Spatial Value activates artists interventions and supports research-led projects in the public sphere.
At a glance
Spatial Value provides practice led approaches that support and amplify artistic production in the public space. We bring awareness to the generative potential and benefits of inserting creativity into shared spaces. Spatial Value expands the understanding of what constitutes a public space. Our objectives are:
- Value: creative, artist-led proposals that activate the public sphere
- Create: new knowledge, narratives, and art works
- Share with our local and global communities
- Support: through imaginative economic partnerships
- Continuity: building long-standing relations based on trust and shared goals with the scope of scaling up projects
Key details
Gallery
More information
About Spatial Value
The Spatial Value catalyst shares a commitment to art as a societal practice.
Having individually established long-term collective ventures, such as London-based art hub FILET – a space for experimental art production and the entrepreneurial international artists enterprise SupaStore, Rut Blees Luxemburg and Sarah Staton bring their shared interest and research to lead Spatial Value at the RCA.
Creative collaborations with external partners
Spatial Value has developed a series of annual creative collaborations with external partners:
Badminton Club by artist Dora Grabkowska, which activates the dormant public sphere shared by the RCA and the architects Foster + Partners in Battersea. Spatial Value hosts the inclusive, site-specific and durational artwork that explores invisible demarcations of the private and public land and playfully initiates new connections, conversations and collaborations between local stakeholder communities.
The Spatial Value x House of Koko residency is an annual event that places young artists into classrooms to work with school pupils in Camden, culminating in a public art event at the iconic music venue House of Koko, London.
“I'm ecstatic to be facilitating this Spatial Value workshop at Haverstock School and the House of Koko! Arts education has been strategically defunded for years, which is a misstep. Our students need a space to use their creativity to explore themselves. Filmmaking as a multidisciplinary medium is a great tool to communicate with themselves, their communities, and the world."
– Katiana Weems-Ado, Spatial Value x House of KOKO Resident artist 2025
Research-based teaching
Spatial Value advances research-based teaching at the RCA.
The MFA Spatial Value Live unit focused on the Peter Dollar Passage, the public throughfare that runs straight through the College campus in Battersea. This curious urban anomaly brings up questions surrounding freedom of access, buried histories, and the value of open systems. To initiate a discussion, the artists proposed a Shamiyaana, light in shape and impact, bringing global cultural awareness to the site. The Shamiyaana acted as host and public manifesto towards a critical re-imagining of how public space can become a place for commingling, sharing and enchantment.
Public art and community legacies
Spatial Value has initiated impactful external public art and community legacies, including two new sculpture gardens with annual commissions for young artists generously supported by Build Hollywood. ‘Dancing in the Shadow of Henry’, in Camberwell, South London and ‘Old Market Lawn’ at Old Market, Bristol.
International projects
The Spatial Value catalyst’s international projects include the inauguration of the Spatial Value/NAQSH residency in Jeddah; lectures and workshops at the De Ying Foundation, Shanghai; Hayy Jameel, KSA; and an exhibition and talk at UNICEF Innocenti, Florence, Italy.
Together with Lulwah Al Homoud, Rut Blees Luxemburg and Sarah Staton are curators of Traces of What Will Be, Tuwaiq 2026, an annual public art commission, exhibition and symposium for the Royal Commission, Art Riyadh.
Awards
Spatial Value received the RCA Knowledge Exchange Champion award 2023/24 in the category Best Social Knowledge Exchange Project.
