Firstly - where did the gallery name come from?
It’s multi-layered. I’m half Maltese, and there is a place in Malta called ‘Xgħajra bay’ in the town of Ix-Xgħajra (pronounced ish-shy-rah). It is a beach where I used to compete with my cousins - learning how to dive and spearfish - because I was part-time Maltese so they were always trying to train me. It’s a coming of age place for me.
The language is rooted in multiple histories because Malta was colonised repeatedly. We speak Arabic but we have been Romanised, so we spell with the Latin alphabet. There’s this in-joke that Maltese people can’t spell their own surnames. So the name comes from this in-joke, but also we opened in 2020 so the two X's related to 2020 (MMXX) and we added the ‘hi’ to show that we are a social project space.
The word ‘Xgħajra’ also has a duality to it: it's based on the Arabic word ‘shaeir’ which means a grain of barley or a small seed but also a big grassland or open heath, so it’s like this small project is full of opportunity.
I say ‘Shy-Rah-Hi’ but I don't mind how anybody says it. There’s no correct way and that’s the point - we want people to interpret it however they want to.
I love the layers! It sounds like your Maltese heritage is very important to you. Does it inform your running of the gallery?
Yes, in the idea that it’s a space that’s occupied by many and the way our language adapts as we grow. We were a project space for the first two years, and we've just turned to more of a gallery model. So, this idea of listening and asking what that means for everybody. That’s a bit of an island culture.
Having lived partly there and partly here, I have a very open-door policy in my life and that's translated into the gallery. We have this ‘assembly’: I didn't want to run the space autocratically, so I invited the first ten artists to help make some decisions and then people didn’t want to leave it, so we turned it into a yearly reflection. It helps us set some goals which is great.
We’re not leaving the project space behind; the project space is 20% of our activity and the other 80% is now a commercial model. Some of the artists said, ‘we want to grow with the gallery’ and so we started representing people.
The two sides run out of the same space?
Yes, we just did a not-for-profit artists’ exchange. We gave them the space and whatever help they needed. We didn’t take any profit but treated it like a show. We’re about to open Luca’s exhibition which is part of the main program.
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Going back to the beginning, what was the motivation or mission behind starting the gallery?
It was definitely by accident. During the pandemic, I was still renting a studio and I got kicked out of two or three, then a friend mentioned that locally there were some empty units that used to be creative spots. There was this opportunity and I thought I’ll have a studio but make a window vitrine with a monthly project in it. I was also realising that my own practice was winding down, and I was loving doing the curatorial side of things more – I just hadn’t admitted it to myself yet. After the first show, that vitrine wall moved all the way back and now my office is this tiny space and there’s a big gallery at the front!
The work I like comes from artists who go through formal training in one medium but then there's a bleeding over the edges with other practices. This intersection is what I find really fascinating. We tend to go for works that are uncanny or make you feel a little uncomfortable but have some reality within them. These ‘edges’ are where I find the best conceptual thinking.
I have a small roster and they all do very different things on the surface. But there are threads all linking them: a kind of dichotomy of a present and a future past and there’s something in that coming from my own interests. As a curator, you can kind of facilitate the artwork that you never made as an artist – it wasn’t my intention to do that, but I love seeing this work being made and feel that some of my knowledge is useful.
I love that idea of facilitating the artwork that you never made as an artist. Are there other ways that being an artist informs your work?
I don't have any experience as a curator or in a gallery, so my perspective is slightly different; I think about the practicality of the studio and the community of the artists. It’s important to create a safe space of gathering - it's not just about wowing people with the installation, you want people to have conversations about the work. All the artists become friends and you build this beautiful community, rather than thinking ‘I’m going to start a business and enter the art market’. The market is a learning curve for me, and I’ll say that openly.
How do you feel your gallery relates to its surrounding community or fosters one?
I love Deptford for the artist studios – there’s tonnes - and the proximity to Goldsmiths University. We have a close relationship with a lot of students, mostly MFA. They know that we’re more approachable, we’re not this big scary Mayfair space; I don't want people to feel that because you run a program, you're not approachable. That's not conducive to good community building.
Equally, there is a whole ecosystem that we operate in. As a small gallery, there are bigger galleries that I'm inspired by. The place we’re in now is the best place for us, we can be more experimental; there’s less expectation for there to be a VIP experience. You can come down and have a beer, a cigarette on the street, and no one is there to judge. There’s a bench in the gallery where people just hang out. I hate the feeling when you walk into a gallery and no one greets you, and you're scared of making any floorboard creek! I remember that feeling when I was a student and think that’s rubbish.
We also know a lot of our local businesses: we always have our after-Private View drinks at Villages brewery. We always get our coffee from The Waiting Room. And these people come into the gallery– so there’s a wider community that isn’t from an art background. There’s a school nearby, and teenagers come in and ask me about the artwork. It’s great that they feel comfortable to come and talk to me – I’m not a scary figure.
How do you feel about juggling the non-profit and commercial sides? Are there sacrifices you have to make?
Some things are inevitable because the more you’re doing, the less time you have to be around. I dedicate at least one day every week to being in the gallery - I will try to maintain that. I’d rather hire a team to help me than for me to become unavailable, but I want the team to be as welcoming, as part of the gallery, as I am. It’s not one person, it’s just that I kicked it off!
Some people say, ‘you were so diehard non-profit and artist-first’ and I think I still am. To be able to grow is to be able to participate in certain things, which you can't as a non-profit: art fairs, for example. Things that would bring artwork to an international audience. You can’t just start DMing collectors: you have to meet them face to face.
We have the best of both worlds if we can balance things. There's a weird perception that you're not taking yourself seriously if you're not chasing sales. I believe the power is in the choice of the artists and the calibre of the people you work with. Your relationships show when your exhibitions have been pulled off, when that person wants to continue working with you. That’s what the collector wants to see: some kind of integrity.
I don’t have any experience with the market. I run another business so I have some acumen but not with this client-relationship side, so it can be nerve-wracking. You realise that collectors will buy into an artist because they love the work and you just have to facilitate that conversation. The gallerist shouldn’t be a barrier, and the gallery shouldn’t be an empty vehicle – it needs the curator there and I’m more a curator than dealer currently. Ultimately, it’s making sure the artist knows you’ve got them at heart and the longer you build those relationships the more you can talk to their work, so really, it’s about the artist and everything else should follow.
It's funny that you're judged from both sides about what you should be.
Yeah, it’s a weird fight. When working with emerging artists, it’s good to platform them without putting any pressure on how much commission you want or what production costs are involved etc. Equally that person probably needs time to grow. The other side is artists who have done that bit and they’re ready now to make this their job. That’s how I look at it, rather than not-for-profit vs. commercial. The way the actual business has to be is with those two things being separate – separate bank accounts etc - but it’s the hope that one will eventually lead into the other, the commercial side could support the non-profit projects as a sort of ecosystem.
That’s a really nice way of putting it: it's all about responding to the artist's needs.
It’s always about that for me.
Luca George: The Immersive Experience is showing at Xxijra Hii until 22nd April 2023.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
Firstly - where did the gallery name come from?
It’s multi-layered. I’m half Maltese, and there is a place in Malta called ‘Xgħajra bay’ in the town of Ix-Xgħajra (pronounced ish-shy-rah). It is a beach where I used to compete with my cousins - learning how to dive and spearfish - because I was part-time Maltese so they were always trying to train me. It’s a coming of age place for me.
The language is rooted in multiple histories because Malta was colonised repeatedly. We speak Arabic but we have been Romanised, so we spell with the Latin alphabet. There’s this in-joke that Maltese people can’t spell their own surnames. So the name comes from this in-joke, but also we opened in 2020 so the two X's related to 2020 (MMXX) and we added the ‘hi’ to show that we are a social project space.
The word ‘Xgħajra’ also has a duality to it: it's based on the Arabic word ‘shaeir’ which means a grain of barley or a small seed but also a big grassland or open heath, so it’s like this small project is full of opportunity.
I say ‘Shy-Rah-Hi’ but I don't mind how anybody says it. There’s no correct way and that’s the point - we want people to interpret it however they want to.
I love the layers! It sounds like your Maltese heritage is very important to you. Does it inform your running of the gallery?
Yes, in the idea that it’s a space that’s occupied by many and the way our language adapts as we grow. We were a project space for the first two years, and we've just turned to more of a gallery model. So, this idea of listening and asking what that means for everybody. That’s a bit of an island culture.
Having lived partly there and partly here, I have a very open-door policy in my life and that's translated into the gallery. We have this ‘assembly’: I didn't want to run the space autocratically, so I invited the first ten artists to help make some decisions and then people didn’t want to leave it, so we turned it into a yearly reflection. It helps us set some goals which is great.
We’re not leaving the project space behind; the project space is 20% of our activity and the other 80% is now a commercial model. Some of the artists said, ‘we want to grow with the gallery’ and so we started representing people.
The two sides run out of the same space?
Yes, we just did a not-for-profit artists’ exchange. We gave them the space and whatever help they needed. We didn’t take any profit but treated it like a show. We’re about to open Luca’s exhibition which is part of the main program.
Going back to the beginning, what was the motivation or mission behind starting the gallery?
It was definitely by accident. During the pandemic, I was still renting a studio and I got kicked out of two or three, then a friend mentioned that locally there were some empty units that used to be creative spots. There was this opportunity and I thought I’ll have a studio but make a window vitrine with a monthly project in it. I was also realising that my own practice was winding down, and I was loving doing the curatorial side of things more – I just hadn’t admitted it to myself yet. After the first show, that vitrine wall moved all the way back and now my office is this tiny space and there’s a big gallery at the front!
