When you walk into the LondonFuse studio you enter a creative space. The large, open room features hard wood floors, high ceilings and six-foot windows looking over the Dundas and Richmond Street intersection. Industrial metal beams contrast with the white dry wall, Mac computers, a DLSR camera and recording equipment sitting on the cluttered desks.
The studio is a shared space – owned by Gib Design, and home to freelance web developers and graphic designers, as well as LondonFuse, an online publication that encourages art, culture and creativity in London.
Started by Thomas Cermak in 2009, the website has more than 900 members, each contributing through blog posts, event notifications, reviews, photographs or videos.
LondonFuse tries to provide an alternative media outlet in the city, Cermak said, but its vision doesn’t stop there. It’s hoping to build a cultural hub in London, attracting and keeping young people contributing to, and engaging with, the city.
Photo by Amanda Grant
LondonFuse’s current studio space is a shared workspace downtown.
Mid-sized cities like London, Hamilton and Guelph that are home to major universities often struggle to keep their youth following graduation. With fewer job opportunities and less vibrant communities than places like Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver, these cities often suffer a “brain drain,” of talent and vitality.
“We need to do something that will keep people in London, that will allow them to see the potential in the city,” said Savannah Sewell, spokesperson for LondonFuse.
Last month LondonFuse announced the development of the Fuse Factory – a proposed cultural hub that could attract and keep young, creative people committed to the city and its future. The Fuse Factory will be a physical place artists and innovators can create, document and share – the foundation of LondonFuse’s mission.
The not-for-profit group hopes to provide workspaces and resources to different organizations and individuals in one inclusive location, so they can get their projects off the ground and bounce ideas off their peers. This includes hot desks – a space people can rent that includes a desk and wireless access in a shared office – a lounge type facility where different groups and individuals can mix and mingle and shared meeting rooms, so established creative groups are able to collaborate. After all collaboration is the new competition, according to LondonFuse.
“The idea of sharing a building for multiple different types of projects really is the future,” said Cermak. “It reduces costs and creates a space where there is this exchange, where people are sharing ideas.
“The Fuse Factory would be a place people could share and mingle in space, but at the same time we would employ Fuse as a website to document and disseminate the creative process with the rest of the world,” he said. “London needs a platform to communicate with the world.”
The future of LondonFuse and its factory has been inspired by two existing models – one online and one offline. The first is a series produced in Portland Oregon by Wieden+Kennedy, a modern advertising agency dedicated to creative expression.
Wieden+Kennedy started to produce a web show of original content called Don’t Move Here. The program profiles the vivid cultural community in Portland, focusing on what makes the city unique. Now into its second season, Don’t Move Here provides a glance at what is making Portland the unofficial “city where young people go to retire,” attracting a youthful, engaged public.
LondonFuse started to produce its own web series this fall. Like the Don’t Move Here series, FuseTV explores the layers of London’s cultural community, introducing viewers to new sights, sounds and spaces in the city. For example, in its inaugural episode FuseTV featured music from local musicians, coverage of the Grickle Grass Festival – an event held at the city's Children's Museum that promotes sustainability through gardening, healthy lifestyles, art and culture, and a forum on community vision for London’s downtown.
Photo by Sam Allen
Thomas Cermak is the creator of LondonFuse.
Offline, Cermak hopes the Fuse Factory will be a hub for people to find what they need: be it manpower, a sounding board or technological support.
“We really want to make a national splash – Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal are expensive places to live – sure they all have great art scenes, but so does London and we want to be a part of that,” Sewell says.
“There is so much potential,” she says. “This is a great place to showcase to the rest of the world. This city is about to explode. There is a ton of opportunity.”
According to Cermak, this initiative will cultivate interest in the city, highlighting the vibrant creative community – musicians, artists, innovators in London – by providing easily adaptable web platforms for groups without an online presence, meeting spaces and the means to document their progress online and off.
LondonFuse’s goals are lofty – but not unrealistic. It is looking to groups like the Centre for Social Innovation in Toronto and Factory 163 in Stratford that have successfully created the vision LondonFuse presents.
