Garudio Studiage

What’s a quintessentially London experience that has particularly inspired a piece of your work?

We walk a lot all over London, and if it's feasible, we walk to get anywhere we need to, especially since we got our dog Dante.  While we're walking, we look and record things we see, things that are interesting, funny, strange or inexplicable.  The ‘London Cat Map Tea Towel’ which is sold in the London Museum shop is a good example of this.  This started off as a super local ‘Peckham Cat Map’ which illustrated and mapped everything Anna saw in Peckham that had a cat on it, related to a cat, or was a place where a cat lived and could be seen from the street.  This gradually became a more ambitious project for the whole of London, and brought in research from other sources as well as visits to locations to collect images or information.  We now also have  a dog version which involved a similar process of location visits, library and online research.

What are some of your favourite local spots in London that inspire your work?

We are very attached to the main shopping streets near our current and previous studios - Rye Lane in Peckham, and Deptford High Street.  These streets have shops where you can buy almost anything you could need, and very importantly, shops that can give you ideas or a solution to a problem of how to make, present or package something.  Sometimes, the idea we need is in a pound shop, junk shop, street market or just abandoned in the street, and walking, looking and thinking without trying to design or make something sellable helps us make things.  Both these streets also have some of the best and overlooked architecture in London, and are also amazing for their abundance of owner-occupied shops with less chains than a lot of high streets.  About 13 years ago, we were commissioned by Peckham Space Galley to make a  project where we drew every building on Rye Lane.  We then asked visitors to draw or collage what shops they would like to see on the street.  It was surprising how many people made versions of the shops that were already there, which felt quite reassuring that the existing shops reflect the needs and wants of the local people.

How did working in such an unconventional space shape your approach to art and design? Did the move to your new studio impact your creative process and projects?

Both these studios were cheap and basic, but easy to work in as they were big enough spaces, but we didn’t have to worry about covering a lot of rent. This really helped us and started us on our path of making work that could sell, as we could experiment but didn’t need to be hugely commercial.  We also worked very locally to where we lived, and this meant we were constantly surrounded by the unique personality of south London and sights which inspired ideas other people might not have thought suitable for making art and design.  We now work in a brand new building, which has double glazed windows, excellent insulation and brand new electrics, but our approach to making work hasn’t changed that much.  The new studio is run by a not for profit arts organisation, (Second Floor Studios) and their approach has been to utilise space in buildings where it is available and give artists and makers spaces they can develop a practice in. So although the new space is much more ‘proper’ the project comprises of about 70 studios and each studio feels like a place to make work in whatever way is right for each artist.  Our space mixes screen printing, digital processes, space to cut, fold and finish paper, textiles and some basic wood work where it's needed such as making badges, magnets and even a scale model of a Lewisham rubbish bin.  It's important to us that we make everything ourselves where we can.  We make almost everything we sell in our own studio, and can produce 1000’s of things by hand in quite a small space.