platforms for collective reflection, resistance, and transformative organising,” Matić summarises.
The future of spaces such as SET, Good Eye Projects and Auto Italia, as well as others across the city – Gasworks, Cubitt, and Studio Voltaire, to name a few – require structural support and long-term planning akin to that of housing or transport. While their operations are crucial examples of community-building and cultural programming despite adverse circumstances, it is these circumstances that we need to address if we want to maintain a city-wide art ecosystem which values the entirety of its artists. Fischer-Vousden captures this situation powerfully: “SET 91 shows what is possible when community, curatorial care, and affordable space come together. But meanwhile-use alone will not secure that achievement for the long term. If London values its cultural ecosystem, it must invest in it.”
