Club culture spearheads drive to create city's new art quarter

Spearheading the move into Humber Street, until recently a 200-year-old fruit and flower street market, is what will be the country's first Museum of Club Culture.

The museum, the brainchild of author, artist and lecturer Mark "Wigan" Williams, is among a cluster of artistic projects setting up in redundant fruit warehouses along the street.

The hope is that the area will evolve organically – along similar lines to Hoxton, east London, which became the home of famous "Britartists" like Damien Hirst – and develop a reputation as a centre for the arts.

Williams has poured 30 years clubbing experience into the museum along with his own archive of memorabilia, including illustrations and Polaroids taken during a ten-year stint as roving reporter for i-D magazine.

In the late 1980s he captured famous names like Quentin Crisp, Debbie Harry and Andy Warhol – who had described a mural he'd done at The Limelight Club in London as "hot."

The museum will celebrate club culture in its many and varied forms – from prohibition speakeasies and jazz-age flappers to the branded dance music super clubs and virtual internet clubs of today.

According to Williams, "every night owl, party monster, mover and shaker, dance style, subcult and micro-movement" will fall under the museum's spotlight.

Hull-born singer and actor Roland Gift will be opening the museum at a launch event in early July, just before the arrival of the Clipper fleet.

Meanwhile, next door at 11, Humber Street painter, printmaker and Dean of Hull School of Art and Design Rob Moore and ceramacist Adele Howitt are opening a professional art studio and gallery.

In the biggest space, 2-5, Humber Street, Hull School of Art and Design together with Big Skies and several media companies are going to open an artists centre with a contemporary art gallery "with national quality work" and a film screening area.

Mr Moore said the galleries were "ambitious" but "needed."

He said: "We want artists and designers and photographers that have got national reputations coming in. It might mean northern and local people, it might mean others.

"From my point of view as Dean it is important to have something which our graduates can aspire to, giving them opportunities at fairly low cost to set up creative businesses in Hull rather than seeing them disappear off to Manchester and London."

Williams is waiting for the outcome of funding bids, but in the meantime is prepared to fund the venture out of his own pocket. He said: "I can see the potential of this area, having worked in Shoreditch, in London before it took off. The recession has provided the opportunity because developers are not interested in investing at the moment."

An exhibition on Hull's Club Culture is being planned for the Autumn, with others following on The Northern Soul Scene, Japanese Club Culture, Berlin and Punk. Guest speakers will include the likes of authorities on club culture and street style, authors Ted Polhemus and Phil Strongman.

Williams – nicknamed "Wigan" because he was a Wigan Casino regular in the 1970s – said: "I'm open to people to contact me if they want to come and have a chat. We are building up a social history archive so people can talk about their reminiscences and their club days. It's any kind of club, not just alternative clubs.

"I've had people in their 70s who used to go to Lexington Avenue which has now been demolished, which was the Locarno in the 60s when they had big swing bands.

"I just think the idea has really got the potential to interest huge numbers of people. Ninety per cent of people meet their partners in a club; people might have only gone for a year or two but they have a significant impact on their lives. The dancing, the music, the sense of community and identity are themes running through the museum."

To get in touch email [email protected].

Entertainment opportunity

A plum opportunity to regenerate Humber Street comes at numbers 62-63.

"Fruit" promises an experience on the lines of London's Camden Lock in the early 1990s.

Operated by Andy Pearson, artistic director of Ensemble 52 Theatre Company and Dave Mays, co-owner of Hull's famous Welly Club, the two adjoining warehouses are being converted into a multi-function entertainment space which will host a different activity every weekend, from music to theatre and independent and world cinema from Hull Film.

It will also feature indoor markets featuring the most popular independent traders in the area, with visitors able to browse among flower stalls, art, antiques and clothes.

Mr Pearson said: "We are all from the area and we want to be able to show award-winning work in our home town. The idea is to change the status quo in terms of theatre in the area at the moment."

Economic development quango Hull Forward owns most of the properties vacated when fruit traders moved out last year. Chief executive John Holmes said they hoped to bring eight properties back into use over the course of the year. He said: "The regeneration of the Fruit Market remains a priority for us and despite challenging economic conditions we are confident that the area will continue to develop."