 The front of DIY Space For London on 27th July 2017. | |
 | |
| Location | 96-108 Ormside St, London SE15 1TF United Kingdom |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 51°28′57″N0°03′20″W / 51.4824°N 0.0555°W |
| Capacity | 160 |
| Opened | September 2015 |
| Website | |
| diyspaceforlondon | |
DIY Space for London was a volunteer-run social centre, music venue, rehearsal space, and creative hub formerly located at 96-108 Ormside Street in South Bermondsey, London. [1] [2]
The space opened in September 2015 after the founding collective at first struggled for two years to find a suitable location. [3] [4]
The collective, started in 2012, raised £20,000 through benefit gigs, events, and community grants to secure a five year lease. [5]
Inspired by other social centres such as 1 in 12 Club in Bradford, their goal was to, "create a sustainable, collectively run space to put gigs on, hold meetings and building a communal infrastructure" that would be "run by its members and open for anyone to get involved in." [4] [6] It had ten interlinked volunteer collectives taking care of running the space. [4]
Whether volunteering or attending, the space was both functionally and legally a members' club. As of June 2017 this was over 5000 members. [7]
Volunteers of the space hosted a radio show showcasing the type of musicians to appear there on NTS Radio between 2016 and 2017.
From 2016 to 2019 the space was the venue for First Timers, a yearly series of workshops culminating in a two day festival that encourages "new faces and voices in bands", in order to "do something about the lack of diversity in the music community". [8]
Over the weekend of 2-4 June 2017, DIY Diaspora Punx (a collective started by Stephanie Phillips of Big Joanie, and also containing other London musicians such as Ray Aggs) put on the first Decolonise Fest at DIY Space for London. Decolonise Fest is the UK's first music festival created by and for people of colour. [9] The second edition of the festival (again mostly held at DIY Space) occurred from 22 to 24 June 2018, with a third over 29 to 30 June 2019.
On 12 June 2020 the collective announced due to temporary closures enforced due to the COVID-19 pandemic they had been unable to renew their lease on their current premises and would be seeking a new location. [10] [11]
Artists that have performed at the venue include: [12] [13]
ABC No Rio is a collectively-run non-profit arts organization on New York City's Lower East Side. It was founded in 1980 in a squat at 156 Rivington Street, following the eviction of the 1979-80 Real Estate Show. The centre featured an art gallery space, a zine library, a darkroom, a silkscreening studio, and public computer lab. In addition, it played host to a number of radical projects including weekly hardcore punk matinees and the city Food Not Bombs collective.
The Smell is an all-ages, alcohol and drug-free, punk rock and experimental music venue in Downtown Los Angeles, California. The Smell, notable for its DIY ethic, is home to many of the area's avant-garde performers and artists. The venue is maintained by Jim Smith, one of the four original organizers of the club, and a number of volunteers.
Self-managed social centres in the United Kingdom can be found in squatted, rented, mortgaged and fully owned buildings. These self-managed social centres differ from community centres in that they are self-organised under anti-authoritarian principles and volunteer-run, without any assistance from the state. The largest number have occurred in London from the 1980s onwards, although projects exist in most cities across the UK, linked in a network. Squatted social centres tend to be quickly evicted and therefore some projects deliberately choose a short-term existence, such as A-Spire in Leeds or the Okasional Café in Manchester. Longer term social centres include the 1 in 12 Club in Bradford, the Cowley Club in Brighton and the Sumac Centre in Nottingham, which are co-operatively owned.
Seomra Spraoi was a self-managed social centre in Dublin, Ireland which first opened in 2004 and closed in 2015. It was run on a not-for-profit basis by an anti-capitalist collective with anarchist principles.
The Mr. Roboto Project is a Do It Yourself (DIY) nonprofit volunteer-run cooperative venue and show space in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Since the fall of 2011, it has been located at 5106 Penn Avenue. The structure of The Mr. Roboto Project was modeled partially after the 924 Gilman St club in Berkeley, CA, combined with elements of the East End Food Co-op in Pittsburgh, PA.
