Temporary School Reunion

Remember the Temporary School of Thought?



A year ago, an amazing collection of people gathered in a huge squatted townhouse in Mayfair and held a three-week long free university, with classes in everything from welding to maze-making to how to think about infrastructure and the case for and against art school.

If I hadn't gone down to the Temporary School, most of the things I did in 2009 would never have happened.

It was there that I met Vinay, Mike and the rest of the crew that became the Institute for Collapsonomics. Conversations during those weeks led me to start writing Social Media vs the Recession and The Future of Unemployment, and from there to the beginnings of Signpostr and Space Makers. And it was Steph, one of the organisers of the Temporary School, who co-piloted the Treehouse Gallery in Regents Park, where I spent much of last summer.

The Temporary School was a magical time and space - so when I realised, earlier this week, that we'd reached its first anniversary, it seemed like a good idea to organise a Temporary School Reunion.

This has been thrown together very quickly - but then, that was the spirit that made the original Mayfair school work. It's all happening this Saturday - 9 January down in Brixton.

In keeping with the Temporary School spirit, the reunion will make temporary use of an empty space - this time, one of the shops at Brixton Village/Granville Arcade - the indoor market where Julia and I have been running the Space Makers project over the last few months. We'll be in Unit 40, on the back row of the market, kicking off at 11am on Saturday and running until the market closes at 6pm.

The schedule is still coming together - but Vinay will be giving an updated version of his famous Infrastructure for Anarchists talk at 3pm. And I'll be on at 4.30, giving a very long perspective on the crisis of the university, inspired by the later writings of Ivan Illich. If you want to offer a workshop or lead a discussion, leave a comment here - or just turn up before 11am on Saturday morning and we'll find you a slot.

Next door in Units 41/42, there will be public rehearsals of masked improvisation from theatre collective Firstborn, as part of the Space Station festival - with a performance at 4.30. While a few doors down, the Okido Doodle Shop will be running events for kids.

Whether you were part of the Mayfair School, or only read about it in the papers, come along and help us rekindle some of that spirit. Hopefully it will burn as brightly through 2010 as it has over the past twelve months.

Speaking of keeping warm - we recommend you wear warm clothes and, if you can, bring a cushion or a folding seat! Some seating will be provided...

* For more on the history of the Temporary School, check out this post.

* For directions to Brixton Village/Granville Arcade, go here - it's only three minutes from Brixton tube.

Exciting Space Makers news!

It's been such a busy few days, it's taken me a while to update this blog with some very exciting Space Makers news.

Last week, we agreed a project with the owners of Brixton Village indoor market (the old Granville arcade). This is an amazing space - a 1930s building, a couple of minutes from Brixton tube - which is already home to all kinds of local businesses and artists studios. Check out this 360deg panorama from Urban 75 to get a sense of why we were so excited when we first went to visit it.

At the moment, there are twenty empty shops in the market - and the owners had approached Lambeth Council to talk about ways of bringing in new occupants. The council introduced them to us - and over a series of conversations, we got them excited about our approach to reusing empty space.

So over the next few months, we'll be finding and supporting a range of projects, businesses and organisations to take on shops in the market. Some will be temporary pop-up projects, some will be permanent. We're looking for ideas at the moment - from local organisations, businesses, artists and others. If you're interested in getting involved, then sign up for our Space Race event, which is a chance to meet our partners and find out about the practicalities of taking on a space:

Tues 10th November, 4.30-9pm - Brixton Village, Coldharbour Lane

We'll be accepting proposals from the 10th onwards and the first wave of occupants will be going into the market soon afterwards. The Brixton project is being led by Julia Shalet, one of our first group of Space Makers Associates - and most of the rest of the gang will be getting involved.

I'm really excited about what we can do with this project. It's a chance to show that the empty shops movement which has sprung up around the UK this year has a role to play in the longer-term future of our local economies. And it's the first of a number of Space Makers Agency projects over the next few months which will build on the conversations and connections made through the Space Makers Network.