Indie Interview: The North Wall Arts Centre
I recently had a fantastic catch-up with Amy Walters, Deputy Director, and Nicky Laird, Gallery Manager, from The North Walls Art Centre.
The North Wall Arts Centre brings together artists and audiences from Oxford and beyond to make, share, and experience art of the highest quality.
Let’s kick off with an introduction to The North Wall Arts Centre
The North Wall Art Centre is a public art centre with a 200-seat theatre, stunning gallery space, as well as studio spaces, run by The North Wall Trust.
It opened to the public in 2007 with a summer arts festival, and since then our programme has grown to include theatre, music, comedy, exhibitions, family shows, and workshops. We are proud to have roughly 30,000 visitors every year.
What is its core mission?
It’s all about that space where artists and audiences can come together to make, share, and create really high-quality art- whether that is theatre or visual art. We want people to be able to experience the beauty and truth that comes with it all. Another core part of our mission is to give artists the opportunities to develop their practice through our ArtsLab programme.
How does the ArtsLab programme specifically help artists progress their careers?
The programme provides artists with the space to develop their practice and take their careers to the next level. A big part of ArtsLab is Catalyst, a project running every April offering in-depth professional development to early-career writers and directors. Artists are paired with mentors to work with them during a two-week accommodation. They can focus on fully immersing themselves in the experience of making new work, and then they have the chance to showcase their new play to the public.
For the past 4 years, the gallery has made space for ArtsLab to extend into the visual arts. Each year, an early-career visual artist is invited to exhibit in the gallery for two weeks. They might showcase new work or a project in development that requires visitor feedback, or use the gallery to give recent work greater exposure.
Collaboration is a core value at The North Wall. Tell us more about how you engage with other local businesses.
We set up with Sarah Wiseman Gallery and the Turrill Sculpture Garden the annual ‘Art Late‘ event. We were all keen to promote the wonderful venues and shops in South Parade and give those who work during the day the opportunity to sample the delights of our neighborhood.
All the galleries are open for a couple of hours in the evening, there’s a talk about the current exhibition, and Grape Minds gives a wine tasting tailored to each exhibition. We have a great turnout every time, and people keep coming back each year with other friends! Other businesses in the street stay open – visitors have been able to visit White Coco, The Meet Point, and Art-K and put their names in a raffle to win prizes from other South Parade businesses – Pompette, Mamma Mia, Pankhurst & Deane, and Pophams have all contributed. The hope is that prize winners will claim their prizes and keep coming back for more!
Our values around community building align perfectly. What do you enjoy about this, and have you seen a correlation between building the community and increasing footfall to local businesses?
Art Late has a great turn-out and, by asking people to get all three stamps for their raffle prize card, they are sure to end up visiting all three galleries and pass by the other shops en route. Hopefully, by the time the evening is done, they manage to visit all the spots, and if not, they know about them and can come back another time.
Thinking about theatre, since you can’t take the theatre out of the theatre, there are a few more limitations when it comes ot promoting other local businesses. Our approach is to partner instead with local producers and sell their products at the bar. We have a strong relationship with Tap Social, have just started to sell Chadlington Brewery beers, and plan to work with a local coffee roastery- there are so many fantastic local producers in Oxford, and supporting means being sustainable as well.
Talking about sustainability, we encourage all the artists who exhibit in the gallery to be as sustainable as possible, although it’s not hard for artists – they are not prone to wasting precious materials! For example, we encourage those with whom we work to use Velocity Cycle Couriers, the ultra-low-emission courier company helping Oxfordshire businesses deliver quickly, cost-effectively, and sustainably. We hope that artists and suppliers will think of them when sending packages to The North Wall.
Artist Phillipa James is your first Creative Associate in the visual arts. Tell us more about the influence you had on each other and how you continue to work together.
Let me start by giving you a quick history.
We first came across her during Covid when Phillippa was sharing online the story behind ‘100 Women of Oxford’, a project that consists of 100 portraits (each with accompanying text) of Oxford-based women from all walks of life. Philippa launched an exhibition of these portraits at Tap Social in March 2020, only to close when lockdown began. The North Wall offered Philippa the chance to show them again as part of Photo Oxford in Autumn 2020. Philippa was at the start of her artistic career and, following this wonderful exhibition, we wanted to support her further – first by publishing the book of ‘100 Women of Oxford’ and then the opportunity to become The North Wall’s first Creative Associate in the visual arts.
Phillippa embarked on an MA in Photography and needed a gallery space to further develop her MA project work. We made space in the exhibition programme and gave her two weeks in the gallery to show work in progress and develop her ideas – and so ArtsLab in the gallery was born. Since then, we have supported other early-career artists and, in January, we are giving the space to two young artists (they are still at school!)
Anything else you want to highlight for the rest of 2025?
Absolutely. The rest of 2025 is focused on local makers.
We are delighted that Creation Theatre is back again in December with The Nutcracker. It opens on 29th November and runs until 3rd January. It’s brilliant family Christmas fun, and we love hosting them!
The Oxford Printmakers Co-operative’s latest exhibition, “The Printmaker’s Eye,” will open in the gallery on Thursday 27th November and run until early January. A little backstory: They have been a print studio on Cowey Road since 1977, supporting all print makers in Oxford.
What are you looking forward to in 2026?
Now, I don’t know where to start with 2026.
Let’s look at the theatre first.
We are really looking forward to Mandala Theatre (an Oxford-based theatre company) ending their tour for their new show, ‘Incarcerating Eve’, with us, from the 14th to – 17th of April.
Another Creative Associate, Tom Brennan, from the theatre company, ‘The Wardrobe Ensemble’, is bringing the new show ‘Party Season’ to us from 28th April to 1st May. Tom first came into The North Wall family from our ‘Catalyst’ programme for early-career writers and directors. ‘Party Season’ is all about the horror of being a parent at a children’s birthday party, which sounds like a lot of fun!
Now for the gallery, where all artists are local.
Peter Rhoades, who, for many years, was the Art Tutor at Christ Church College, Oxford, is having a show with local ceramic artist Emma Baldwin. They both taught Fine Art at Abingdon and Witney College for many years, and we expect many people who are part of the art community in Oxfordshire will come and support them (and, by the way, the work is beautiful and for sale too!)
The exhibition ‘The Drawing Project’ is a collaborative work involving sixteen artists and two paintings from the Ashmolean Museum. All the artists are local and it’s wonderful that visitors can see the works they have created in this collaboration and take part in workshops at The Ashmolean.