RockCorps is a pro-social marketing and entertainment company that uses music to inspire people to take action by volunteering and getting involved in their community. RockCorps' principal idea is "Give, Get Given”. They do this by producing concerts with exclusive entry tied to participating in a 4 hour community volunteer project. To date, over 180,000 volunteers have attended more than 50 live concert events, giving over 700,000 hours to volunteering at more than 2,600 global charities.
Joanna Gruesome were a five-piece noise pop band from Cardiff, Wales. The name of the group is a reference to musician Joanna Newsom. They released two albums and a number of singles.
Ray Aggs is a musician based in Glasgow. Primarily known for their distinctive guitar work, influenced by both West African highlife and post-punk, they also sing and play the violin.
Odd Box Records was a British DIY indiepop record label founded in London. In 2016 it was relocated to Cardiff, Wales. It was hailed as a "big presence on the indiepop scene."
Kero Kero Bonito (KKB) are a British indie pop band formed in South London in 2011. The band consists of vocalist Sarah Midori Perry and producers and multi-instrumentalists Gus Lobban and Jamie Bulled.
PAWS are a Scottish alternative rock band formed in Glasgow in 2010. To date, they have released four studio albums via FatCat Records and Ernest Jenning.
Power Lunches Arts Café was a music venue, rehearsal space, and creative hub located on Kingsland Road in Dalston, a district of the London Borough of Hackney. It opened in 2011 and closed in 2015. It started out with gigs planned to be only at weekends, but later became a prominent feature of Hackney’s DIY music scene with gigs most nights every week. Though originally genuinely also a café, it eventually stopped serving food.
The Tuts were an English DIY pop punk, "three-tone" band from Hayes, Greater London. They received extensive coverage from alternative music radio, most notably Amazing Radio, and from music websites such as Louder Than War which published multiple articles on the group, calling them "one of the UK's most exciting bands". The band, particularly frontwoman Nadia Javed, were the subject of a feature in the ITV series Young, British and Muslim in April 2018.
Bonito Generation is the debut studio album by British indie pop band Kero Kero Bonito. A follow-up to the 2013 mixtape, Intro Bonito, this album was released via Double Denim Records on 21 October 2016. Bonito Generation produced six singles: "Picture This", "Lipslap", "Break", "Graduation", "Trampoline", and "Fish Bowl". Music videos were created for "Lipslap", "Break", and "Trampoline".
Dream Nails is an English DIY punk/riot grrrl band from London founded in 2015. The group identify themselves as “punk witches” and are known for their riotous live shows that mix storming punk guitar with sweet three-part harmonies.
The Montague Arms was a music venue located at 289 Queens Road, in the Telegraph Hill ward of Lewisham, on the borders of Peckham and New Cross in south-east London from 1967 until 2018. The pub venue was known for its eccentric decor; which included old fishing-boat lights, a 19th Century carriage containing a stuffed zebra, and an old diving suit.
Big Joanie is a British punk band formed in London in 2013. Its members are Stephanie Phillips and Estella Adeyeri. Founding drummer Chardine Taylor-Stone left the band in 2023. After a few singles and EPs they released their first album in 2018 with Thurston Moore and Eva Prinz's Daydream Library Series, and have since signed to Kill Rock Stars in the U.S.
Deptford Cinema is a volunteer run, not-for-profit, community cinema, art gallery, and occasional music venue, formerly located at 39 Deptford Broadway in the Deptford district of the London Borough of Lewisham. At the time of opening in 2014 it was the borough's only functioning cinema. It has one downstairs screening room with roughly 40 seats, a mixture of traditional velvet movie theatre seating and sofas.
Chardine Taylor-Stone is a British feminist activist, writer and musician. In December 2015 Taylor-Stone founded Stop Rainbow Racism to campaign against the performance of ‘Black face’ at LGBTQ+ Venues. The campaign began in response to a performance by Drag queen Charlie Hides at The Royal Vauxhall Tavern. Taylor-Stone was the drummer for the band Big Joanie, started in 2013. On 5 October 2023, the band announced that Taylor-Stone had left, replaced by an interim drummer for their European tour that month.