The work I like comes from artists who go through formal training in one medium but then there's a bleeding over the edges with other practices. This intersection is what I find really fascinating. We tend to go for works that are uncanny or make you feel a little uncomfortable but have some reality within them. These ‘edges’ are where I find the best conceptual thinking.
I have a small roster and they all do very different things on the surface. But there are threads all linking them: a kind of dichotomy of a present and a future past and there’s something in that coming from my own interests. As a curator, you can kind of facilitate the artwork that you never made as an artist – it wasn’t my intention to do that, but I love seeing this work being made and feel that some of my knowledge is useful.
I love that idea of facilitating the artwork that you never made as an artist. Are there other ways that being an artist informs your work?
I don't have any experience as a curator or in a gallery, so my perspective is slightly different; I think about the practicality of the studio and the community of the artists. It’s important to create a safe space of gathering - it's not just about wowing people with the installation, you want people to have conversations about the work. All the artists become friends and you build this beautiful community, rather than thinking ‘I’m going to start a business and enter the art market’. The market is a learning curve for me, and I’ll say that openly.
How do you feel your gallery relates to its surrounding community or fosters one?
I love Deptford for the artist studios – there’s tonnes - and the proximity to Goldsmiths University. We have a close relationship with a lot of students, mostly MFA. They know that we’re more approachable, we’re not this big scary Mayfair space; I don't want people to feel that because you run a program, you're not approachable. That's not conducive to good community building.
Equally, there is a whole ecosystem that we operate in. As a small gallery, there are bigger galleries that I'm inspired by. The place we’re in now is the best place for us, we can be more experimental; there’s less expectation for there to be a VIP experience. You can come down and have a beer, a cigarette on the street, and no one is there to judge. There’s a bench in the gallery where people just hang out. I hate the feeling when you walk into a gallery and no one greets you, and you're scared of making any floorboard creek! I remember that feeling when I was a student and think that’s rubbish.
We also know a lot of our local businesses: we always have our after-Private View drinks at Villages brewery. We always get our coffee from The Waiting Room. And these people come into the gallery– so there’s a wider community that isn’t from an art background. There’s a school nearby, and teenagers come in and ask me about the artwork. It’s great that they feel comfortable to come and talk to me – I’m not a scary figure.
How do you feel about juggling the non-profit and commercial sides? Are there sacrifices you have to make?
Some things are inevitable because the more you’re doing, the less time you have to be around. I dedicate at least one day every week to being in the gallery - I will try to maintain that. I’d rather hire a team to help me than for me to become unavailable, but I want the team to be as welcoming, as part of the gallery, as I am. It’s not one person, it’s just that I kicked it off!
Some people say, ‘you were so diehard non-profit and artist-first’ and I think I still am. To be able to grow is to be able to participate in certain things, which you can't as a non-profit: art fairs, for example. Things that would bring artwork to an international audience. You can’t just start DMing collectors: you have to meet them face to face.
We have the best of both worlds if we can balance things. There's a weird perception that you're not taking yourself seriously if you're not chasing sales. I believe the power is in the choice of the artists and the calibre of the people you work with. Your relationships show when your exhibitions have been pulled off, when that person wants to continue working with you. That’s what the collector wants to see: some kind of integrity.
I don’t have any experience with the market. I run another business so I have some acumen but not with this client-relationship side, so it can be nerve-wracking. You realise that collectors will buy into an artist because they love the work and you just have to facilitate that conversation. The gallerist shouldn’t be a barrier, and the gallery shouldn’t be an empty vehicle – it needs the curator there and I’m more a curator than dealer currently. Ultimately, it’s making sure the artist knows you’ve got them at heart and the longer you build those relationships the more you can talk to their work, so really, it’s about the artist and everything else should follow.
It's funny that you're judged from both sides about what you should be.
Yeah, it’s a weird fight. When working with emerging artists, it’s good to platform them without putting any pressure on how much commission you want or what production costs are involved etc. Equally that person probably needs time to grow. The other side is artists who have done that bit and they’re ready now to make this their job. That’s how I look at it, rather than not-for-profit vs. commercial. The way the actual business has to be is with those two things being separate – separate bank accounts etc - but it’s the hope that one will eventually lead into the other, the commercial side could support the non-profit projects as a sort of ecosystem.
That’s a really nice way of putting it: it's all about responding to the artist's needs.
It’s always about that for me.
Luca George: The Immersive Experience is showing at Xxijra Hii until 22nd April 2023.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
Firstly - where did the gallery name come from?
It’s multi-layered. I’m half Maltese, and there is a place in Malta called ‘Xgħajra bay’ in the town of Ix-Xgħajra (pronounced ish-shy-rah). It is a beach where I used to compete with my cousins - learning how to dive and spearfish - because I was part-time Maltese so they were always trying to train me. It’s a coming of age place for me.
The language is rooted in multiple histories because Malta was colonised repeatedly. We speak Arabic but we have been Romanised, so we spell with the Latin alphabet. There’s this in-joke that Maltese people can’t spell their own surnames. So the name comes from this in-joke, but also we opened in 2020 so the two X's related to 2020 (MMXX) and we added the ‘hi’ to show that we are a social project space.
The word ‘Xgħajra’ also has a duality to it: it's based on the Arabic word ‘shaeir’ which means a grain of barley or a small seed but also a big grassland or open heath, so it’s like this small project is full of opportunity.
I say ‘Shy-Rah-Hi’ but I don't mind how anybody says it. There’s no correct way and that’s the point - we want people to interpret it however they want to.
I love the layers! It sounds like your Maltese heritage is very important to you. Does it inform your running of the gallery?
Yes, in the idea that it’s a space that’s occupied by many and the way our language adapts as we grow. We were a project space for the first two years, and we've just turned to more of a gallery model. So, this idea of listening and asking what that means for everybody. That’s a bit of an island culture.
Having lived partly there and partly here, I have a very open-door policy in my life and that's translated into the gallery. We have this ‘assembly’: I didn't want to run the space autocratically, so I invited the first ten artists to help make some decisions and then people didn’t want to leave it, so we turned it into a yearly reflection. It helps us set some goals which is great.
We’re not leaving the project space behind; the project space is 20% of our activity and the other 80% is now a commercial model. Some of the artists said, ‘we want to grow with the gallery’ and so we started representing people.
The two sides run out of the same space?
Yes, we just did a not-for-profit artists’ exchange. We gave them the space and whatever help they needed. We didn’t take any profit but treated it like a show. We’re about to open Luca’s exhibition which is part of the main program.
Going back to the beginning, what was the motivation or mission behind starting the gallery?
It was definitely by accident. During the pandemic, I was still renting a studio and I got kicked out of two or three, then a friend mentioned that locally there were some empty units that used to be creative spots. There was this opportunity and I thought I’ll have a studio but make a window vitrine with a monthly project in it. I was also realising that my own practice was winding down, and I was loving doing the curatorial side of things more – I just hadn’t admitted it to myself yet. After the first show, that vitrine wall moved all the way back and now my office is this tiny space and there’s a big gallery at the front!
The work I like comes from artists who go through formal training in one medium but then there's a bleeding over the edges with other practices. This intersection is what I find really fascinating. We tend to go for works that are uncanny or make you feel a little uncomfortable but have some reality within them. These ‘edges’ are where I find the best conceptual thinking.
I have a small roster and they all do very different things on the surface. But there are threads all linking them: a kind of dichotomy of a present and a future past and there’s something in that coming from my own interests. As a curator, you can kind of facilitate the artwork that you never made as an artist – it wasn’t my intention to do that, but I love seeing this work being made and feel that some of my knowledge is useful.
I love that idea of facilitating the artwork that you never made as an artist. Are there other ways that being an artist informs your work?
I don't have any experience as a curator or in a gallery, so my perspective is slightly different; I think about the practicality of the studio and the community of the artists. It’s important to create a safe space of gathering - it's not just about wowing people with the installation, you want people to have conversations about the work. All the artists become friends and you build this beautiful community, rather than thinking ‘I’m going to start a business and enter the art market’. The market is a learning curve for me, and I’ll say that openly.
How do you feel your gallery relates to its surrounding community or fosters one?
I love Deptford for the artist studios – there’s tonnes - and the proximity to Goldsmiths University. We have a close relationship with a lot of students, mostly MFA. They know that we’re more approachable, we’re not this big scary Mayfair space; I don't want people to feel that because you run a program, you're not approachable. That's not conducive to good community building.
Equally, there is a whole ecosystem that we operate in. As a small gallery, there are bigger galleries that I'm inspired by. The place we’re in now is the best place for us, we can be more experimental; there’s less expectation for there to be a VIP experience. You can come down and have a beer, a cigarette on the street, and no one is there to judge. There’s a bench in the gallery where people just hang out. I hate the feeling when you walk into a gallery and no one greets you, and you're scared of making any floorboard creek! I remember that feeling when I was a student and think that’s rubbish.
We also know a lot of our local businesses: we always have our after-Private View drinks at Villages brewery. We always get our coffee from The Waiting Room. And these people come into the gallery– so there’s a wider community that isn’t from an art background. There’s a school nearby, and teenagers come in and ask me about the artwork. It’s great that they feel comfortable to come and talk to me – I’m not a scary figure.
How do you feel about juggling the non-profit and commercial sides? Are there sacrifices you have to make?
Some things are inevitable because the more you’re doing, the less time you have to be around. I dedicate at least one day every week to being in the gallery - I will try to maintain that. I’d rather hire a team to help me than for me to become unavailable, but I want the team to be as welcoming, as part of the gallery, as I am. It’s not one person, it’s just that I kicked it off!
