3. Babbyland: Learning in the Wild

Two weeks ago, we opened the doors to Babbyland by Gabriel Gustard in Hartlepool - a space conjured from nothing but borrowed time, favours and a stubborn belief that art belongs to everyone.

There was no budget.

Just a room in Bloominart Studios, 4 Scarborough Street, a vision and a community willing to step into the unknown.

This isn’t a blog about Gabriel’s work - although it was brilliant. This is about what I learned. What it means to produce something without money, without infrastructure and without a blueprint in Hartlepool. 

Notes from the Doorway

People won’t come in unless they’re brave - having a lovely friendly person on the front door is always helpful.

You can put up a sign - even two. You can write 

ART N THA - PTO 

on one side and 

SUMMAT A BIT DIFFERENT 

on the other.

Still, a hundred people will walk past. But one person - just one - might pause, might smile, might step in. 

And that one person will be worth it.

We had two signs. That helped. One perched just outside the door. One down on Church Street, doing its best semaphore to the world beyond. Location matters. But invitation matters more.

We had students wander in after their hand-in. A trio of self-identifying art-goers on their way to Hartlepool Art Gallery. Families from the local area having a day out. Parents and kids who said they didn’t normally come to these kinds of things - but this one felt different.

And it was.

It was an invitation to draw on the walls, rather than to simply come and look. Trust was built! 

A-frame signs can only do so much. The real work should go into the invitation and the welcome.

We had 22 people come through on opening night - invited guests, peers, pals and a smattering of people from the wider arts ecology. The same number came across the full opening. That tells you something. The sector will show up. The curious might wander in. But if you want footfall from real local life, you’ve got to be present in the town’s imagination long before the doors open. Engaging with ‘summat a bit different’ needs to be embedded into our consciousness. I think exhibitions like this - small interventions into everyday life, explained in simple terms whilst engaging with concepts of generational trauma, disability and babyhood - are one brilliant way of developing a ‘scene’ - a collective energy, simply put. They can happen far more regularly than festivals or end-of-year exhibitions.

Something fun. 

And those who did come? They were buzzing.

A mam told us she’d never seen anything like it in town. 

We learned once again that Minecraft has lined children up to engage with a different visual language than those who are less familiar with the pixelness of Gen Z’s favourite pasttime.

I am nosey, so asked and was told that the same family hadn’t been in Hartlepool Art Gallery because they thought it was still a church.

It turns out, what’s experimental in the arts is sometimes just new to everyone else.

And what’s new can feel like a risk.

So you make it feel safe.
You make it feel warm.
You stand near the door and smile.
You tell people they’re welcome.

Learning from the Ring

Last weekend, I found myself somewhere unexpected - in a function room on the edge of Hartlepool, close to Seal Sands, watching my 17-year-old brother Joe step into the ring. It wasn’t packed. Kids hanging off the backs of chairs. Dads with arms folded. Not as tense as I had expected. 

Kush Boxing were promoters and there was a little tuck shop that also sold merch, appropriately branded up with green n tha’. Their brand vibe is weed and the logo is well-designed.

This isn’t the kind of place I usually find myself. I go to galleries. To festivals. To black box theatres where people talk about durational work and dramaturgy and I complain that I’m too hot.

But that night, I stood in a room full of people who turned up - not for art, not for culture, but for each other.

It got me thinking about where people go when they want to feel something. And what it means to build a space that people don’t have to be convinced to enter - because it already belongs to them. 

Luca Rutherford reminded me the other day that ‘all of our work is relational’.

It is about connecting, whether as a producer or as an artist. 

There was nothing polite about the room. It was hot, noisy and emotionally charged. Every punch drew a cheer or a wince. People shouted instructions. Clapped for strangers. 

People cared openly.

And I thought about the quietness of the average gallery. The hushed reverence. The whispered “mmm”s of approval. The stakes in that boxing ring were obvious. You could see the risk. You could hear the impact. But in both spaces - gallery and boxing - people turn up to witness something live. Something real. Something that might not be as expected.

It made me wonder:
What would it look like to make art that people cheered for?
What would it feel like to build spaces where people brought their whole selves - volume and all?

Because the need is the same.
People want somewhere to put their feelings. They want release, recognition, catharsis.
It’s just that in the boxing hall, no one has to second-guess if it’s “allowed.”

At Kush Boxing, the crowd knew the rules. They knew when to clap, when to stand, how to read the pacing of a round. Joe’s teenage pals were useful for the three gays in attendance, who weren’t quite sure how to read what was ‘on stage’. They were our live dramaturgs. 

We were the outsiders. Watching, learning, feeling a beat behind. And that, in itself, was a lesson.

