OpenHand OpenSpace, Brock Keep, 571 Oxford Road, Reading (2026)

18/06/2026

You are so welcome to join The Engine Room to celebrate their 10th year spinning around the planet.

To mark this moment, join us to delve deep into the archive-of new work, of process, and of ideas not yet dreamt up. It will be both retrospective and speculative: a space to reflect, and a space to imagine forward.

The programme will unfold across a series of shared experiences. We will hold feasts, we will dance, we will plant seeds in an inch of soil.
Drawing rooms will open as intimate spaces for conversation and collective thinking-places where ideas can be sketched, tested, and held in common.

This is both a reflection and a provocation: an invitation to honour the labour, creativity, and collective energy that have brought us here—and to imagine what comes next.

This is part of the Open For Art Festival programme. To see full listings jelly

08/06/2026

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From the OHOS Archives:

Early 1990’s

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Rosy Martin (& Jo Spence)
‘Phototherapy, Memory and Identity. Opening up the family album. An experimental approach.’

A Phototherapy Workshop at Open Space

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Rosy Martin is a London-based artist, psychological-therapist, workshop leader, and writer. Across her art, group work, and therapeutic practice she explores the relationships between photography, memory, identities and unconscious processes. In collaboration with the late Jo Spence, in 1983 she developed the feminist practice of phototherapy, incorporating re-enactments to explore the psychic and social construction of identities within the drama of the everyday. Exhibiting internationally and publishing widely since 1985, Martin investigates issues including gender, sexualities, ageing, class, location, dress, shame, loss, grief and reparation. Her photographic series ‘Transforming the suit: what does a le***an look like?’ (1987), exhibited as part of ‘Women and Revolt’ (Tate Britain, 2023-2024) revisits historical and contemporary tropes of identity to challenge and play with stereotypical assumptions.

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We are currently digitising our archive to share with you and to highlight the extraordinary calibre of events that have occurred at OHOS throughout its history. Our thanks go to those who kept all the flyers and documentation.

Help us save OHOS and protect Brock Keep! Sign our petition to show your support and help protect this vital part of Reading’s cultural identity.
Link in Bio to take action!

21/05/2026

Apply to join us.

New affordable creative work space available now.

We have a single studio space of approx. 16 square metres, available from 1 June 2026. The studio has 24/7 access and costs £82.80pcm. Joining our studio community involves helping with the day to day running of the building and joining the charity’s activities for public benefit.

Open Hand Open Space (OHOS) currently provides ten artists studios, operates a public art gallery/project space and enjoys the support of a diverse community of associate artists and trustees.

The available studio is on the first floor of our studio building at 571 Oxford Road, Reading. All OHOS studios are in a shared building and include circulation space, which other artists can pass through to access their own spaces. Brock Keep is a publicly owned building and as such is occasionally open for visitors and open studio events.

If you’d like to join us, please email your application [email protected] by 30th May 2026.

For guidance on writing your application, please visit the link on our website, through our Linktree link in our bio 🔗

There will be an opportunity to view the studio on the 25th and 30th of May 2026. More details to be confirmed.

12/05/2026

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From the OHOS Archives:

1991-1993

A5 Flyers mainly designed by Marcus Cole, for a series of talks & presentations at OHOS by the following artists / photographers.

Images 1&2:
David A Bailey

Images 3&4:
Helen Escobedo

Image 5:
David Hevey

Images 6&7:
Chila Kumari Burman
(talk given by Veena Stephenson, due to illness)

Image 8:
Tom Mulligan

Images 9 & 10:
Bipinchandra J Mistry & Santoshni Perera
(Exhibition flyer including an announcement of an informal debate, chaired by Mark Sealy)

17/04/2026

Blood, Sweat & Tears

19.6.2026 - 28.6.2026

As part of Open For Art 2026

This year The Engine Room turns 10 on 2.7.2026

To mark this moment, join us to delve deep into our archive—of new work, of process, and of ideas not yet dreamt up. It will be both retrospective and speculative: a space to reflect, and a space to imagine forward.

The programme will unfold across a series of shared experiences. We will hold feasts, we will dance, we will plant seeds in an inch of soil.

Drawing rooms will open as intimate spaces for conversation and collective thinking—places where ideas can be sketched, tested, and held in common.

This is both a reflection and a provocation: an invitation to honour the labour, creativity, and collective energy that have brought us here—and to imagine what comes next.

06/04/2026

:
From the OHOS Archives:

From 1992

Danica Jojich

‘ARMED TO BE ALLOWED’.

