Open for Art

The first Open For Art venue was launched on Friday 27 November at 173 Friar Street with an exhibition curated by Caversham artist, Bithja Moor entitled Peepshow.

Three more venues will be installed in the next few weeks and information on where you can find them in Reading can be found right here

Open for Art is a partnership project between jelly and Reading UK CIC, utilising Reading's empty shop windows with art from Reading based artists. This follows a successful pilot project in June 2009 creating pop-up galleries in Reading. Working with the landlords and agents of Reading we will be using temporary spaces, creating a visual profile for the arts and showing Reading's individuality as a town.

There is further demand by many individual artists and groups including Hang-on Artists and the Experimental Film Festival. Development of the Open for Art project would enable a Borough wide project working in partnership with the independent Arts sector supporting areas with empty shop units.

Benefits of the project:
• profile raising of Reading and its creative community
• engaging local people and the local creative community, including people who may not normally have access to the arts
• improving environment – including tidying up and painting of empty units, making units more desirable as lettable units
• improving the area – making the area a more desirable place to visit by offering a visual arts programme of high quality local artists

In the first year it is estimated that the programme will engage with:
• 72 emerging to mid--career professional artists (based on 3 venues live at any one point)
• nuture and develop emerging arts groups.
• A significant number of the public
The work being undertaken by the independent creative community, led by jelly, in Reading has identified link projects across the Reading area, both within the Town Centre and associated activities in the areas identified below:
*North Reading (Caversham Artists)
*South Reading (Whitley Arts Festival)
*East Reading (Whiteknights and Reading University)
*West Reading (Open Hand Studios, Reading Spaces Studios, Moondogs)

jelly has a long track record of working in the Town centre from it’s initial beginnings in a temporary unit in 1993 to including working with landlords in sites such as 10 Gun Street (known during the period as Gallery 10) installing 13 exhibitions in an 11 month period.

How to become involved:
We are looking for artists, either individuals and groups who have an idea, these could either be a group of works ready to exhibit or making a piece specific to the sites available. All submissions/ proposals should be made directly to Suzanne Stallard, via email suzanne@jelly.org.uk. If you have a specific location or certain requirements please outline these in your application. The proposal need be no more than 500 words and you will also need to submit jpegs of you current work practice. Application is an ongoing process and all submissions are welcome.




jelly is an arts organisation in the heart of Reading. Established in 1993 as an artist led studio and exhibition facility, jelly is a registered charity limited by guarantee 1100730, running exhibitions, educational activities, special arts events with the visual arts and creative excellence being top of our agenda.

Reading UK CIC is a business-led economic development company. It aims to: promote and sustain the economic development of Reading to achieve sustainable prosperity for those that live, work, play, do business and invest in the area.

This project is being supported by Cream Design, Fryer Holt, Brook Henderson, Hicks Baker, Sackville Developments (Reading) Ltd, Reading Borough Council


More info available here