Some people say, ‘you were so diehard non-profit and artist-first’ and I think I still am. To be able to grow is to be able to participate in certain things, which you can't as a non-profit: art fairs, for example. Things that would bring artwork to an international audience. You can’t just start DMing collectors: you have to meet them face to face.
We have the best of both worlds if we can balance things. There's a weird perception that you're not taking yourself seriously if you're not chasing sales. I believe the power is in the choice of the artists and the calibre of the people you work with. Your relationships show when your exhibitions have been pulled off, when that person wants to continue working with you. That’s what the collector wants to see: some kind of integrity.
I don’t have any experience with the market. I run another business so I have some acumen but not with this client-relationship side, so it can be nerve-wracking. You realise that collectors will buy into an artist because they love the work and you just have to facilitate that conversation. The gallerist shouldn’t be a barrier, and the gallery shouldn’t be an empty vehicle – it needs the curator there and I’m more a curator than dealer currently. Ultimately, it’s making sure the artist knows you’ve got them at heart and the longer you build those relationships the more you can talk to their work, so really, it’s about the artist and everything else should follow.
It's funny that you're judged from both sides about what you should be.
Yeah, it’s a weird fight. When working with emerging artists, it’s good to platform them without putting any pressure on how much commission you want or what production costs are involved etc. Equally that person probably needs time to grow. The other side is artists who have done that bit and they’re ready now to make this their job. That’s how I look at it, rather than not-for-profit vs. commercial. The way the actual business has to be is with those two things being separate – separate bank accounts etc - but it’s the hope that one will eventually lead into the other, the commercial side could support the non-profit projects as a sort of ecosystem.
That’s a really nice way of putting it: it's all about responding to the artist's needs.
It’s always about that for me.
Luca George: The Immersive Experience is showing at Xxijra Hii until 22nd April 2023.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
Firstly - where did the gallery name come from?
It’s multi-layered. I’m half Maltese, and there is a place in Malta called ‘Xgħajra bay’ in the town of Ix-Xgħajra (pronounced ish-shy-rah). It is a beach where I used to compete with my cousins - learning how to dive and spearfish - because I was part-time Maltese so they were always trying to train me. It’s a coming of age place for me.
The language is rooted in multiple histories because Malta was colonised repeatedly. We speak Arabic but we have been Romanised, so we spell with the Latin alphabet. There’s this in-joke that Maltese people can’t spell their own surnames. So the name comes from this in-joke, but also we opened in 2020 so the two X's related to 2020 (MMXX) and we added the ‘hi’ to show that we are a social project space.
The word ‘Xgħajra’ also has a duality to it: it's based on the Arabic word ‘shaeir’ which means a grain of barley or a small seed but also a big grassland or open heath, so it’s like this small project is full of opportunity.
I say ‘Shy-Rah-Hi’ but I don't mind how anybody says it. There’s no correct way and that’s the point - we want people to interpret it however they want to.
I love the layers! It sounds like your Maltese heritage is very important to you. Does it inform your running of the gallery?
Yes, in the idea that it’s a space that’s occupied by many and the way our language adapts as we grow. We were a project space for the first two years, and we've just turned to more of a gallery model. So, this idea of listening and asking what that means for everybody. That’s a bit of an island culture.
Having lived partly there and partly here, I have a very open-door policy in my life and that's translated into the gallery. We have this ‘assembly’: I didn't want to run the space autocratically, so I invited the first ten artists to help make some decisions and then people didn’t want to leave it, so we turned it into a yearly reflection. It helps us set some goals which is great.
We’re not leaving the project space behind; the project space is 20% of our activity and the other 80% is now a commercial model. Some of the artists said, ‘we want to grow with the gallery’ and so we started representing people.
The two sides run out of the same space?
Yes, we just did a not-for-profit artists’ exchange. We gave them the space and whatever help they needed. We didn’t take any profit but treated it like a show. We’re about to open Luca’s exhibition which is part of the main program.
Going back to the beginning, what was the motivation or mission behind starting the gallery?
It was definitely by accident. During the pandemic, I was still renting a studio and I got kicked out of two or three, then a friend mentioned that locally there were some empty units that used to be creative spots. There was this opportunity and I thought I’ll have a studio but make a window vitrine with a monthly project in it. I was also realising that my own practice was winding down, and I was loving doing the curatorial side of things more – I just hadn’t admitted it to myself yet. After the first show, that vitrine wall moved all the way back and now my office is this tiny space and there’s a big gallery at the front!
The work I like comes from artists who go through formal training in one medium but then there's a bleeding over the edges with other practices. This intersection is what I find really fascinating. We tend to go for works that are uncanny or make you feel a little uncomfortable but have some reality within them. These ‘edges’ are where I find the best conceptual thinking.
I have a small roster and they all do very different things on the surface. But there are threads all linking them: a kind of dichotomy of a present and a future past and there’s something in that coming from my own interests. As a curator, you can kind of facilitate the artwork that you never made as an artist – it wasn’t my intention to do that, but I love seeing this work being made and feel that some of my knowledge is useful.
I love that idea of facilitating the artwork that you never made as an artist. Are there other ways that being an artist informs your work?
I don't have any experience as a curator or in a gallery, so my perspective is slightly different; I think about the practicality of the studio and the community of the artists. It’s important to create a safe space of gathering - it's not just about wowing people with the installation, you want people to have conversations about the work. All the artists become friends and you build this beautiful community, rather than thinking ‘I’m going to start a business and enter the art market’. The market is a learning curve for me, and I’ll say that openly.
How do you feel your gallery relates to its surrounding community or fosters one?
I love Deptford for the artist studios – there’s tonnes - and the proximity to Goldsmiths University. We have a close relationship with a lot of students, mostly MFA. They know that we’re more approachable, we’re not this big scary Mayfair space; I don't want people to feel that because you run a program, you're not approachable. That's not conducive to good community building.
Equally, there is a whole ecosystem that we operate in. As a small gallery, there are bigger galleries that I'm inspired by. The place we’re in now is the best place for us, we can be more experimental; there’s less expectation for there to be a VIP experience. You can come down and have a beer, a cigarette on the street, and no one is there to judge. There’s a bench in the gallery where people just hang out. I hate the feeling when you walk into a gallery and no one greets you, and you're scared of making any floorboard creek! I remember that feeling when I was a student and think that’s rubbish.
We also know a lot of our local businesses: we always have our after-Private View drinks at Villages brewery. We always get our coffee from The Waiting Room. And these people come into the gallery– so there’s a wider community that isn’t from an art background. There’s a school nearby, and teenagers come in and ask me about the artwork. It’s great that they feel comfortable to come and talk to me – I’m not a scary figure.
How do you feel about juggling the non-profit and commercial sides? Are there sacrifices you have to make?
Some things are inevitable because the more you’re doing, the less time you have to be around. I dedicate at least one day every week to being in the gallery - I will try to maintain that. I’d rather hire a team to help me than for me to become unavailable, but I want the team to be as welcoming, as part of the gallery, as I am. It’s not one person, it’s just that I kicked it off!
Some people say, ‘you were so diehard non-profit and artist-first’ and I think I still am. To be able to grow is to be able to participate in certain things, which you can't as a non-profit: art fairs, for example. Things that would bring artwork to an international audience. You can’t just start DMing collectors: you have to meet them face to face.
We have the best of both worlds if we can balance things. There's a weird perception that you're not taking yourself seriously if you're not chasing sales. I believe the power is in the choice of the artists and the calibre of the people you work with. Your relationships show when your exhibitions have been pulled off, when that person wants to continue working with you. That’s what the collector wants to see: some kind of integrity.
I don’t have any experience with the market. I run another business so I have some acumen but not with this client-relationship side, so it can be nerve-wracking. You realise that collectors will buy into an artist because they love the work and you just have to facilitate that conversation. The gallerist shouldn’t be a barrier, and the gallery shouldn’t be an empty vehicle – it needs the curator there and I’m more a curator than dealer currently. Ultimately, it’s making sure the artist knows you’ve got them at heart and the longer you build those relationships the more you can talk to their work, so really, it’s about the artist and everything else should follow.
It's funny that you're judged from both sides about what you should be.
Yeah, it’s a weird fight. When working with emerging artists, it’s good to platform them without putting any pressure on how much commission you want or what production costs are involved etc. Equally that person probably needs time to grow. The other side is artists who have done that bit and they’re ready now to make this their job. That’s how I look at it, rather than not-for-profit vs. commercial. The way the actual business has to be is with those two things being separate – separate bank accounts etc - but it’s the hope that one will eventually lead into the other, the commercial side could support the non-profit projects as a sort of ecosystem.
That’s a really nice way of putting it: it's all about responding to the artist's needs.
It’s always about that for me.
Luca George: The Immersive Experience is showing at Xxijra Hii until 22nd April 2023.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
Firstly - where did the gallery name come from?
It’s multi-layered. I’m half Maltese, and there is a place in Malta called ‘Xgħajra bay’ in the town of Ix-Xgħajra (pronounced ish-shy-rah). It is a beach where I used to compete with my cousins - learning how to dive and spearfish - because I was part-time Maltese so they were always trying to train me. It’s a coming of age place for me.
The language is rooted in multiple histories because Malta was colonised repeatedly. We speak Arabic but we have been Romanised, so we spell with the Latin alphabet. There’s this in-joke that Maltese people can’t spell their own surnames. So the name comes from this in-joke, but also we opened in 2020 so the two X's related to 2020 (MMXX) and we added the ‘hi’ to show that we are a social project space.
The word ‘Xgħajra’ also has a duality to it: it's based on the Arabic word ‘shaeir’ which means a grain of barley or a small seed but also a big grassland or open heath, so it’s like this small project is full of opportunity.
