50 Years Of Warwick Arts Centre: Art Riot Collective

Meet Art Riot Collective

Art Riot Collective is a community of Disabled and Neurodivergent Artists and supporters based in FarGo Village, Coventry. They provide access to high quality creative practice, connections and cultural spaces. They also have a young people's programme for early career artists with SEN needs.

The Collective exhibited in Warwick Arts Centre’s ‘Reason for Painting’ exhibition in summer 2023. We caught up with Art Riot Collective’s Creative Director Kyla, to talk about their partnership with Warwick Arts Centre.

Coventry born and raised, Kyla remembers visiting Warwick Arts Centre many times to see theatre, visit the cinema and explore the Mead Gallery.

Kyla’s husband, Steve, was an art technician working at the Mead Gallery, and she aspired to exhibit work here. 

Fast forward to a knock on the door from Warwick Arts Centre’s Principal Curator Sarah and Exhibitions Curator Thomas, and an exciting new partnership began.

The Reason for Painting exhibition …

…brought artists together through their experience of using colour and paint to experiment and consider the world in which we live today. 

Art Riot Collective exhibited the work of several of their artists, and co-created the Gallery’s Making Space. The Making Space is a space where visitors can interact with the themes of the exhibition through activities.

Two of the artists led Warwick Lates events on topics of mark making and creating sound. The Collective was supported by Art Friends Warwickshire to work with schools to develop a school resource to challenge people’s perception of what painting might be.

Exploring the exhibition, getting hands-on in the Making Space or using the schools’ resource, it “taught people how you can use your own tools and use paint differently” as the Collective do, Kyla said.

“It freed people from that confined version of image-making into an exploration and enjoyment of process. Process is the thing where you learn, where you are challenged. It’s how you extend your creative knowledge to get you close to what you want to express. You can use all sorts of materials in really interesting ways which communicate so much about the person who created it and the world they inhabit.”

For the Reason for Painting exhibition, Thomas wanted representation from Coventry artists and particularly artists often marginalised from art galleries.

“All of our shows have an element that is Coventry in them,” Kyla said. She loved Thomas’ approach, to create opportunities rather than follow existing routes, and how he worked to find hidden artists whose work matched perfectly with the exhibition’s themes.

Kyla remembers Thomas’ interest in the Art Riot Collective’s supportive studio space and the notion that people are free to express through mark making.

He wanted to recreate this environment in the exhibition space. So, he commissioned the Collective to not only exhibit, but to write interpretations for visitors to read, to make BSL and Makaton films about the exhibition, and to design the Making Space.

The Making Space began as a blank canvas and the Collective took the methodology of their studio and the purpose of allowing people to express through art, to create a space “to make and do”. The white walls became full of artwork, creations of abstract and temporary painting.

Workshops, yoga classes and dance sessions all took place in this space, “changing the way people feel and interact with art,” Kyla said. “It became a space that meant a lot of different things to many different people. It felt like it was as important as the artwork on display in the exhibition.”

“The sounds of the gallery changed. There was laughter and joy as opposed to quietness and stillness.”

What was the impact of this experience on Art Riot Collective and Warwick Arts Centre?

Through this experience, the Collective further developed the definition of their organisation. It changed the narrative of traditionally marginalised artists claiming their space in an art gallery.

Exhibiting in Reason for Painting platformed the artists’ voices and perspectives, and brought family, friends, old and new supporters out to view their work. “It was very empowering. In an intentional way, the Arts Centre showed how serious they are about valuing an artists’ creative practice,” Kyla said.

Kyla sees the legacy of Art Riot Collective’s collaboration with Warwick Arts Centre as a “perfect example of how two different organisations that believe in the same things might create something bigger.” Following the exhibition, the Collective’s artists have used this experience to plan the trajectory for what comes next.

The Art Riot Collective’s partnership with Warwick Arts Centre shows the benefits of developing opportunities for artists “who haven’t gone through traditional routes. As a society, we shouldn’t leave them behind because of that. Gallery Curators should go to supportive studios and visit the work of marginalised artists.”

Interviewed by our Creative Learning Project Officer, Beth Russell-Tsuro.

This a guest blog. The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed in this content are solely the interviewee's and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints of Warwick Arts Centre.