Aspex art gallery wins £150,000 to help it reach a wider audience

Aspex, Portsmouth’s contemporary art gallery, has been awarded £158,504 from Arts Council England’s National Lottery-funded capital programme, to finance the development of its facilities at Gunwharf Quays, and extend its reach in to the community.

Joanne Bushnell, Director of Aspex, said: ‘As Aspex celebrates its 35th anniversary this year, we are thrilled to have received this significant support from Arts Council England and our small capital project will be an excellent way of starting our celebrations.

‘It will enable us to develop our building to improve its facilities for audiences and artists, while also reducing our environmental impact and improving our sustainability.

‘Two key new features will be an artists studio, accessible to all of our visitors, who will be invited to engage directly with artists while they work, and a mobile participation studio which will help us to reach out to local communities in and around Portsmouth who do not currently visit the gallery.

‘A really big thank you to Arts Council England for helping Aspex to achieve our ambition.’

Further improvements will also be made to the building’s environmental sustainability and Aspex’s digital capabilities will be upgraded.

The build element of the project is scheduled to start in April this year.