I say ‘Shy-Rah-Hi’ but I don't mind how anybody says it. There’s no correct way and that’s the point - we want people to interpret it however they want to.
I love the layers! It sounds like your Maltese heritage is very important to you. Does it inform your running of the gallery?
Yes, in the idea that it’s a space that’s occupied by many and the way our language adapts as we grow. We were a project space for the first two years, and we've just turned to more of a gallery model. So, this idea of listening and asking what that means for everybody. That’s a bit of an island culture.
Having lived partly there and partly here, I have a very open-door policy in my life and that's translated into the gallery. We have this ‘assembly’: I didn't want to run the space autocratically, so I invited the first ten artists to help make some decisions and then people didn’t want to leave it, so we turned it into a yearly reflection. It helps us set some goals which is great.
We’re not leaving the project space behind; the project space is 20% of our activity and the other 80% is now a commercial model. Some of the artists said, ‘we want to grow with the gallery’ and so we started representing people.
The two sides run out of the same space?
Yes, we just did a not-for-profit artists’ exchange. We gave them the space and whatever help they needed. We didn’t take any profit but treated it like a show. We’re about to open Luca’s exhibition which is part of the main program.
Going back to the beginning, what was the motivation or mission behind starting the gallery?
It was definitely by accident. During the pandemic, I was still renting a studio and I got kicked out of two or three, then a friend mentioned that locally there were some empty units that used to be creative spots. There was this opportunity and I thought I’ll have a studio but make a window vitrine with a monthly project in it. I was also realising that my own practice was winding down, and I was loving doing the curatorial side of things more – I just hadn’t admitted it to myself yet. After the first show, that vitrine wall moved all the way back and now my office is this tiny space and there’s a big gallery at the front!
The work I like comes from artists who go through formal training in one medium but then there's a bleeding over the edges with other practices. This intersection is what I find really fascinating. We tend to go for works that are uncanny or make you feel a little uncomfortable but have some reality within them. These ‘edges’ are where I find the best conceptual thinking.
I have a small roster and they all do very different things on the surface. But there are threads all linking them: a kind of dichotomy of a present and a future past and there’s something in that coming from my own interests. As a curator, you can kind of facilitate the artwork that you never made as an artist – it wasn’t my intention to do that, but I love seeing this work being made and feel that some of my knowledge is useful.
I love that idea of facilitating the artwork that you never made as an artist. Are there other ways that being an artist informs your work?
I don't have any experience as a curator or in a gallery, so my perspective is slightly different; I think about the practicality of the studio and the community of the artists. It’s important to create a safe space of gathering - it's not just about wowing people with the installation, you want people to have conversations about the work. All the artists become friends and you build this beautiful community, rather than thinking ‘I’m going to start a business and enter the art market’. The market is a learning curve for me, and I’ll say that openly.
How do you feel your gallery relates to its surrounding community or fosters one?
I love Deptford for the artist studios – there’s tonnes - and the proximity to Goldsmiths University. We have a close relationship with a lot of students, mostly MFA. They know that we’re more approachable, we’re not this big scary Mayfair space; I don't want people to feel that because you run a program, you're not approachable. That's not conducive to good community building.
Equally, there is a whole ecosystem that we operate in. As a small gallery, there are bigger galleries that I'm inspired by. The place we’re in now is the best place for us, we can be more experimental; there’s less expectation for there to be a VIP experience. You can come down and have a beer, a cigarette on the street, and no one is there to judge. There’s a bench in the gallery where people just hang out. I hate the feeling when you walk into a gallery and no one greets you, and you're scared of making any floorboard creek! I remember that feeling when I was a student and think that’s rubbish.
We also know a lot of our local businesses: we always have our after-Private View drinks at Villages brewery. We always get our coffee from The Waiting Room. And these people come into the gallery– so there’s a wider community that isn’t from an art background. There’s a school nearby, and teenagers come in and ask me about the artwork. It’s great that they feel comfortable to come and talk to me – I’m not a scary figure.
How do you feel about juggling the non-profit and commercial sides? Are there sacrifices you have to make?
Some things are inevitable because the more you’re doing, the less time you have to be around. I dedicate at least one day every week to being in the gallery - I will try to maintain that. I’d rather hire a team to help me than for me to become unavailable, but I want the team to be as welcoming, as part of the gallery, as I am. It’s not one person, it’s just that I kicked it off!
Some people say, ‘you were so diehard non-profit and artist-first’ and I think I still am. To be able to grow is to be able to participate in certain things, which you can't as a non-profit: art fairs, for example. Things that would bring artwork to an international audience. You can’t just start DMing collectors: you have to meet them face to face.
We have the best of both worlds if we can balance things. There's a weird perception that you're not taking yourself seriously if you're not chasing sales. I believe the power is in the choice of the artists and the calibre of the people you work with. Your relationships show when your exhibitions have been pulled off, when that person wants to continue working with you. That’s what the collector wants to see: some kind of integrity.
I don’t have any experience with the market. I run another business so I have some acumen but not with this client-relationship side, so it can be nerve-wracking. You realise that collectors will buy into an artist because they love the work and you just have to facilitate that conversation. The gallerist shouldn’t be a barrier, and the gallery shouldn’t be an empty vehicle – it needs the curator there and I’m more a curator than dealer currently. Ultimately, it’s making sure the artist knows you’ve got them at heart and the longer you build those relationships the more you can talk to their work, so really, it’s about the artist and everything else should follow.
It's funny that you're judged from both sides about what you should be.
Yeah, it’s a weird fight. When working with emerging artists, it’s good to platform them without putting any pressure on how much commission you want or what production costs are involved etc. Equally that person probably needs time to grow. The other side is artists who have done that bit and they’re ready now to make this their job. That’s how I look at it, rather than not-for-profit vs. commercial. The way the actual business has to be is with those two things being separate – separate bank accounts etc - but it’s the hope that one will eventually lead into the other, the commercial side could support the non-profit projects as a sort of ecosystem.
That’s a really nice way of putting it: it's all about responding to the artist's needs.
It’s always about that for me.
Luca George: The Immersive Experience is showing at Xxijra Hii until 22nd April 2023.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
Firstly - where did the gallery name come from?
It’s multi-layered. I’m half Maltese, and there is a place in Malta called ‘Xgħajra bay’ in the town of Ix-Xgħajra (pronounced ish-shy-rah). It is a beach where I used to compete with my cousins - learning how to dive and spearfish - because I was part-time Maltese so they were always trying to train me. It’s a coming of age place for me.
The language is rooted in multiple histories because Malta was colonised repeatedly. We speak Arabic but we have been Romanised, so we spell with the Latin alphabet. There’s this in-joke that Maltese people can’t spell their own surnames. So the name comes from this in-joke, but also we opened in 2020 so the two X's related to 2020 (MMXX) and we added the ‘hi’ to show that we are a social project space.
The word ‘Xgħajra’ also has a duality to it: it's based on the Arabic word ‘shaeir’ which means a grain of barley or a small seed but also a big grassland or open heath, so it’s like this small project is full of opportunity.
I say ‘Shy-Rah-Hi’ but I don't mind how anybody says it. There’s no correct way and that’s the point - we want people to interpret it however they want to.
I love the layers! It sounds like your Maltese heritage is very important to you. Does it inform your running of the gallery?
Yes, in the idea that it’s a space that’s occupied by many and the way our language adapts as we grow. We were a project space for the first two years, and we've just turned to more of a gallery model. So, this idea of listening and asking what that means for everybody. That’s a bit of an island culture.
Having lived partly there and partly here, I have a very open-door policy in my life and that's translated into the gallery. We have this ‘assembly’: I didn't want to run the space autocratically, so I invited the first ten artists to help make some decisions and then people didn’t want to leave it, so we turned it into a yearly reflection. It helps us set some goals which is great.
We’re not leaving the project space behind; the project space is 20% of our activity and the other 80% is now a commercial model. Some of the artists said, ‘we want to grow with the gallery’ and so we started representing people.
The two sides run out of the same space?
Yes, we just did a not-for-profit artists’ exchange. We gave them the space and whatever help they needed. We didn’t take any profit but treated it like a show. We’re about to open Luca’s exhibition which is part of the main program.
Going back to the beginning, what was the motivation or mission behind starting the gallery?
It was definitely by accident. During the pandemic, I was still renting a studio and I got kicked out of two or three, then a friend mentioned that locally there were some empty units that used to be creative spots. There was this opportunity and I thought I’ll have a studio but make a window vitrine with a monthly project in it. I was also realising that my own practice was winding down, and I was loving doing the curatorial side of things more – I just hadn’t admitted it to myself yet. After the first show, that vitrine wall moved all the way back and now my office is this tiny space and there’s a big gallery at the front!
The work I like comes from artists who go through formal training in one medium but then there's a bleeding over the edges with other practices. This intersection is what I find really fascinating. We tend to go for works that are uncanny or make you feel a little uncomfortable but have some reality within them. These ‘edges’ are where I find the best conceptual thinking.
I have a small roster and they all do very different things on the surface. But there are threads all linking them: a kind of dichotomy of a present and a future past and there’s something in that coming from my own interests. As a curator, you can kind of facilitate the artwork that you never made as an artist – it wasn’t my intention to do that, but I love seeing this work being made and feel that some of my knowledge is useful.
I love that idea of facilitating the artwork that you never made as an artist. Are there other ways that being an artist informs your work?
I don't have any experience as a curator or in a gallery, so my perspective is slightly different; I think about the practicality of the studio and the community of the artists. It’s important to create a safe space of gathering - it's not just about wowing people with the installation, you want people to have conversations about the work. All the artists become friends and you build this beautiful community, rather than thinking ‘I’m going to start a business and enter the art market’. The market is a learning curve for me, and I’ll say that openly.
