Ronan Mckenzie on the significance of sharing information
“A lot of artists obviously come to the space, but it’s also got people who just have an interest in the arts and don’t necessarily do that in their day to day,” says photographer and designer Ronan Mckenzie of her arts space, Home, which sits in a pocket of north London, far from the mammoth institutions and international galleries in the city centre. “They just feel comfortable in the space and they want to come and look at a book that we have.”
There are also the women who flock there on Sundays to write, or the teacher who spent the afternoon there making lesson plans when their school was closed for construction, or the people new to London who come across it through channels like Eventbrite.
‘Community’ is a word we hear more and more, whether that’s organisations and institutions professing to contribute to it, or brands making claims that they care about it. But it’s sometimes hard to know what it actually looks like in practice. Pass through Mckenzie’s aptly named space and you might find some answers.
Top: Ronan Mckenzie’s arts space, Home, in north London; Above: self-portrait by Ronan Mckenzie