Hello! The Horse Hospital Gallery is the ONLY not-for-profit, affordable, accessible, permanent art space in Central London. They have been running for 26 years and are now under imminent threat of closure due to a 333% rent hike on their building.

We launched our collective LESLEY with a group exhibition and series of events in their space in 2019 and now we are doing everything in our power to help them stay open. Please read and sign our letter of support to their landlord at Evannance Investment Co.Limited (below). We will then send them this letter, along with the list of signatures.

Please share with you friends. If you have any questions please email us lesleymagazine@gmail.com and/or message us on Instagram @lesleymagazine

Thank you,
LESLEY x

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Dear Mr Ifan Evans,

We are writing to you in support of independent cultural arts organisation The Horse Hospital, which is under imminent threat of closure due to your company’s proposed 333% rent increase on their building.

The Horse Hospital Gallery is the only permanent not-for-profit independent arts space in Central London and is in a unique position, as a long standing venue of 26 years, to offer underground, subcultural, and low income artists affordable and attainable accesses to an invaluable inter-generational network of our peers and artists and designers that we greatly admire.

Many reputable artists including 2019’s Turner Prize winner have, at one time, exhibited with The Horse Hospital over the years. Whilst these artists do not have the funds to help the gallery stay open long term with the proposed rent increase, they offer up-and-coming artists who work with the gallery an invaluable platform for their work and contribute to the inestimable sense of community that this unique space provides.

When we at Lesley were searching for a space to show our artwork and launch our free, independently published, community magazine last year, The Horse Hospital was the only gallery that was able to support us. They were the only central gallery space who did not try to make us pay hire fees we would have been unable to afford or censor our work. They had availability at a few months notice and encouraged and supported our work with professional enthusiasm.

The central location of the Horse Hospital is vital and allowed us to bring together members of our community from all corners of London, as well as invite influential people who work nearby, to our show.

Our story is just one of so many like us who have benefited immeasurably from working with the Horse Hospital since it opened in 1993.

We know that you at Evannance Investment Co.Limited have many properties on which you can make profit. We don’t know if, as individuals, you have ever experienced financial hardship, if you have ever not been able to access the means by which to successfully pursue what you love. We don’t know your personal stories, but we are telling you ours in the hope that behind the figures you can see that this building has so much more value to our community, and to London as a City, functioning as it is now and has done for over 26 years, than it could ever have in the hands of anyone other than Roger Burton and The Horse Hospital.

We ask you to please reconsider your proposed rent increase of 333% on The Horse Hospital. They cannot afford it, they cannot relocate, they cannot be re-created or emulated, they will be given no option but to close. Leaving a scattered community and a Central London without accessible or community driven arts spaces. We, as a community, as a city of arts and culture, can’t afford to let that happen. We hope you may consider this request as a valuable contribution by your company to supporting our diverse community in London.

Thank you,

Lesley Collective

Lesley is a collective of LGBT+ womxn, trans and non-binary people and our friends. We stand together to support the interests of our community.