How do you feel your gallery relates to its surrounding community or fosters one?
I love Deptford for the artist studios – there’s tonnes - and the proximity to Goldsmiths University. We have a close relationship with a lot of students, mostly MFA. They know that we’re more approachable, we’re not this big scary Mayfair space; I don't want people to feel that because you run a program, you're not approachable. That's not conducive to good community building.
Equally, there is a whole ecosystem that we operate in. As a small gallery, there are bigger galleries that I'm inspired by. The place we’re in now is the best place for us, we can be more experimental; there’s less expectation for there to be a VIP experience. You can come down and have a beer, a cigarette on the street, and no one is there to judge. There’s a bench in the gallery where people just hang out. I hate the feeling when you walk into a gallery and no one greets you, and you're scared of making any floorboard creek! I remember that feeling when I was a student and think that’s rubbish.
We also know a lot of our local businesses: we always have our after-Private View drinks at Villages brewery. We always get our coffee from The Waiting Room. And these people come into the gallery– so there’s a wider community that isn’t from an art background. There’s a school nearby, and teenagers come in and ask me about the artwork. It’s great that they feel comfortable to come and talk to me – I’m not a scary figure.
How do you feel about juggling the non-profit and commercial sides? Are there sacrifices you have to make?
Some things are inevitable because the more you’re doing, the less time you have to be around. I dedicate at least one day every week to being in the gallery - I will try to maintain that. I’d rather hire a team to help me than for me to become unavailable, but I want the team to be as welcoming, as part of the gallery, as I am. It’s not one person, it’s just that I kicked it off!
Some people say, ‘you were so diehard non-profit and artist-first’ and I think I still am. To be able to grow is to be able to participate in certain things, which you can't as a non-profit: art fairs, for example. Things that would bring artwork to an international audience. You can’t just start DMing collectors: you have to meet them face to face.
We have the best of both worlds if we can balance things. There's a weird perception that you're not taking yourself seriously if you're not chasing sales. I believe the power is in the choice of the artists and the calibre of the people you work with. Your relationships show when your exhibitions have been pulled off, when that person wants to continue working with you. That’s what the collector wants to see: some kind of integrity.
I don’t have any experience with the market. I run another business so I have some acumen but not with this client-relationship side, so it can be nerve-wracking. You realise that collectors will buy into an artist because they love the work and you just have to facilitate that conversation. The gallerist shouldn’t be a barrier, and the gallery shouldn’t be an empty vehicle – it needs the curator there and I’m more a curator than dealer currently. Ultimately, it’s making sure the artist knows you’ve got them at heart and the longer you build those relationships the more you can talk to their work, so really, it’s about the artist and everything else should follow.
It's funny that you're judged from both sides about what you should be.
Yeah, it’s a weird fight. When working with emerging artists, it’s good to platform them without putting any pressure on how much commission you want or what production costs are involved etc. Equally that person probably needs time to grow. The other side is artists who have done that bit and they’re ready now to make this their job. That’s how I look at it, rather than not-for-profit vs. commercial. The way the actual business has to be is with those two things being separate – separate bank accounts etc - but it’s the hope that one will eventually lead into the other, the commercial side could support the non-profit projects as a sort of ecosystem.
That’s a really nice way of putting it: it's all about responding to the artist's needs.
It’s always about that for me.
Luca George: The Immersive Experience is showing at Xxijra Hii until 22nd April 2023.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
Firstly - where did the gallery name come from?
It’s multi-layered. I’m half Maltese, and there is a place in Malta called ‘Xgħajra bay’ in the town of Ix-Xgħajra (pronounced ish-shy-rah). It is a beach where I used to compete with my cousins - learning how to dive and spearfish - because I was part-time Maltese so they were always trying to train me. It’s a coming of age place for me.
The language is rooted in multiple histories because Malta was colonised repeatedly. We speak Arabic but we have been Romanised, so we spell with the Latin alphabet. There’s this in-joke that Maltese people can’t spell their own surnames. So the name comes from this in-joke, but also we opened in 2020 so the two X's related to 2020 (MMXX) and we added the ‘hi’ to show that we are a social project space.
The word ‘Xgħajra’ also has a duality to it: it's based on the Arabic word ‘shaeir’ which means a grain of barley or a small seed but also a big grassland or open heath, so it’s like this small project is full of opportunity.
I say ‘Shy-Rah-Hi’ but I don't mind how anybody says it. There’s no correct way and that’s the point - we want people to interpret it however they want to.
I love the layers! It sounds like your Maltese heritage is very important to you. Does it inform your running of the gallery?
Yes, in the idea that it’s a space that’s occupied by many and the way our language adapts as we grow. We were a project space for the first two years, and we've just turned to more of a gallery model. So, this idea of listening and asking what that means for everybody. That’s a bit of an island culture.
Having lived partly there and partly here, I have a very open-door policy in my life and that's translated into the gallery. We have this ‘assembly’: I didn't want to run the space autocratically, so I invited the first ten artists to help make some decisions and then people didn’t want to leave it, so we turned it into a yearly reflection. It helps us set some goals which is great.
We’re not leaving the project space behind; the project space is 20% of our activity and the other 80% is now a commercial model. Some of the artists said, ‘we want to grow with the gallery’ and so we started representing people.
The two sides run out of the same space?
Yes, we just did a not-for-profit artists’ exchange. We gave them the space and whatever help they needed. We didn’t take any profit but treated it like a show. We’re about to open Luca’s exhibition which is part of the main program.
Going back to the beginning, what was the motivation or mission behind starting the gallery?
It was definitely by accident. During the pandemic, I was still renting a studio and I got kicked out of two or three, then a friend mentioned that locally there were some empty units that used to be creative spots. There was this opportunity and I thought I’ll have a studio but make a window vitrine with a monthly project in it. I was also realising that my own practice was winding down, and I was loving doing the curatorial side of things more – I just hadn’t admitted it to myself yet. After the first show, that vitrine wall moved all the way back and now my office is this tiny space and there’s a big gallery at the front!
The work I like comes from artists who go through formal training in one medium but then there's a bleeding over the edges with other practices. This intersection is what I find really fascinating. We tend to go for works that are uncanny or make you feel a little uncomfortable but have some reality within them. These ‘edges’ are where I find the best conceptual thinking.
I have a small roster and they all do very different things on the surface. But there are threads all linking them: a kind of dichotomy of a present and a future past and there’s something in that coming from my own interests. As a curator, you can kind of facilitate the artwork that you never made as an artist – it wasn’t my intention to do that, but I love seeing this work being made and feel that some of my knowledge is useful.
I love that idea of facilitating the artwork that you never made as an artist. Are there other ways that being an artist informs your work?
I don't have any experience as a curator or in a gallery, so my perspective is slightly different; I think about the practicality of the studio and the community of the artists. It’s important to create a safe space of gathering - it's not just about wowing people with the installation, you want people to have conversations about the work. All the artists become friends and you build this beautiful community, rather than thinking ‘I’m going to start a business and enter the art market’. The market is a learning curve for me, and I’ll say that openly.
How do you feel your gallery relates to its surrounding community or fosters one?
I love Deptford for the artist studios – there’s tonnes - and the proximity to Goldsmiths University. We have a close relationship with a lot of students, mostly MFA. They know that we’re more approachable, we’re not this big scary Mayfair space; I don't want people to feel that because you run a program, you're not approachable. That's not conducive to good community building.
Equally, there is a whole ecosystem that we operate in. As a small gallery, there are bigger galleries that I'm inspired by. The place we’re in now is the best place for us, we can be more experimental; there’s less expectation for there to be a VIP experience. You can come down and have a beer, a cigarette on the street, and no one is there to judge. There’s a bench in the gallery where people just hang out. I hate the feeling when you walk into a gallery and no one greets you, and you're scared of making any floorboard creek! I remember that feeling when I was a student and think that’s rubbish.
We also know a lot of our local businesses: we always have our after-Private View drinks at Villages brewery. We always get our coffee from The Waiting Room. And these people come into the gallery– so there’s a wider community that isn’t from an art background. There’s a school nearby, and teenagers come in and ask me about the artwork. It’s great that they feel comfortable to come and talk to me – I’m not a scary figure.
How do you feel about juggling the non-profit and commercial sides? Are there sacrifices you have to make?
Some things are inevitable because the more you’re doing, the less time you have to be around. I dedicate at least one day every week to being in the gallery - I will try to maintain that. I’d rather hire a team to help me than for me to become unavailable, but I want the team to be as welcoming, as part of the gallery, as I am. It’s not one person, it’s just that I kicked it off!
Some people say, ‘you were so diehard non-profit and artist-first’ and I think I still am. To be able to grow is to be able to participate in certain things, which you can't as a non-profit: art fairs, for example. Things that would bring artwork to an international audience. You can’t just start DMing collectors: you have to meet them face to face.
We have the best of both worlds if we can balance things. There's a weird perception that you're not taking yourself seriously if you're not chasing sales. I believe the power is in the choice of the artists and the calibre of the people you work with. Your relationships show when your exhibitions have been pulled off, when that person wants to continue working with you. That’s what the collector wants to see: some kind of integrity.
I don’t have any experience with the market. I run another business so I have some acumen but not with this client-relationship side, so it can be nerve-wracking. You realise that collectors will buy into an artist because they love the work and you just have to facilitate that conversation. The gallerist shouldn’t be a barrier, and the gallery shouldn’t be an empty vehicle – it needs the curator there and I’m more a curator than dealer currently. Ultimately, it’s making sure the artist knows you’ve got them at heart and the longer you build those relationships the more you can talk to their work, so really, it’s about the artist and everything else should follow.
