After a challenging year, here at LDVA Gallery we are aiming to bring together artist-led spaces in a discussion about how we can collaboratively encourage emerging artists and support artist-led spaces that are moving away from traditional forms of exhibiting. The discussion will also include how we, as galleries and other creative spaces, have had to reposition ourselves during a pandemic.

All participants are from non-profit organisations and artist-led spaces, all working in the field of contemporary art as collaborative and community-integrated.

The panel consists of:

A member of LDVA - LDVA Gallery aims to benefit the local community and promote dialogue between the creative and the public. We have transitioned from LUPA (Lock Up Performance Arts) to LUVA (Lock Up Visual Arts) in 2018 and are currently LDVA (Lock Down Visual Arts) until we can open our garage door again. We are an intergenerational artist-run organisation centring around a lock-up garage in Tower Hamlets. We work with the First Love Foundation food bank and community centre, aiming to reach out to the local community as well as the art community. http://luvagallery.com/

Lucie MacGregor : Garden Wall - An ecological project which stemmed from the creative potential to ‘share’ a front garden, Garden Wall is a DIY approach to curate and collectively question outdoor encounters with art. Considering this space as a vehicle to provoke thought and artistic spectacle whilst adhering to social distancing, neighbours have become collaborators, strangers grown into friends, making processes shifted by seasonal change. Artist and Founder Lucie MacGregor was commissioned by Deptford X Festival 2020 and Volunteer South London to collaborate with a Lewisham resident, in which a gradual exchange occurred establishing the creation of Garden Wall and it’s conversational beginnings. https://www.luciemacgregor.com/

Brockley Gardens- Brockley Gardens are a self-professed "kind of gallery space" located in a small lock-up garage in Brockley, South London. Brockley Garden's images are taken by Reinis Lismanis. https://brockleygardens.com/

Lock In Brighton - Lock In provides a platform for artists working in durational performance to open up a critical debate with their live and non-live audiences. It has recently found a permanent space and now also hosts socially engaged visual art exhibitions. https://lockinbrighton.com/

Convenience Gallery - Convenience Gallery is a contemporary and community arts gallery and collective based in Birkenhead. Working in creative partnerships with artists, organisations and communities. Offering a space for people to engage with art outside of it normalised context, doing this by bringing it into public spaces. Founded in June 2019, Convenience started in Birkenhead Market hosting exhibitions, workshops and talks, making the switch to Bloom Building in January 2020. Bloom is a progressive mental health space, and working there means collectively working with the Open Door Charity looking at how mental health support, creativity and culture work together. https://www.conveniencegallery.org/