Because that’s how a lot of people feel walking into an art space for the first time. Unsure of the etiquette. Afraid of doing something wrong. Not knowing whether you’re meant to touch the thing. Or if that person over there is looking at you funny because you walked in through the wrong door.

At the match, I didn’t feel excluded - just unfamiliar. But it reminded me how much confidence it takes to step into a space where the language isn’t yours. Where you don’t know what’s expected of you.

Which is exactly how people feel walking past a creative space.

It’s not that they don’t care. It’s not that they’re not interested. It’s that no one ever explained the rules - or told them they could ignore them.

Doing Less, On Purpose

So back to Babbyland -

We didn’t do a poster run.
We didn’t flood Facebook.

We kept it soft. Quiet. On purpose.

Not just because we had no money - though we didn’t. But because Babbyland was never meant to be a spectacle. It was an experiment. A testing ground. A kind of whispered invitation: If you see it, and it speaks to you, come in.

A few Instagram posts. A couple of stories. Word of mouth and good will.

We wanted to see what would happen if we let the work speak first. If we trusted that people would come because they wanted to - not because they were told to.

And truthfully, we wanted to observe. To learn.
Who finds their way in without a campaign behind it?
Who stumbles across it and stays?
Who doesn’t even know it’s there?

Because the answers to those questions are useful. They tell us about reach, yes - but also about access. About perception. About how visible a small, strange, handmade exhibition can be in a place like Hartlepool, especially when it sits just slightly out of the usual footfall, and very far outside the usual expectations of what “art” should be.

It’s easy to think that more marketing means more care.
But sometimes, doing less is the most honest way to listen.

This was never about crowd numbers. It was about finding out what happens when you make space, not noise. And who shows up when you do.

Producing as Caretaking

There’s a version of producing that looks like spreadsheets and logistics. But this wasn’t that. This was closer to caretaking.

It meant unlocking the space early, sweeping the floor, making sure there was a chair by the radiator for someone to sit down if they needed. It meant sitting in the cold doorway, smiling at people who weren’t sure if they were allowed in. It meant answering questions that weren’t really about the art at all - what is this place? what’s it for? are you from here? (I’ve only recently started saying YES to that final question!)

It meant holding the awkwardness of quiet moments and celebrating the joy of unexpected ones.

Producing Babbyland wasn’t about managing a project. It was about tending to something fragile and hopeful. About keeping the temperature right - not just literally (though that too), but emotionally. Relationally.

It was about saying: you’re welcome here, again and again and again, until people started to believe it.

I’ve said it before, but this kind of work doesn’t show up on the funding reports. There’s no line for “softness” in a budget. But it’s the bit that makes everything else possible.

Emotional labour is:

• remembering people’s names;
  

• sensing when someone wants to talk and when they don’t;
  

• translating the work without patronising;
  

• pretending you’re not exhausted when someone finally walks in;
  

• thanking every visitor like they’re your first and only;

• It’s the kind of labour that sits beneath the surface, like scaffolding made of kindness. Invisible, unless it’s missing.

It’s also work that is best done by women, queers, working class people, disabled people - those of us who’ve spent a lifetime reading the room before we speak. And it’s almost never paid for. But without it, spaces like this don’t hold.

Learning in the Wild

We don’t talk enough about what it actually takes to do art in the wild - outside the safety of studios and crits and institutional walls and organisations and local government.

There’s no handover. No bridge between learning and doing. Just networking and a dream.

Over the past year, I’ve spoken with a huge number of creatives - not just new graduates like Gabriel, but also non-graduates desperate to expand their practice, and those with degrees who are trying to reshape or redefine what they do. Some have taken time out, some never felt they had a way in. All of them are looking for something that doesn’t yet exist - a more human route into sustainable creative work.

A large part of my practice has always been about artist development. But not in a top-down, training programme kind of way - more in the shape of conversations and invitations, sneaking things into festivals. Something shaped by what’s needed: from the industry, yes, but also from communities, from the public, from peers who are building their work without a map.

Because the truth is, lots of people don’t know how the system functions. Why would they? There’s no orientation pack. No glossary for terms like “NPO” or “core funding.” Most early-career artists I’ve spoken to don’t know how cultural infrastructure is resourced. They’ve never been shown how their work fits into that ecology - only that they’re outside of it, knocking on the door.

There’s a sense in Hartlepool, that if you build it, they will have work. But most of the staff are coming from outside of Newcastle. Grassroots creativity, in all of its forms, are well placed to support a local economy where creatives are inspired, collaborative and ready for work. The smaller, softer tests encourage innovation and build confidence. More of this, please.

There is little collaboration. There are very few Collectives. There is an appetite to do cool stuff, but it isn’t being harnessed to its fullest yet.