It's funny that you're judged from both sides about what you should be.
Yeah, it’s a weird fight. When working with emerging artists, it’s good to platform them without putting any pressure on how much commission you want or what production costs are involved etc. Equally that person probably needs time to grow. The other side is artists who have done that bit and they’re ready now to make this their job. That’s how I look at it, rather than not-for-profit vs. commercial. The way the actual business has to be is with those two things being separate – separate bank accounts etc - but it’s the hope that one will eventually lead into the other, the commercial side could support the non-profit projects as a sort of ecosystem.
That’s a really nice way of putting it: it's all about responding to the artist's needs.
It’s always about that for me.
Luca George: The Immersive Experience is showing at Xxijra Hii until 22nd April 2023.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
Firstly - where did the gallery name come from?
It’s multi-layered. I’m half Maltese, and there is a place in Malta called ‘Xgħajra bay’ in the town of Ix-Xgħajra (pronounced ish-shy-rah). It is a beach where I used to compete with my cousins - learning how to dive and spearfish - because I was part-time Maltese so they were always trying to train me. It’s a coming of age place for me.
The language is rooted in multiple histories because Malta was colonised repeatedly. We speak Arabic but we have been Romanised, so we spell with the Latin alphabet. There’s this in-joke that Maltese people can’t spell their own surnames. So the name comes from this in-joke, but also we opened in 2020 so the two X's related to 2020 (MMXX) and we added the ‘hi’ to show that we are a social project space.
The word ‘Xgħajra’ also has a duality to it: it's based on the Arabic word ‘shaeir’ which means a grain of barley or a small seed but also a big grassland or open heath, so it’s like this small project is full of opportunity.
I say ‘Shy-Rah-Hi’ but I don't mind how anybody says it. There’s no correct way and that’s the point - we want people to interpret it however they want to.
I love the layers! It sounds like your Maltese heritage is very important to you. Does it inform your running of the gallery?
Yes, in the idea that it’s a space that’s occupied by many and the way our language adapts as we grow. We were a project space for the first two years, and we've just turned to more of a gallery model. So, this idea of listening and asking what that means for everybody. That’s a bit of an island culture.
Having lived partly there and partly here, I have a very open-door policy in my life and that's translated into the gallery. We have this ‘assembly’: I didn't want to run the space autocratically, so I invited the first ten artists to help make some decisions and then people didn’t want to leave it, so we turned it into a yearly reflection. It helps us set some goals which is great.
We’re not leaving the project space behind; the project space is 20% of our activity and the other 80% is now a commercial model. Some of the artists said, ‘we want to grow with the gallery’ and so we started representing people.
The two sides run out of the same space?
Yes, we just did a not-for-profit artists’ exchange. We gave them the space and whatever help they needed. We didn’t take any profit but treated it like a show. We’re about to open Luca’s exhibition which is part of the main program.
Going back to the beginning, what was the motivation or mission behind starting the gallery?
It was definitely by accident. During the pandemic, I was still renting a studio and I got kicked out of two or three, then a friend mentioned that locally there were some empty units that used to be creative spots. There was this opportunity and I thought I’ll have a studio but make a window vitrine with a monthly project in it. I was also realising that my own practice was winding down, and I was loving doing the curatorial side of things more – I just hadn’t admitted it to myself yet. After the first show, that vitrine wall moved all the way back and now my office is this tiny space and there’s a big gallery at the front!
The work I like comes from artists who go through formal training in one medium but then there's a bleeding over the edges with other practices. This intersection is what I find really fascinating. We tend to go for works that are uncanny or make you feel a little uncomfortable but have some reality within them. These ‘edges’ are where I find the best conceptual thinking.
I have a small roster and they all do very different things on the surface. But there are threads all linking them: a kind of dichotomy of a present and a future past and there’s something in that coming from my own interests. As a curator, you can kind of facilitate the artwork that you never made as an artist – it wasn’t my intention to do that, but I love seeing this work being made and feel that some of my knowledge is useful.
I love that idea of facilitating the artwork that you never made as an artist. Are there other ways that being an artist informs your work?
I don't have any experience as a curator or in a gallery, so my perspective is slightly different; I think about the practicality of the studio and the community of the artists. It’s important to create a safe space of gathering - it's not just about wowing people with the installation, you want people to have conversations about the work. All the artists become friends and you build this beautiful community, rather than thinking ‘I’m going to start a business and enter the art market’. The market is a learning curve for me, and I’ll say that openly.
How do you feel your gallery relates to its surrounding community or fosters one?
I love Deptford for the artist studios – there’s tonnes - and the proximity to Goldsmiths University. We have a close relationship with a lot of students, mostly MFA. They know that we’re more approachable, we’re not this big scary Mayfair space; I don't want people to feel that because you run a program, you're not approachable. That's not conducive to good community building.
Equally, there is a whole ecosystem that we operate in. As a small gallery, there are bigger galleries that I'm inspired by. The place we’re in now is the best place for us, we can be more experimental; there’s less expectation for there to be a VIP experience. You can come down and have a beer, a cigarette on the street, and no one is there to judge. There’s a bench in the gallery where people just hang out. I hate the feeling when you walk into a gallery and no one greets you, and you're scared of making any floorboard creek! I remember that feeling when I was a student and think that’s rubbish.
We also know a lot of our local businesses: we always have our after-Private View drinks at Villages brewery. We always get our coffee from The Waiting Room. And these people come into the gallery– so there’s a wider community that isn’t from an art background. There’s a school nearby, and teenagers come in and ask me about the artwork. It’s great that they feel comfortable to come and talk to me – I’m not a scary figure.
How do you feel about juggling the non-profit and commercial sides? Are there sacrifices you have to make?
Some things are inevitable because the more you’re doing, the less time you have to be around. I dedicate at least one day every week to being in the gallery - I will try to maintain that. I’d rather hire a team to help me than for me to become unavailable, but I want the team to be as welcoming, as part of the gallery, as I am. It’s not one person, it’s just that I kicked it off!
Some people say, ‘you were so diehard non-profit and artist-first’ and I think I still am. To be able to grow is to be able to participate in certain things, which you can't as a non-profit: art fairs, for example. Things that would bring artwork to an international audience. You can’t just start DMing collectors: you have to meet them face to face.
We have the best of both worlds if we can balance things. There's a weird perception that you're not taking yourself seriously if you're not chasing sales. I believe the power is in the choice of the artists and the calibre of the people you work with. Your relationships show when your exhibitions have been pulled off, when that person wants to continue working with you. That’s what the collector wants to see: some kind of integrity.
I don’t have any experience with the market. I run another business so I have some acumen but not with this client-relationship side, so it can be nerve-wracking. You realise that collectors will buy into an artist because they love the work and you just have to facilitate that conversation. The gallerist shouldn’t be a barrier, and the gallery shouldn’t be an empty vehicle – it needs the curator there and I’m more a curator than dealer currently. Ultimately, it’s making sure the artist knows you’ve got them at heart and the longer you build those relationships the more you can talk to their work, so really, it’s about the artist and everything else should follow.
It's funny that you're judged from both sides about what you should be.
Yeah, it’s a weird fight. When working with emerging artists, it’s good to platform them without putting any pressure on how much commission you want or what production costs are involved etc. Equally that person probably needs time to grow. The other side is artists who have done that bit and they’re ready now to make this their job. That’s how I look at it, rather than not-for-profit vs. commercial. The way the actual business has to be is with those two things being separate – separate bank accounts etc - but it’s the hope that one will eventually lead into the other, the commercial side could support the non-profit projects as a sort of ecosystem.
That’s a really nice way of putting it: it's all about responding to the artist's needs.
It’s always about that for me.
Luca George: The Immersive Experience is showing at Xxijra Hii until 22nd April 2023.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
Firstly - where did the gallery name come from?
It’s multi-layered. I’m half Maltese, and there is a place in Malta called ‘Xgħajra bay’ in the town of Ix-Xgħajra (pronounced ish-shy-rah). It is a beach where I used to compete with my cousins - learning how to dive and spearfish - because I was part-time Maltese so they were always trying to train me. It’s a coming of age place for me.
The language is rooted in multiple histories because Malta was colonised repeatedly. We speak Arabic but we have been Romanised, so we spell with the Latin alphabet. There’s this in-joke that Maltese people can’t spell their own surnames. So the name comes from this in-joke, but also we opened in 2020 so the two X's related to 2020 (MMXX) and we added the ‘hi’ to show that we are a social project space.
The word ‘Xgħajra’ also has a duality to it: it's based on the Arabic word ‘shaeir’ which means a grain of barley or a small seed but also a big grassland or open heath, so it’s like this small project is full of opportunity.
I say ‘Shy-Rah-Hi’ but I don't mind how anybody says it. There’s no correct way and that’s the point - we want people to interpret it however they want to.
I love the layers! It sounds like your Maltese heritage is very important to you. Does it inform your running of the gallery?
Yes, in the idea that it’s a space that’s occupied by many and the way our language adapts as we grow. We were a project space for the first two years, and we've just turned to more of a gallery model. So, this idea of listening and asking what that means for everybody. That’s a bit of an island culture.
Having lived partly there and partly here, I have a very open-door policy in my life and that's translated into the gallery. We have this ‘assembly’: I didn't want to run the space autocratically, so I invited the first ten artists to help make some decisions and then people didn’t want to leave it, so we turned it into a yearly reflection. It helps us set some goals which is great.
