Satellite Studios: Salon

The Satellite Studios programme has run since 2013 and currently has studios at The Mildmays (a trio of extra care settings in Dalston), Arts and Media School Islington (AMSI) in Finsbury Park, and Lee Samuel House in Brixton.

The programme investigates and celebrates the value of artists in social settings. In each location, we’ve developed a bespoke model where artists, setting staff and residents and students, and Cubitt all benefit from being involved. 

The Salon is a disused hair dressing salon and lounge room in Lee Samuel House, a sheltered accommodation setting in Brixton. This project was developed as a partnership with Notting Hill Genesis who manage this setting and provide activities for the residents who live there. Two studios in the converted salon on the first floor of Lee Samuel House are being launched in 2020. Cubitt is working with 198 Contemporary Arts and Learning based in Brixton to manage the artists in residence and support them to work closely with residents and members of the local community.

The first artist to take up residence is Sandi Hudson-Francis who lives locally and has been working with 198 Contemporary Arts and Learning to produce a film portrait of 'Sam the Wheels' a well-known Brixton resident who is now in his 90s. Sam worked in a bicycle factory in his youth and keep a bicycle repair workshop in his front room to this day. As part of a HLF-funded project Sandi will be digitising Sam's super 8 films which document life in Brixton from the 1950s to 1980s. Sandi and Sam will also be using the studio to make films together and hosting social events for residents in Lee Samuel House.

Current resident artists:

Sandi Hudson-Francis: My creative practise stems from a curiosity and desire to explore issues around culture, identity race, the preservation of the past and how society integrates around its people, its buildings and its spaces. Developing my own understanding of the complexities of the past and the ways in which this shapes the present.

I am drawn towards objects, people and architecture and their presence within the city that often go unnoticed. I am especially interested in older people and objects and have a compulsion to try to preserve and archive their presence. My work is underpinned by issues of immigration and how cultures are shaping the city and contemporary life. Having myself grown up in a single parent family, and being a mixed-race female I am increasingly sensitive towards–and conscious of–what it means to belong and I find myself committed to exploring ideas of identity, class, gender, race and colour. In my work, I aim to challenge notions of how we perceive ourselves and others and how we interact with the city and its history. What cultural practices people take from ‘home’ and contribute to society are of particular interest to me and documenting this through photography, oral history, film, drawing and sculpture is where I find myself today. 

198 Contemporary Arts and Learning is a centre for visual arts, education and creative enterprise. Our work is framed by our local communities and the history of the Brixton uprisings from which we sprang. Our programming is informed by a policy context that calls for greater action on equality, and is shaped by unfulfilled demand for diverse visual arts and new pathways to creative careers. Our stakeholders include: artists and curators of colour , young people from BAMER communities seeking careers in the creative industries, audiences seeking more diverse visual arts, our local community and partner arts and community organisations. 198 works with emerging and mid-career creative and cultural professionals to develop projects which provide a forum for participation, exchange and appreciation of visual culture. We use the interaction between diverse cultures, generations and social backgrounds as a catalyst for the creative process engaging with global issues while being rooted in the history of our locality. We work with young people aged 13-25 offering skills development; one-to-one support, advice and mentoring to provide young people with opportunities to have a voice, reconnect with learning and work towards careers in the creative and cultural industries.