The Big Floor Draw at St Johns 2006
(photo Andy Rawlins)
Bend in the River is an organisation that exhibits contemporary British painting from a Georgian warehouse adjacent to the River Trent. It hosts five shows a year, four of which are solo. It is also the driving force behind an ambitious project at the redundant church of St John the Divine, Gainsborough, called Slumgothic. At the church it provides a vast arts project space plus community rooms for mixed use. To date, its art activities have included an artist residency project, subsequent video installation within the church and a Big Draw event.
The Big Floor Draw at St Johns 2006
(photo Andy Rawlins)
It is a partner in the provision of a Flexible Learning Programme in conjunction with a local secondary school, and manages use of the annexed schoolroom by various community groups. These include a residents action group, a mental health art group and performing art group. It intermittently hosts workshop events in conjunction with artists that it works with.
Both art gallery and church project are currently independently funded and receive no support from arts organisations or local authorities.
Bend in the River is based on Bridge Street in Gainsborough in the north of Lincolnshire. The town is located within West Lindsey, and has been described as ‘on the outside looking in, striving to overcome relative isolation and the dramatic changes to its traditional economies’. It has a population of 18, 000 and an unemployment rate of between 4.5 and 7.5%. The South West Ward, where St John’s church is located, is in the lowest 20% of the most deprived wards in England.
Bend in the River occupies 90sqm of the building its owners, Marcus and Hilary Hammond, restored over a period of 10 years. The warehouse is adjacent to the River Trent and was built in the eighteenth century. It is listed by Pevsner and is one of the oldest buildings in the town.
St John the Divine is a vast redbrick construction. The church was completed in 1882 and is described as Slumgothic in style. It practiced High Anglicanism and was just part of an ambitious building programme that included schoolrooms and a poor house. It has been redundant since its closure in 2002 and was purchased by Marcus Hammond in 2005.
Main Gallery with paintings by Peter Cartwright (photo Andy Rawlins)
Bend in the River’s purpose is to encourage, develop, exhibit, promote and sell rigorous and intelligent art. It thereby aims to contribute to the wider critical debate that surrounds art practice and to develop and sustain a wide and inclusive audience.
The gallery’s primary focus is contemporary painting, principally by British artists and often artists with an isolationist position.
Slumgothic activities at St John’s extend the reach of BITR. Here, the aim is to advance creativity and the arts, particularly in relation to locality, community and regeneration. It looks down the other end of the telescope to the gallery by using artistic and social contexts and settings as its starting point.
Bend in the River Case Study