Dirty Playground

Mike Barker looks at an unused back room with rubbish piled against flakey walls and sees a potential artist studio. This month saw the launch of Dirty Playground at GoGo Bar, his initiative which aims to resurrect spaces left for dead by converting them into an incubator for creativity.

Finding a space to produce work in is often an expensive, stressful experience that can hinder the creativity of emerging artists and leave them for broke. A series of launch and half-way parties, open studios and exhibitions bring the spaces alive again while helping raise the public profile of creative people struggling to get their work out there.

“I’m trying to expose different elements and avenues of the art industry,” says Barker, so it’s not just the typical dainty illustrators or street artists occupying these converted closets.

Dirty Playground lined up a number of cult artists with a space at GoGo, just below Chin Chin. The photographers are behind skate culture, artists who work on music covers and the work of tattoo artists, both drawn on paper and inked on people live.

With regular parties to keep your eye out for, Dirty Playground breaks down the physical boundaries artists face in creating work, thrown in a mix of booze, DJs and interactive artwork and the barrier between them and the public fall down as well.

Dirt Playground is exhibiting at GoGo Bar until the end of May.
For more info visit Dirty Playground’s Facebook and Twitter.
If you’d like to know more about the artists visit doubleone.tumblr.com and pblain.tumblr.com.