Last night tactileBOSCH gallery & studios caught fire and burnt down. I went to investigate this afternoon and saw the entire building reduced to charred fragments, broken glass, ashes and dust. The fire team were still at the premises at around 3pm this afternoon and there are still sections of the building smoking just a little, the entire site is due for demolition soon, but this catastrophic inferno has decimated the former gallery, as well as the former visibleart printing studios and woodwork shop. This tragic situation has been treated as suspicious with a number of fires being started in the Llandaff North area recently, obviously if anyone has any information, please report it to the authorities. One of the only remaining artworks from the fire is a collaborative painting on the outside of the building by David J Bull & Dean Craddock from the CITIZEN III exhibition last year, slightly singed.
I spent the day with one of the founders of tactileBOSCH, Kim Fielding who was quite shaken by the whole situation but came out with a morosely amusing statement: “The roof has finally been fixed I guess…”
Old Victoria Buildings Revival an exhibition celebrating the life of the gallery, showing work from its collaborators, instigators and practitioners opens at Fringe Arts Bath 2013, on Stall St, Bath on the 24th of May. This exhibition feels all the more important in lieu of recent events, phoenix out of the ashes comes to mind.
