First look: a major contemporary arts venue opens on the South Bank this week

If you’re a big contemporary art buff, you may have spotted the news that a major new arts space is about to debut in central London.

Opening on June 25, Hypha Gallery South Bank will transform the ground floor of a currently vacant office building on Southwark Bridge Road. Located just minutes away from Tate Modern, it could create some healthy competition for the iconic power station building on the Thames.

Arts charity Hypha Studios – which hosts studios and exhibitions in vacant buildings – is behind the new project, which will feature nearly 800 square metres of galleries and more than 400 square metres of studio space. It’ll be the charity’s largest space to date. To start with, 17 makers will be able to use the on-site studios for free to create their work.

As for its exhibitions, well, they’ll all be free to visit too. Hypha Gallery South Bank will debut with three shows – Bridging the Gap, a series of sculptures inspired by Southwark Bridge, a second site-specific exhibit exploring how local histories continue to shape Southwark’s future, and a separate immersive audio experience where you can listen in to sounds made by microbes and fungi. 

Hypha Studios was founded in 2021 and in the years since has transformed around 70 disused buildings into free exhibition and studio spaces across the UK. It will have use of the Southwark Bridge Road space for the next year.

Did you see that Stratford could be getting a huge new food and arts destination?

Plus: tickets for the British Museum’s blockbuster Bayeux Tapestry exhibition go on sale to the general public next week – here’s how to book tickets cheaper than £33.

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