We’re not leaving the project space behind; the project space is 20% of our activity and the other 80% is now a commercial model. Some of the artists said, ‘we want to grow with the gallery’ and so we started representing people.
The two sides run out of the same space?
Yes, we just did a not-for-profit artists’ exchange. We gave them the space and whatever help they needed. We didn’t take any profit but treated it like a show. We’re about to open Luca’s exhibition which is part of the main program.
Going back to the beginning, what was the motivation or mission behind starting the gallery?
It was definitely by accident. During the pandemic, I was still renting a studio and I got kicked out of two or three, then a friend mentioned that locally there were some empty units that used to be creative spots. There was this opportunity and I thought I’ll have a studio but make a window vitrine with a monthly project in it. I was also realising that my own practice was winding down, and I was loving doing the curatorial side of things more – I just hadn’t admitted it to myself yet. After the first show, that vitrine wall moved all the way back and now my office is this tiny space and there’s a big gallery at the front!
The work I like comes from artists who go through formal training in one medium but then there's a bleeding over the edges with other practices. This intersection is what I find really fascinating. We tend to go for works that are uncanny or make you feel a little uncomfortable but have some reality within them. These ‘edges’ are where I find the best conceptual thinking.
I have a small roster and they all do very different things on the surface. But there are threads all linking them: a kind of dichotomy of a present and a future past and there’s something in that coming from my own interests. As a curator, you can kind of facilitate the artwork that you never made as an artist – it wasn’t my intention to do that, but I love seeing this work being made and feel that some of my knowledge is useful.
I love that idea of facilitating the artwork that you never made as an artist. Are there other ways that being an artist informs your work?
I don't have any experience as a curator or in a gallery, so my perspective is slightly different; I think about the practicality of the studio and the community of the artists. It’s important to create a safe space of gathering - it's not just about wowing people with the installation, you want people to have conversations about the work. All the artists become friends and you build this beautiful community, rather than thinking ‘I’m going to start a business and enter the art market’. The market is a learning curve for me, and I’ll say that openly.
How do you feel your gallery relates to its surrounding community or fosters one?
I love Deptford for the artist studios – there’s tonnes - and the proximity to Goldsmiths University. We have a close relationship with a lot of students, mostly MFA. They know that we’re more approachable, we’re not this big scary Mayfair space; I don't want people to feel that because you run a program, you're not approachable. That's not conducive to good community building.
Equally, there is a whole ecosystem that we operate in. As a small gallery, there are bigger galleries that I'm inspired by. The place we’re in now is the best place for us, we can be more experimental; there’s less expectation for there to be a VIP experience. You can come down and have a beer, a cigarette on the street, and no one is there to judge. There’s a bench in the gallery where people just hang out. I hate the feeling when you walk into a gallery and no one greets you, and you're scared of making any floorboard creek! I remember that feeling when I was a student and think that’s rubbish.
We also know a lot of our local businesses: we always have our after-Private View drinks at Villages brewery. We always get our coffee from The Waiting Room. And these people come into the gallery– so there’s a wider community that isn’t from an art background. There’s a school nearby, and teenagers come in and ask me about the artwork. It’s great that they feel comfortable to come and talk to me – I’m not a scary figure.
How do you feel about juggling the non-profit and commercial sides? Are there sacrifices you have to make?
Some things are inevitable because the more you’re doing, the less time you have to be around. I dedicate at least one day every week to being in the gallery - I will try to maintain that. I’d rather hire a team to help me than for me to become unavailable, but I want the team to be as welcoming, as part of the gallery, as I am. It’s not one person, it’s just that I kicked it off!
Some people say, ‘you were so diehard non-profit and artist-first’ and I think I still am. To be able to grow is to be able to participate in certain things, which you can't as a non-profit: art fairs, for example. Things that would bring artwork to an international audience. You can’t just start DMing collectors: you have to meet them face to face.
We have the best of both worlds if we can balance things. There's a weird perception that you're not taking yourself seriously if you're not chasing sales. I believe the power is in the choice of the artists and the calibre of the people you work with. Your relationships show when your exhibitions have been pulled off, when that person wants to continue working with you. That’s what the collector wants to see: some kind of integrity.
I don’t have any experience with the market. I run another business so I have some acumen but not with this client-relationship side, so it can be nerve-wracking. You realise that collectors will buy into an artist because they love the work and you just have to facilitate that conversation. The gallerist shouldn’t be a barrier, and the gallery shouldn’t be an empty vehicle – it needs the curator there and I’m more a curator than dealer currently. Ultimately, it’s making sure the artist knows you’ve got them at heart and the longer you build those relationships the more you can talk to their work, so really, it’s about the artist and everything else should follow.
It's funny that you're judged from both sides about what you should be.
Yeah, it’s a weird fight. When working with emerging artists, it’s good to platform them without putting any pressure on how much commission you want or what production costs are involved etc. Equally that person probably needs time to grow. The other side is artists who have done that bit and they’re ready now to make this their job. That’s how I look at it, rather than not-for-profit vs. commercial. The way the actual business has to be is with those two things being separate – separate bank accounts etc - but it’s the hope that one will eventually lead into the other, the commercial side could support the non-profit projects as a sort of ecosystem.
That’s a really nice way of putting it: it's all about responding to the artist's needs.
It’s always about that for me.
Luca George: The Immersive Experience is showing at Xxijra Hii until 22nd April 2023.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
Firstly - where did the gallery name come from?
It’s multi-layered. I’m half Maltese, and there is a place in Malta called ‘Xgħajra bay’ in the town of Ix-Xgħajra (pronounced ish-shy-rah). It is a beach where I used to compete with my cousins - learning how to dive and spearfish - because I was part-time Maltese so they were always trying to train me. It’s a coming of age place for me.
The language is rooted in multiple histories because Malta was colonised repeatedly. We speak Arabic but we have been Romanised, so we spell with the Latin alphabet. There’s this in-joke that Maltese people can’t spell their own surnames. So the name comes from this in-joke, but also we opened in 2020 so the two X's related to 2020 (MMXX) and we added the ‘hi’ to show that we are a social project space.
The word ‘Xgħajra’ also has a duality to it: it's based on the Arabic word ‘shaeir’ which means a grain of barley or a small seed but also a big grassland or open heath, so it’s like this small project is full of opportunity.
I say ‘Shy-Rah-Hi’ but I don't mind how anybody says it. There’s no correct way and that’s the point - we want people to interpret it however they want to.
I love the layers! It sounds like your Maltese heritage is very important to you. Does it inform your running of the gallery?
Yes, in the idea that it’s a space that’s occupied by many and the way our language adapts as we grow. We were a project space for the first two years, and we've just turned to more of a gallery model. So, this idea of listening and asking what that means for everybody. That’s a bit of an island culture.
Having lived partly there and partly here, I have a very open-door policy in my life and that's translated into the gallery. We have this ‘assembly’: I didn't want to run the space autocratically, so I invited the first ten artists to help make some decisions and then people didn’t want to leave it, so we turned it into a yearly reflection. It helps us set some goals which is great.
We’re not leaving the project space behind; the project space is 20% of our activity and the other 80% is now a commercial model. Some of the artists said, ‘we want to grow with the gallery’ and so we started representing people.
The two sides run out of the same space?
Yes, we just did a not-for-profit artists’ exchange. We gave them the space and whatever help they needed. We didn’t take any profit but treated it like a show. We’re about to open Luca’s exhibition which is part of the main program.
Going back to the beginning, what was the motivation or mission behind starting the gallery?
It was definitely by accident. During the pandemic, I was still renting a studio and I got kicked out of two or three, then a friend mentioned that locally there were some empty units that used to be creative spots. There was this opportunity and I thought I’ll have a studio but make a window vitrine with a monthly project in it. I was also realising that my own practice was winding down, and I was loving doing the curatorial side of things more – I just hadn’t admitted it to myself yet. After the first show, that vitrine wall moved all the way back and now my office is this tiny space and there’s a big gallery at the front!
The work I like comes from artists who go through formal training in one medium but then there's a bleeding over the edges with other practices. This intersection is what I find really fascinating. We tend to go for works that are uncanny or make you feel a little uncomfortable but have some reality within them. These ‘edges’ are where I find the best conceptual thinking.
I have a small roster and they all do very different things on the surface. But there are threads all linking them: a kind of dichotomy of a present and a future past and there’s something in that coming from my own interests. As a curator, you can kind of facilitate the artwork that you never made as an artist – it wasn’t my intention to do that, but I love seeing this work being made and feel that some of my knowledge is useful.
I love that idea of facilitating the artwork that you never made as an artist. Are there other ways that being an artist informs your work?
I don't have any experience as a curator or in a gallery, so my perspective is slightly different; I think about the practicality of the studio and the community of the artists. It’s important to create a safe space of gathering - it's not just about wowing people with the installation, you want people to have conversations about the work. All the artists become friends and you build this beautiful community, rather than thinking ‘I’m going to start a business and enter the art market’. The market is a learning curve for me, and I’ll say that openly.
How do you feel your gallery relates to its surrounding community or fosters one?
I love Deptford for the artist studios – there’s tonnes - and the proximity to Goldsmiths University. We have a close relationship with a lot of students, mostly MFA. They know that we’re more approachable, we’re not this big scary Mayfair space; I don't want people to feel that because you run a program, you're not approachable. That's not conducive to good community building.
Equally, there is a whole ecosystem that we operate in. As a small gallery, there are bigger galleries that I'm inspired by. The place we’re in now is the best place for us, we can be more experimental; there’s less expectation for there to be a VIP experience. You can come down and have a beer, a cigarette on the street, and no one is there to judge. There’s a bench in the gallery where people just hang out. I hate the feeling when you walk into a gallery and no one greets you, and you're scared of making any floorboard creek! I remember that feeling when I was a student and think that’s rubbish.
