Southlands Arts Centre

Reviews about Southlands Arts Centre

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  s gaafar Review added: 2018.11.11

  ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
  I would recommend NOT doing business with this art centre. I originally volunteered here during their annual painting exhibition and I got to meet the staff members there - majority of them are all old-age, bigoted people who talked about there being "a lot of immigrants" here. However the centre manager at the time (he has now left the centre) was a really nice and genuine person and I was able to negotiate a really good price for hosting my own exhibiton there. Unfortunately half-way through my exhibition I was unable to fully commit to installing and taking down my exhibition every single day, and started to receive harrassing phone calls from a member of staff at the gallery about paying the renting fee and giving back the keys to the room (they had assumed I was stealing the keys and never paying the fee). At one point, I received a 4-minute long voicemail regarding this, in which they had accidentally left the phone off the hook and had recorded a private conversation between themselves in which they implied "something else had gone on between them" for me to have rented the space so cheaply from the centre manager. Suffice to say, I returned the keys the next day to the centre and paid the fee as soon as I could and cleaned my hands of this place. Really unfortunate experience - overall I would say this place is suited ONLY for white, middle class painters who don't have many other obligations. The centre does not care about contemporary artists or the contemporary art scene which is why it is so unknown in London - someone needs to take the whole thing over and start actually doing exciting and interesting things there, as it's such a beautiful building and is going to waste.

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