And the only routes creatives are offered tend to feel mismatched. Formal training often feels too theoretical, too bureaucratic, or just not made for them. Meanwhile, the networking circuit can feel transactional and exhausting - propping up an industry we’ve been promised, rather than being encouraged to do their own thing, with their own peers. There’s no one to show them what’s possible. 

There’s a noticeable gap when it comes to skills that could genuinely sustain a practice. Entrepreneurial approaches are often artform-specific, rarely collective. There’s so little talk about how to build your work as a social enterprise, or how to create impact beyond visibility. Very little about making art that changes something - not just art that “raises awareness.”

There’s even less time to be creative together.

But none of this means artists are at the bottom of the pile - even though that’s how neoliberalism works. But if you’re a new graduate, or a creative feeling stuck, my biggest recommendation to any new graduate would be to fake your confidence, inflate your worth and position yourself by the changes that you can make in the world, rather than the money.

We’re not waiting to be let in.
We’re already here.
And together, in number, there is great strength.

Freelance artists, early-career artists, self-taught artists - we’re part of the cultural ecology. Not an afterthought. Not an add-on. We’re essential. And when we connect with one another, when we share tools, share space, share strategies - we start to shift the shape of the whole thing.

Babbyland reminded me of that. Of how powerful it can be to simply make something happen and invite others in. Not to teach, not to lead, but to work alongside - to offer possibility, and ask what’s needed.

Because the future of the arts won’t be built by institutions, government, local, regional or national, or the Arts Council alone.
It’ll be built in shared studios, on borrowed chairs, across WhatsApp groups and kitchen tables.
It already is.

And finally - Intentions I’m carrying forward - 

1. Prioritise warmth over polish

Keep creating spaces that feel soft, human and a bit unfinished - not because you lack the skills, but because the welcome matters more than the aesthetic. Design for comfort before spectacle.

People remember how it felt to be there.

2. Let the work speak softly, but clearly

Embrace minimal marketing and gentle invitations - not out of modesty, but as a way to listen. Pay attention to who finds their way in without the noise, and why. Then embed that learning. 

Not everything needs a flyer. Some things just need a door left slightly ajar.

3. Say yes to nosiness

Keep asking questions in unfamiliar spaces. Stay curious about what makes other kinds of gatherings work. Be nosy, not extractive.

A boxing match, a bingo night, a baby group - there’s always something to learn.

4. Hold space, don’t just fill it

Continue producing with the mindset of a caretaker. Think about the emotional temperature. Think about the welcome. Think about what the space needs to hold, before thinking about what needs to happen inside it.

Start with the chair by the radiator. Everything else follows.

5. Model what a local creative ecology could look like

Keep building sideways. Share resources. Share contacts. Champion other artists and organisations doing it differently. Shape your practice to reflect the ecology you want to be part of - collaborative, anti-hierarchical and neighbourly.

The future of the arts is already here - it’s just scattered. Let’s help it gather.

6. Making Friends

Push for project budgets, proposals and narratives that acknowledge the work of holding space, building trust and making people feel welcome. Name the labour. Value the labour. Make it count.

There’s no line for “making friends” in a budget. Add one anyway.

7. Build better on-ramps into creative practice

Keep supporting artists who are entering - or re-entering - practice without formal routes. Think beyond “emerging artist” schemes, or bridges between ‘education’ and ‘employment’ and you’ll immediately start at more interesting place. Don’t ask an artist about their work, but ask them what excites them about the work they make! Keep on shouting about brilliant work being created in Hartlepool!

Nobody should need a master’s degree in networking just to get on.

8. Start before the door opens

Recognise that producing community-based work starts long before the opening. Be present in the place. Make time to build relationships that aren’t tied to outcomes.

The exhibition began the moment someone walked past the A-frame board and smiled.

9. Expand the idea of audience

Shift your thinking from “attendance” to “participation.” Not everyone wants to stand in a gallery. Some want to help build it. 

Your audience might not look how you expect - and that’s the point.

10. Invest in joy, not just impact

Seek out projects that allow for play, experimentation and silliness. Seriousness isn’t the only way to signal value. Joy can be just as radical.

You can talk about generational trauma and draw on the walls.


11. Treat producing like a practice

Not just admin. Not just fixing. Producing is a creative, thoughtful, emotionally intelligent way of shaping experience. Own it as art-adjacent - or art in itself. Relational. 

You weren’t just unlocking a venue. You were curating a feeling.

12. Never underestimate the power of “summat a bit different”

Keep championing weird, playful, unexpected work that doesn’t try to fit into tidy categories. Work that makes people stop and ask, what’s going on in there? — then feel safe enough to walk in and find out.

Sometimes all it takes is a chalk-pen, a sandwich board and a smile.