We also know a lot of our local businesses: we always have our after-Private View drinks at Villages brewery. We always get our coffee from The Waiting Room. And these people come into the gallery– so there’s a wider community that isn’t from an art background. There’s a school nearby, and teenagers come in and ask me about the artwork. It’s great that they feel comfortable to come and talk to me – I’m not a scary figure.
How do you feel about juggling the non-profit and commercial sides? Are there sacrifices you have to make?
Some things are inevitable because the more you’re doing, the less time you have to be around. I dedicate at least one day every week to being in the gallery - I will try to maintain that. I’d rather hire a team to help me than for me to become unavailable, but I want the team to be as welcoming, as part of the gallery, as I am. It’s not one person, it’s just that I kicked it off!
Some people say, ‘you were so diehard non-profit and artist-first’ and I think I still am. To be able to grow is to be able to participate in certain things, which you can't as a non-profit: art fairs, for example. Things that would bring artwork to an international audience. You can’t just start DMing collectors: you have to meet them face to face.
We have the best of both worlds if we can balance things. There's a weird perception that you're not taking yourself seriously if you're not chasing sales. I believe the power is in the choice of the artists and the calibre of the people you work with. Your relationships show when your exhibitions have been pulled off, when that person wants to continue working with you. That’s what the collector wants to see: some kind of integrity.
I don’t have any experience with the market. I run another business so I have some acumen but not with this client-relationship side, so it can be nerve-wracking. You realise that collectors will buy into an artist because they love the work and you just have to facilitate that conversation. The gallerist shouldn’t be a barrier, and the gallery shouldn’t be an empty vehicle – it needs the curator there and I’m more a curator than dealer currently. Ultimately, it’s making sure the artist knows you’ve got them at heart and the longer you build those relationships the more you can talk to their work, so really, it’s about the artist and everything else should follow.
It's funny that you're judged from both sides about what you should be.
Yeah, it’s a weird fight. When working with emerging artists, it’s good to platform them without putting any pressure on how much commission you want or what production costs are involved etc. Equally that person probably needs time to grow. The other side is artists who have done that bit and they’re ready now to make this their job. That’s how I look at it, rather than not-for-profit vs. commercial. The way the actual business has to be is with those two things being separate – separate bank accounts etc - but it’s the hope that one will eventually lead into the other, the commercial side could support the non-profit projects as a sort of ecosystem.
That’s a really nice way of putting it: it's all about responding to the artist's needs.
It’s always about that for me.
Luca George: The Immersive Experience is showing at Xxijra Hii until 22nd April 2023.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
Firstly - where did the gallery name come from?
It’s multi-layered. I’m half Maltese, and there is a place in Malta called ‘Xgħajra bay’ in the town of Ix-Xgħajra (pronounced ish-shy-rah). It is a beach where I used to compete with my cousins - learning how to dive and spearfish - because I was part-time Maltese so they were always trying to train me. It’s a coming of age place for me.
The language is rooted in multiple histories because Malta was colonised repeatedly. We speak Arabic but we have been Romanised, so we spell with the Latin alphabet. There’s this in-joke that Maltese people can’t spell their own surnames. So the name comes from this in-joke, but also we opened in 2020 so the two X's related to 2020 (MMXX) and we added the ‘hi’ to show that we are a social project space.
The word ‘Xgħajra’ also has a duality to it: it's based on the Arabic word ‘shaeir’ which means a grain of barley or a small seed but also a big grassland or open heath, so it’s like this small project is full of opportunity.
I say ‘Shy-Rah-Hi’ but I don't mind how anybody says it. There’s no correct way and that’s the point - we want people to interpret it however they want to.
I love the layers! It sounds like your Maltese heritage is very important to you. Does it inform your running of the gallery?
Yes, in the idea that it’s a space that’s occupied by many and the way our language adapts as we grow. We were a project space for the first two years, and we've just turned to more of a gallery model. So, this idea of listening and asking what that means for everybody. That’s a bit of an island culture.
Having lived partly there and partly here, I have a very open-door policy in my life and that's translated into the gallery. We have this ‘assembly’: I didn't want to run the space autocratically, so I invited the first ten artists to help make some decisions and then people didn’t want to leave it, so we turned it into a yearly reflection. It helps us set some goals which is great.
We’re not leaving the project space behind; the project space is 20% of our activity and the other 80% is now a commercial model. Some of the artists said, ‘we want to grow with the gallery’ and so we started representing people.
The two sides run out of the same space?
Yes, we just did a not-for-profit artists’ exchange. We gave them the space and whatever help they needed. We didn’t take any profit but treated it like a show. We’re about to open Luca’s exhibition which is part of the main program.
Going back to the beginning, what was the motivation or mission behind starting the gallery?
It was definitely by accident. During the pandemic, I was still renting a studio and I got kicked out of two or three, then a friend mentioned that locally there were some empty units that used to be creative spots. There was this opportunity and I thought I’ll have a studio but make a window vitrine with a monthly project in it. I was also realising that my own practice was winding down, and I was loving doing the curatorial side of things more – I just hadn’t admitted it to myself yet. After the first show, that vitrine wall moved all the way back and now my office is this tiny space and there’s a big gallery at the front!
The work I like comes from artists who go through formal training in one medium but then there's a bleeding over the edges with other practices. This intersection is what I find really fascinating. We tend to go for works that are uncanny or make you feel a little uncomfortable but have some reality within them. These ‘edges’ are where I find the best conceptual thinking.
I have a small roster and they all do very different things on the surface. But there are threads all linking them: a kind of dichotomy of a present and a future past and there’s something in that coming from my own interests. As a curator, you can kind of facilitate the artwork that you never made as an artist – it wasn’t my intention to do that, but I love seeing this work being made and feel that some of my knowledge is useful.
I love that idea of facilitating the artwork that you never made as an artist. Are there other ways that being an artist informs your work?
I don't have any experience as a curator or in a gallery, so my perspective is slightly different; I think about the practicality of the studio and the community of the artists. It’s important to create a safe space of gathering - it's not just about wowing people with the installation, you want people to have conversations about the work. All the artists become friends and you build this beautiful community, rather than thinking ‘I’m going to start a business and enter the art market’. The market is a learning curve for me, and I’ll say that openly.
How do you feel your gallery relates to its surrounding community or fosters one?
I love Deptford for the artist studios – there’s tonnes - and the proximity to Goldsmiths University. We have a close relationship with a lot of students, mostly MFA. They know that we’re more approachable, we’re not this big scary Mayfair space; I don't want people to feel that because you run a program, you're not approachable. That's not conducive to good community building.
Equally, there is a whole ecosystem that we operate in. As a small gallery, there are bigger galleries that I'm inspired by. The place we’re in now is the best place for us, we can be more experimental; there’s less expectation for there to be a VIP experience. You can come down and have a beer, a cigarette on the street, and no one is there to judge. There’s a bench in the gallery where people just hang out. I hate the feeling when you walk into a gallery and no one greets you, and you're scared of making any floorboard creek! I remember that feeling when I was a student and think that’s rubbish.
We also know a lot of our local businesses: we always have our after-Private View drinks at Villages brewery. We always get our coffee from The Waiting Room. And these people come into the gallery– so there’s a wider community that isn’t from an art background. There’s a school nearby, and teenagers come in and ask me about the artwork. It’s great that they feel comfortable to come and talk to me – I’m not a scary figure.
How do you feel about juggling the non-profit and commercial sides? Are there sacrifices you have to make?
Some things are inevitable because the more you’re doing, the less time you have to be around. I dedicate at least one day every week to being in the gallery - I will try to maintain that. I’d rather hire a team to help me than for me to become unavailable, but I want the team to be as welcoming, as part of the gallery, as I am. It’s not one person, it’s just that I kicked it off!
Some people say, ‘you were so diehard non-profit and artist-first’ and I think I still am. To be able to grow is to be able to participate in certain things, which you can't as a non-profit: art fairs, for example. Things that would bring artwork to an international audience. You can’t just start DMing collectors: you have to meet them face to face.
We have the best of both worlds if we can balance things. There's a weird perception that you're not taking yourself seriously if you're not chasing sales. I believe the power is in the choice of the artists and the calibre of the people you work with. Your relationships show when your exhibitions have been pulled off, when that person wants to continue working with you. That’s what the collector wants to see: some kind of integrity.
I don’t have any experience with the market. I run another business so I have some acumen but not with this client-relationship side, so it can be nerve-wracking. You realise that collectors will buy into an artist because they love the work and you just have to facilitate that conversation. The gallerist shouldn’t be a barrier, and the gallery shouldn’t be an empty vehicle – it needs the curator there and I’m more a curator than dealer currently. Ultimately, it’s making sure the artist knows you’ve got them at heart and the longer you build those relationships the more you can talk to their work, so really, it’s about the artist and everything else should follow.
It's funny that you're judged from both sides about what you should be.
Yeah, it’s a weird fight. When working with emerging artists, it’s good to platform them without putting any pressure on how much commission you want or what production costs are involved etc. Equally that person probably needs time to grow. The other side is artists who have done that bit and they’re ready now to make this their job. That’s how I look at it, rather than not-for-profit vs. commercial. The way the actual business has to be is with those two things being separate – separate bank accounts etc - but it’s the hope that one will eventually lead into the other, the commercial side could support the non-profit projects as a sort of ecosystem.
That’s a really nice way of putting it: it's all about responding to the artist's needs.
It’s always about that for me.
Luca George: The Immersive Experience is showing at Xxijra Hii until 22nd April 2023.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
