Case Study
Hypha Studios
Enabling Hypha Studios to grow its staff team and meet increasing interest from landlords and artists across the UK
(Above) Photo Credit: Carlo Zambon (July 2023)
Who: Hypha Studios finds artists empty buildings which can be used as studios or for exhibitions. By acting as a mediator between landowners and artists, Hypha is making short-term lets feasible for landlords and space freely accessible to artists. This contributes to both local regeneration whilst addressing financial barriers for artists. In return for the free space, artists are encouraged to organise public events and exhibitions, enriching the local community.
What: Having provided core funding to Hypha Studios in 2022, the charity needed further investment to capitalise on progress. A one-year grant in 2023 enabled Hypha to expand its staff team to include a Director, Artist Manager and fundraising specialist. This enabled Hypha to establish relationships with new landowners and negotiate an increase in free studio space for artists.
Hypha now has a good coverage of space available across the UK and since 2022 to date (Aug 2024) has:
• Supported 1352 individual artists, who have exhibited their work, participated in art shows and festivals, grew sales, and were profiled in social media, national and international publications.
• Enabled 563 events for local communities, including gallery tours, film screenings and performance evenings.
• Worked in 56 sites UK wide
• Awarded 35 free artist studios
(Above) Photo Credit: Carlo Zambon
Learning
Community arts events have enabled a sense of local pride. People that do not feel culture is for them have commented they feel more welcome in a Hypha Studio space than in a traditional gallery that can feel daunting or exclusive. Artists report that they value the creative community established by Hypha Studios and have been able to develop their practise at a time when studio rents are increasingly unaffordable.
Through my first months at Hypha, my practice has greatly developed. I have increased my public base, sales and international presence. The studio is beautiful and spacious. Every person that visited the space was positively surprised and congratulated me for this important professional achievement.
Luca Bosani, Hypha Studios supported artist.
(Above) Photo Credit: Carlo Zambon
As a relatively new organisation, Hypha are continuing to finesse their financial model. The charity does not pay to use the properties they occupy (which then artists use for free), so therefore Hypha’s model relies on payments from property owners to manage the properties – to be an agent of regeneration or act as a catalyst for community engagement. The nature of the model means that they need to work at scale to be sustainable, but unlike a lot of other charities, they do not have to rely on public grants to survive. They do need to grow to keep up with demand, and are currently fundraising to create new streams of revenue such as a trading arm to sell the work of the artists they support at the charity, and they have also expanded by working in Wales and are now a registered charity in Scotland.
