Phoenix Art Space
Opening times: Wednesday – Sunday, 12pm – 5pm
For this year’s Youth Takeover, the main gallery at Phoenix Art Space is reimagined as a dynamic space for young audiences. Visitors can enjoy photography and sculpture by young people, a zine-making zone, doodle wall, sculpture table, and a relaxed social space.
Come along and see photographic work from Photoworks’ Queer Grounds, a programme of LGBTQ+ friendly creative workshops for young people aged 16-25, delivered in partnership with Phoenix Art Space. Also exhibited for the first time are sculptural works by young people aged 13-15 from the Russell Martin Foundation’s Extra Time Project, working with Phoenix Art Space created in response to Laura White’s Daily Baroque exhibition at the gallery.
Youth Takeover opening event – Saturday 15 November, 14:00 – 16:00
Join us as we celebrate the opening of the Youth Takeover! Grab a pen and join Brighton street artist Sinna One as we doodle on the gallery walls. Enjoy music from young DJs, plus drinks and snacks.
Youth Takeover is a creative programme at Phoenix Art Space led by and for young people aged 13-25.
Queer Grounds – Where we Meet
The young people taking part in Queer Grounds invite you to explore practices, spaces, and connections that sustain LGBTQ+ communities.
Through photography, sculpture, performance and shared research, young people have been considering how the language and processes of building can mirror the creation and maintenance of queer community spaces.
The artworks trace moments from the group’s shared process. From staged self-portraits playing with ideas of shelter and gathering, to wooden tote boxes developed with the queer-led carpentry organisation In Our Hands.
Responding to In Our Hands’ distinctive visual language, self-built structures, improvised wooden frames and patchwork constructions, the group developed a layered assembly of wood offcuts reflecting on windows, thresholds, and the use of leftover materials.
The accompanying book – How to Work with Tools and Wood is a nod to the long, often gendered legacy of woodworking. Through visual interventions, the young people gently disrupt, opening the book as a space to rethink who participates in these craft traditions.
Each element reflects an inquiry into how building, both as structure and metaphor can hold, support, and connect queer experience.
About the Queer Grounds Programme
Queer Grounds is a free programme of LGBTQ+ friendly creative workshops for young people aged 16 – 25 led by photographers Eva Louisa Jonas and Kairo Urovi delivered by Photoworks in partnership with Phoenix Art Space.
The programme invites young people to explore how LGBTQ+ communities have created alternative ways of coming together that are rooted in care, community, and collective action.
Together they have looked at how projects like community gardens, art groups, walking collectives, and DIY spaces have emerged out of necessity, offering quieter alternatives to nightlife. Photography has been used as a creative tool to document, interpret, and reflect on these experiences.
Photography has been used as a creative tool to document, interpret, and reflect on these experiences, enabling participants to develop skills in visual storytelling and lens-based techniques.
