Mount Jupiter Reports

Dear Mount Jupiter, Outer Spaces?

A succinct and troubling question from our reader…

Outer Spaces (aka Artists Spaces SCIO) was incorporated in 2021 to offer free studios for artists, collectives and organisations nationwide. At an extraordinary pace, the charity has fashioned itself as an indispensable provider in an otherwise hostile moment. Established haters of WASPS (Workshop and Artists Studio Provision Scotland), now approaching its fiftieth year of controversy, will have needed little convincing as to the inordinate cost and oversubscription of creative working space. Recognising this disenchantment, Outer Spaces presents a Faustian bargain with two clauses. 

Firstly, the organisation exclusively leases buildings on the precipice of redevelopment, establishing an advantageous short-termism which ensures that no one ever gets too comfortable—fluorescent lighting, office furniture and broken boilers notwithstanding. This is the upfront deal and sure, fine, that’s not so bad if it’s free? It takes some digging and a dose of civic mindedness to uncover our second forfeit, but fortunately we have a weird fixation on where public money flows and nothing better to do.

The Glasgow Bell have recently reported on how a charity with dubiously indistinct purpose called ‘Humanitarian Operations’ occupies 41 offices across Glasgow, being paid a reverse rent to do so by property owners who are then absolved of costly business rates on unoccupied commercial premises. The economics of Outer Spaces are much the same: a charity provides a tax avoidance scheme to landlords, leasing vacant spaces and taking liability with 100% rates relief in most cases—at the discretion of the council, with a statutory minimum of 80%.

For the small trouble of having paint-flecked graduates in your building who you can evict whenever convenient, these savings are heaven-sent for owners. Amongst the largest premises leased by Outer Spaces in Glasgow are the old Clydesdale Bank headquarters on St Vincent Place with a ratable value of £1m, and 48 Finnieston Square (Skypark) at £1.2m. Before any kind of relief, these locations alone would be liable for £553k and £657k per annum, respectively. In sum, across the country, this amounts to millions withheld to the impoverishment of local services.

The charity’s annual income has grown exponentially: £65,559 in its first year to £497,013 at the last return (dated 2024). At that point, 97% of this cash came from ‘donations’—the remainder provided by miniscule pots of arts funding. Outer Spaces do not run fundraising campaigns or offer mechanisms for individuals to support the cause, so we can reasonably guess that effectively all of this cash flows from commercial landlords who simply cannot believe the deal they are getting. Of course, charitable donations are deductible from corporation tax too. 

This mutual pact currently underwrites the salaries of 11 staff, space for over 1,000 artists, and a public programme of exhibitions and commissions. The benefits are self-evident. Here is permissive re-use of otherwise neglected space where good work can and does indeed happen, at least in the short term. In exploiting the post-pandemic evacuation of our city centres, however, Outer Spaces present an existential dilemma: is this organised opportunism robbing the rich (landlords) and giving to the poor (artists), or, robbing the poor (the city) and giving to the rich (landlords)? As ever in our neoliberal endgame, the answer depends on whether you prioritise the individual or the collective. One thousand artists and counting have made that choice already #selfcare #mutualaid.

Outer Spaces was established with a charitable purpose to advance the arts. It does that, if you squint, as a kind of corollary impact. But for our materialist heads, the primary transaction here, or lack thereof, is the taxation which is not otherwise supporting your local schools, social care, and, yes, art galleries. To attack the thing from both ends, they also drew a comical £217 from Aberdeen City Council in 2024, all the while screwing the same dunces for thousands more as an accomplice to the commercial landlord avoidant attachment psychosis.

The org seems here to stay, normalising a perennial condition of temporariness and letting those who long to abnegate custody for cultural life breathe a sigh of relief. Creative Scotland and your local council needn’t worry about supporting studio non-profits any longer, Outer Spaces are ‘building an alternative infrastructure for the arts’ without the archaic inconveniences of ownership, visibility or integration. So, how does one resist complicity in the atrophy of it all? Why not try the original free studio scheme and squat—we hear there’s some luxury student accommodation available.

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Mount Jupiter Reports is a new monthly bad faith stream-of-consciousness and agony aunt service. Do you have artworld troubles? Write to mount.jupiter.conspiracy@gmail.com with your symptoms and an exorcism may be provided.