Take a quick look over our highlights from 2025
January
The annual property conference Space UK 2025 took place at the London Stadium, and our CEO Annie Clements was joined by other culture and property sector leaders and specialists on a panel discussion about Creative Cities. The panel focused on the intersection of culture, property, and urban development, featured the following leaders and specialists. Key topics discussed by the panel included the collaboration between private, public, and charity sectors, the role of culture in city development, and the risks of gentrification where artists are priced out of areas they help develop.
February
We documented the artist residency that took place at our new site in Acton hosted by local art gallery JG Contemporary in collaboration with Creative Land Trust and Mount Anvil. The residency saw the ground floor of The Verdean, Friary Park transformed into a public gallery and working studio, operating an open-door policy that welcomed passersby to engage with the artworks, artists and be involved in workshops.
March
In March we celebrated Alice Billing House’s first birthday. Grow Studios, our studio provider partners organised a celebration which unveiled the results of the community Supper Cloth, which now hangs proudly at the entrance of the South block. The Cloth was produced in collaboration with Stitch School, travelling across the borough and getting contributions from the local community who learned new stitches to use to embellish garments and create wall hangings.
April
In April we announced the fantastic news that we have been awarded £3.8 million from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and other funders, to restore the half and Grade II listed side of Alice Billing House. Additional generous multiyear funding was provided by the Garfield Weston Foundation and Architectural Heritage Fund as well as London Legacy Development Corporation and London Borough of Newham. The project benefits from ongoing advice and support from heritage conservation specialists at Historic England. This has allowed us to begin refurbishment works on the North block, set to double the capacity of studios available and create new publicly accessible space, scheduled to open in 2027.
May
It was an honour to connect with and work alongside likeminded organisations from across the globe who are tackling issues around permanency of affordable artist studios at the inaugural Creative Land Trust Summit in San Francisco. The conference was hosted by Kenneth Rainin Foundation in partnership with the World Cities Culture Forum. Our Operations Manager, Yves Blais took the stage to share experiences of Creative Land Trust in London, while learning from others about their models and approaches. We exchanged ideas and learning from peers all over the world, at all junctions of the journey in their respective towns and cities, the start of a network of exchange of ideas, resources, ways of working and opportunities.
June
Sadiq Khan mentions Creative Land Trust at the First ever SXSW London, as one of the initiative devised to tackle the loss of creative workspaces by protecting artists and studio providers from the pressure of unstable leases and rising rents. This was captured on Marie Claire, written by Bakul Kapti.
July
Gemma Dean represents Creative Land Trust, alongside East Street Arts in Leeds, as a speaker, during the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Visual Arts and Artists in Parliament. We discussed the pressing issue of studio space affordability and sustainability for artists and makers by sharing successful approaches to securing long-term studio provision.
Creative Land Trust Summit 2025, World Cities Forum
September
As of 2025, three buildings are up and running, hosting 178 artists and creatives as well as ongoing outreach programmes, residencies and events. Alice Billing House (via our partner Grow Studios) and Wallis Road Studios (via Mainyard Studios) took part in the Open House Festival by inviting the public to meet the artists where they work.
Our Head of Development Gemma Dean, spoke at the Creative Property Industries Summit, which was about redefining the relationship between real estate and the creative industry and Creative Land Trust’s continuing focus on creating affordable workspace for creatives in the capital.
October
Creative Land Trust worked closely with Dr Susan Jones, an independent researcher and commentator specialising in close examination of the interrelationships between artists and the infrastructures for the contemporary visual arts. The result is the report Artists’ lives: ecologies for resilience. The report uncovers some valuable insights into the lives of artists and their macro and micro environments both at work, in their solo, dual and portfolio lives that include their artists’ practice.
The project is a close study of visual artists’ motivations and ambitions for their lives and art practices shows the importance of having time and space for professional reflection and making artistic progress. In combination with access to research and development funding, studio facilities make a significant contribution to artists’ development and their social well-being over time as they deal with the uncertain artistic and economic conditions of the creative industries.
November
In November, we joined Figurative who partnered us with previously with funding to support the fit out of our Wallis Road Studios, at the Annual Portfolio Day at Somerset House and were able to meet with other arts organisations who have taken on financing in a similar way. Find out more about Figurative’s work in this feature in Arts Professional.
Newham based artist Sam Ikhuoria created and exhibited the work he produced during his artist-in-residence, which he completed in July. The work responds to the multifaceted uses of Alice Billing House over the last 60 years, from former firefighers’ accommodation, to environmental health council offices and a film set.
December
A few of the team were guests at a Christies’ Lates event at their showrooms in St James. An evening filled with art, music, discussion and workshops. Most original of all was our first encounter of the evening with writer Luke Erasmus Davis, sitting at J.R.R. Tolkien’s desk.
With a simple prompt from us he said he would write a poem. And he did! In response to the question ‘What will art mean to us in the 22nd century? He bashed out (literally, on an old Imperial typewriter!) the following, in all of 45 seconds:
We have streamlined our lives: we have optimised for efficiency we have maximised our productivity
we have revolutionised our workflow
we have stripped back our leisure time
we have ordered the computer to order the lunch
we have ordered the computer to write the poem, the love letter
the declaration of undying
the very passionate confession of forever
we have done away with imagination
not having a use for it
as a future projection
as an extrapolation of current trends currently
done better
by the machine and we feel curiously free
quite light and very frictionless
as we glide through our days
with no gap whatsoever between the
formation of the desire and its fulfilment