Contains Art

Contains Art CIO was established in 2012 as a not-for-profit social enterprise, converting to a charitable incorporated organisation in 2021.

For six years, until October 2019, Contains Art's home was three shipping containers. Over a period of about a month, in the early summer of 2013, around 40 volunteers worked to convert the worn-out containers into a wonderful gallery and four artists' studios. The builders, mainly women from the local creative community, who knew very little about construction, worked together, worked it out and learnt rapidly the value of power tools!

Contains Art opened on time and on budget in July 2013. Since that time, we have gone from strength to strength, broadening our remit, expanding our audiences and demonstrating a firm ability to have a real impact—changing perceptions about who can engage with what. A full programme of increasingly ambitious exhibitions and community events was delivered each year in the container gallery and the friendly courtyard. Our studios supported the development of a group of tenant artists as well as offering residencies to emerging artists. Visitors have enjoyed meeting and seeing the artists at work, and the studios and courtyard have also been a hub for the local artist community to congregate.

Our exhibition programming reflects a core focus on work that is accessible but still amazing. For example, we brought Matisse's cut-outs to our shipping container (from the Hayward gallery on the Southbank in London). It was visited by hundreds of local primary school children. Likewise, an immersive digital installation brought in an unexpected, new, teenage audience, and we commissioned one of the liveliest emerging performance artists in the UK who worked organically with students from the local sixth form to produce a show-stopping spectacle.

The spirit of ownership that was created by physically building the project together has given us a powerful base; a band of supporters has continued to volunteer, whether manning the gallery, cooking at community events, hosting workshops, or grinding the rust off the container roofs.

A brilliant future!

Contains Art's future lies within a wider, very significant, community-led regeneration project for Watchet's East Quay. This project is being driven by social enterprise, Onion Collective CIC. Contains Art is the seed from which the scheme has grown. Contains Art will be scaled-up and expanded, in size and ambition, aiming to become a significant regional, cultural player, bringing the highest quality artwork to a local audience who would otherwise never get such a chance.

Besides a much larger, double-height gallery for Contains Art, the development will include a new dedicated arts retail space, 11 artist studios, a substantial education and project room, and a large community/performance public space. RIBA award-winning architect and broadcaster Piers Taylor has created extraordinary designs, which received full planning permission in 2018.

Capital funding was secured in 2019 and construction began in January 2020. Opening in September 2021, the story of East Quay continues.