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‘Danica Jojich’s travels in Serbia, where she met both her parents’ families and experienced life there through her relatives, left an indelible mark on her which continues to impress itself in her artwork. Jojich dedicates her works to people she cares for, introducing a very personal narrative into each installation. She uses common, everyday objects like clothes racks, pillows, newspapers, linen, and felt to present socio-political topics within a context familiar to the viewer. Despite the comfortable atmosphere created by “home-made” objects, Jojich asks the viewer to examine the way they look and understand these objects. Larger issues such as family, immigration, war and feminism can be found embedded in her manipulation of this material. The personal speaks of the political in her art. In her wearable pieces, from her Armed to be Allowed (1990) series, the domestic narrative is purposely interwoven with the political one, opening up unlimited identifications and associations both private and public.’

02/02/2026

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From the OHOS Archives…

Images 1-5:
Graphics & Posters for a series of ‘Open Studio’ events during 1989 and 1990 featuring the studio members from this time

Image6:
At the back of the archive there includes this list of studio artists outlining their diverse and eclectic backgrounds

Images 7&8:
Some documentation. There seems to be little in terms of actual work from this time; more-so a record of how information was disseminated through the almost forgotten art of flyer and poster design. Most of these are printed out on A3 and at the time I’m sure it wasn’t predicted that a domestic scanner would be A4 (hence the misaligned efforts to stitch them together digitally).

22/01/2026

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From the OHOS Archives…

‘PERFORMANCE ART’

Image 1:
A3 poster for an evening of Performance Art at OHOS on 03rd June 1989, featuring…

Max Eastley & Tim Hill
David Medalla & Brian Morgan.

What a bonkers night that must have been.

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FILMS FILMS FILMS FILMS FILMS

Image 2:
As part of Reading’s International Festival in 1989. In the archive it says: ‘Films chosen for their relevance to international issues, both documentary and fictional, were from Circles, Arts Council and Cinema of Women’. This was organised by Susan Taylor, a studio member at OHOS.

As part of the festival was ‘an exhibition of laminated photographic panels with text snd colour by Keith Piper, a young black artist working in Britain whose work covers issues of colonialism and racism’. Also organised by Susan Taylor.

There are no images of Piper’s work but it is mentioned in the line up of the festival (top left, Image 2). The artists and films is an impressive list including the likes of Valie Export, Jeanette IIJon, Julie Dash and the experimental feminist filmmaker, Sandra Lahire.

Image 3 shows an A4 handout found in the OHOS archives for Lahire’s film ‘Arrows’. More information on these artists can be found on sites like

Images 4 & 5:
Close up images of the programme. With an entry fee of what looks like £1 or 50p for concessions.

12/01/2026

:
From the OHOS Archives…

-MAIL ART-

Image 1:
A3 poster for the 1989 Mail Art Exhibition: ‘500 Years of Resistance’, organised by Mary Riley and the poster designed by Marcus Cole.

Image 2:
A3 poster for the 1990 Mail Art Exhibition: ‘Openings’. In the archives it states that this is ‘….a mail art exhibition to celebrate the formal opening of Open Space. Hundreds of people participated by sending their artwork to us through the post. Local, national, international contributions were all exhibited. The exhibition was opened by the Mayor, Maureen Lockey and by the Visual Arts Officer for Southern Arts, Hugh Adams. Organised collaboratively.’

Image 3:
Original A4 call out sheet for ‘Openings’, with interesting stipulation that it can be anything but ‘it has to be acceptable to the Post Office!’

Images 4&5:
Open Space signage installed to coincide with ‘Openings’

Image 6:
Residency & Exhibition Documentation.
Heinz-Hermann Jurczek, an artist from Düsseldorf, was invited to work in the studios for two months. He exhibited the resulting artwork (see images on the left) on the opening evening of the Mail Art exhibition. Organised by Berkshire Artists Group and Open Hand Studios.

18/12/2025

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From the OHOS Archive…

Rhonda Wilson
‘WORTH PAYING FOR’
1990

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Rhonda Wilson’s project ‘Worth Paying For’ was commissioned by the West Midlands Low Pay Unit and presented at OHOS in 1990 amongst other venues.

Rhonda Wilson built an international reputation for progressive photographic campaigns around low pay and homelessness.

It is worth researching her practice. Seemingly deep rooted in her home city of Birmingham, she supported photographers and artists with a genuine commitment to social issues.

Alongside this project there was a slide talk by Arpana Caur.

And lastly a selection of Video Screenings of ‘Animated Films on Social Issues’ by the Leeds Animation Workshop’. LAW is a women’s collective set up in 1978 to produce and distribute animated films on social issues.
It is still active today.

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Image 1:
A3 poster for ‘Rhonda Wilson: Worth Paying For’, 1990

Image 2:
Hand out and information to:
‘Worth Paying For’
Women and Low Pay in Birmingham.
‘Growing Concerns’ poster work project.
Rhonda Wilson

Images 3-4:
Documentation

Image 5:
Original A3 collage poster design for ‘Arpana Caur: Slide Talk’, 1990.

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OpenHand OpenSpace

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