Convenience Gallery has been part of the arts and culture scene in Birkenhead – and the wider city region – for the last six years. But now it’s time for its founders to move on to pastures new.
The roving Convenience Gallery has become a cherished part of the Birkenhead community, leading projects like The Town is the Gallery for Wirral’s Borough of Culture year, the Manchester Contemporary, Uncovering Birkenhead’s Working class history with Historic England and the Birkenhead International Film Festival.
It has worked with more than 5,000 people and 30+ artists, focusing on non-traditional environments for its exhibitions. Founder Andy Shaw describes it as “high quality visual arts – always very embedded in the community and informed and led by those collaborations we had with people in different community groups and the local area.
“Our art is that catalyst and jumping off point for working with and supporting people in the local area,” he says. “We try to help people get paid opportunities – almost 70 paid opportunities – get involved and reduce that isolation. It was about trying to bring people together in fun and engaging ways.”
Kindred invested in Convenience Gallery as part of our second cohort, in 2022 – in the same year, it won dbace – Deutschebank’s Award for Creative Entrepreneurs. “Dbace and funding from Kindred meant we developed a three-year business plan. It really helped us mapping forward what we do and how to condense and rethink our activity,” says co-founder Ryan Gauge. “We knew it worked together, but we have an ideal way of explaining how those things connected with each other – going through those investment processes was really useful to develop that.”
Its years in Birkenhead have seen the town develop a reputation for creative redevelopment, attracting £26m in Towns Fund money from government, with organisations including Future Yard, Hype Merseyside, Make CIC and Open Door Charity gaining national recognition.
“I don’t think I was expecting it to resonate with people as much as it did,” admits Ryan. “When we took over the space in Birkenhead town centre, it turned into an art gallery. We found a massive increase in local people attending and really engaging – nearly 70% of people were from Birkenhead or Wallasey.”
“I’m proud of our work in local area with local people, and just how much they enjoy art and creativity,” adds Andy. “I hope what we’ve done is influenced the positive change in Birkenhead. Some of the people we worked with in the first year or two that were struggling to get involved with the creative world and are now curating shows in galleries and working on art festivals.”
Ryan describes the importance of creating their socially-trading organisation to drive the type of work they want to happen: “When we started, we went from feeling like outcasts within the arts and not having any work to working with the universities and hosting an international arts festival,” he reflects. “It’s such a valuable experience of working with an internationally-renowned artist and bringing him to Birkenhead. It really helped us build a solid network and I think a lot of people have got a lot of time and respect for the work that we’ve done within the region.”
“We were doing projects with young people who have become young adults – seeing them taking their first steps into education and the professional world,” adds Andy. “Seeing people’s development and their journey and knowing you’ve helped them at a pivotal point, like a young person who’s not getting the opportunities and being able to provide that bit of trust in their art to give them that chance to have a go and see what comes.”
Their decision to close their doors reflects the emotional input, hard work and risk they have put into the gallery: “It’s been an emotional amount of work to get to the point of saying ‘we’re going to stop this’,” admits Andy. ”Both of us will always be involved with the community and the work we do will always be creative in some way or another.”
Peer lessons
Both point to the amount they’ve gained from their work with Convenience, alongside the impact they’ve created in the community. “The process was very valuable, as was taking the time and the care to get to know people and put ourselves out there,” Andy says. “I’ve gone from feeling very disconnected from the creative community and not knowing where to start, to giving ourselves a name and a sense of credibility and connecting with peers, with a network that stretches from here to London and Portsmouth.”
“Convenience wouldn’t have worked without that peer and collaborative approach – that’s what’s shaped the most exciting parts of what we’ve done,” adds Ryan. “Our model has always been about partnerships – working with local councils, charities and other organisations in the area.
We’ve been a roving gallery with no set home and the main reason to do that was to remove any kind of barrier from engagement. So if we take it out and place it in community spaces like a park, a pub, a charity building… the market. We bring programming into these spaces and make it purposeful. The council collaborations have been super valuable – they’re key to unlocking assets in our communities and we’ve been able to do some really exciting programming.”
Investment support
Kindred’s strategy director, Erika Rushton, says: “We invested in Andy and Ryan at Convenience Gallery because they wanted to make a difference in Birkenhead. As they close Convenience Gallery for the last time it would be easy to think this wasn’t an investment success. Far from it!
These two young curators have helped redefine Birkenhead – from a place of problems to a place full of possibility, persuading other young people to return or remain with the confidence they can be part of the reshaping of Birkenhead. We also invested in Ryan and Andy who both now plan to travel the world – just as young people should. They will take all they have learnt with them, gain some more along the way and, when they settle, or return, I have no doubt they will make some more difference to the communities they are part of.”
“Whenever we asked for support from Kindred the team has always tried to really find the person or the information to support us,” Andy says. “And you need to be as truthful as you can be with anyone who’s investing in your business,” adds Ryan. “It’s a useful thing to learn and what we’ve always tried to do. There’s no point pretending that things are going better than they are – these are the people who can help you!”