Factory 163 is a new, a lesser known addition to Stratford’s renowned arts scene. Housed in an old furniture factory, Factory 163 is operated by two sisters who saw a need for a repurposed, shared space where artists could come together.
Courtesy of Factory 163
Artists use shared studio space at Factory 163.
“I saw it as a case study for breathing new life into a building and my sister was excited about using it as an opportunity to showcase the arts,” said Janet Cox, creator of Factory 163.
Together they started to funnel their time and money into the space, culling interest and support as they went.
Although they were nervous to face the city with their proposal, the sisters brought forward their plan, backed by 30 friends, neighbours and artists who wanted to see the vision come to fruition.
“We were overwhelmed by support,” Cox said.
John David Sterne is the director of the Stratford Symphony and tenant of Factory 163. He started coming to meetings at Factory 163 before deciding to set up shop in the shared workspace.
“The Stratford Symphony was looking for an office space and we wanted to be among other creative, artistic people so Factory 163 felt right,” Sterne said. “It brings unlikely combinations of creatives together and they come up with innovative ways to partner. You’re in the corridor with artists, musicians, designers … creative people and partnerships just happen.”
Factory 163 is still finding its place in the Stratford community, held back by the financial risks and constant grant applications the space requires. Still, Cox says she sees the support and the significance of the project growing.
Unlike Factory 163, the Centre for Social Innovation in Toronto is a well-established part of the city’s innovative landscape. Created in 2004, it was a group of passionate, concerned citizens who came together, hoping to fill a void in their community and start a conversation.
“At that time, we had incredible passion, extraordinary vision, and only an inkling of how we would make it all work. It was, needless to say, an adventurous start,” said Eli Malinsky, director of programs and partnerships for the Centre.
The story of CSI is still “unfolding,” Malinsky says, but its success is undeniable. After opening its first location seven years ago, CSI now spans over two buildings in different neighbourhoods in Toronto and boasts the involvement of over 300 official members.
CSI created community hubs, bringing together innovators in shared workspaces where ideas can be shared, cultivated and expanded. Take for example the Canadian Alliance of Dance Artists, one of CSI’s tenants. Using the space and resources provided by the CSI facilities, the CADA-ON applied for a Trillium grant and was awarded $27,800 to research how micro-finance can support artists in Ontario. This kind of success story is the foundation for CSI and its continued growth.
As LondonFuse studied the online branding of Wieden+Kennedy in Portland, it has gone to CSI and spoken to Factory 163 about their experiences offline. LondonFuse is learning by example, says Cermak.
Fuse has applied for grants and non-profit funding for its project, like CSI and Factory 163, the shared space model carrying a hefty price tag compared to the online world. Fuse is also looking for support from the business and creative communities in London, not just financially, but in terms of brainpower and promotion.
According to Janette MacDonald, manager of the Downtown London business association, that support won’t be too hard to find.
“We need something like this in London. If we’re going to keep and attract creative people in London we need to give them a place where they can together and do what they do,” she said.
Despite her support, LondonFuse could face some push-back from what is often cited as a largely conservative city that may not understand its vision.
“There’s always somebody who’s going to put down a good idea,” said MacDonald. “But if there is a good idea and a way to get it done, you’ve got to ignore the nay-sayers. There’s always going to be someone who tells you it won’t work, but so what?”
The location of the Fuse Factory is still up for discussion: the alternative media hub is unsure what size space it needs. One thing is for sure though – the Fuse Factory will be downtown, in the trenches of the cultural community helping to build an elastic workspace and modern approach to collaboration in the heart of the city.
“We (in London) undervalue ourselves, and lose a sense of our own power as individuals, as communities, as people,” Cermak said. “There’s this opportunity we need to exploit, and I think partnering the Internet with a shared space is one of those perfect marriages. One way or another we’re working for London, and towards this space, both virtual and physical, where we can highlight what the city has to offer.”
Video by Wieden+Kennedy
FuseTV uses the Don't Move Here series as inspiration.
