Who we are

Metroland Cultures is a studio and arts organisation in a former health clinic behind Kilburn Market in Brent, North West London.

Inspired by the building’s legacy of community care, our work is led by an ethos of stewardship. Stewarding enables us to ask questions about how we build and prioritise community through and around the resources that we maintain and nurture.

Through this approach we work collectively with others to produce art and research responding to the lived realities, imaginations, and organising histories of our neighbourhood.

Our free, year-round public programme includes exhibitions, events, workshops, studio residencies, artist development initiatives, and a biennial festival across our neighbourhood. At our Kilburn site, we host a gallery, a social space, and community-led activities led and shaped by our studio holders, including a printing press, zine library, film school, cinema, and radio station.

Stewardship guides how we host, listen, and care for the people, practices, and infrastructures that sustain cultural life in our neighbourhood. Our work is responsive to the community’s rhythms and the neighbourhood’s spirit of self-determination, holding space for collective creativity and the reimagining of what culture can be in our city.

As a growing organisation, our work moves at different rhythms. We give time, space, and support for ideas to grow slowly through care, conversation, and research — but we’re also able to act quickly when needed, responding to the energy and urgency of artists and our community. Scaling what we do enables us to pay closer attention to artist’s and organisers needs within our building, and be responsive within our programming to reflect and react to the changes within our communities and immediate context. A focus on collaborative projects to produce art and research enables us to support artists and communities to create new work together—reflecting local stories, histories, and hopes for the future

Artist Studios

Meet the artists and cultural organisations resident in Metroland Studios.

Artist Development

We run programmes that support artists in Brent to develop their practice and advance their careers.

Community Commissions

Community is central to our work at Metroland Cultures. Discover how we work with communities in Brent.

Biennials

Art events and exhibitions in public spaces and community venues in Brent.

Young People

We are committed to investing in the future of Brent. We do this by supporting young people aged 18 – 24 to be part of the cultural life of the borough.