Two Queens is an artist-run and community-owned gallery and studios based in Leicester’s Cultural Quarter.
We are an independent, grass-roots champion for freedom of artistic expression and believe in access to art that enriches and brings meaning to our lives; art that is created by and for the community in Leicester’s Cultural Quarter and beyond. We believe that art can be both courageous and challenging, whilst also serving a therapeutic purpose for our wellbeing.
As an artist-run space that has endured for over 12 years, Two Queens has become part of the artistic fabric of Leicester, as well as holding significant national influence within the wider Contemporary Art community. Two Queens pushes boundaries, stimulates thought, challenges the status quo and provokes discussion. It moves us forward through new creativity and progressive ideas and brings fresh, bold vibrancy and vitality to its local community.
History
From our beginnings as a collective of young artists volunteering their time and energy, through to our new structure as a Community Benefit Society, Two Queens has always been a community first and foremost.
The first iteration of Two Queens began in late 2011, when two collectives of recent Fine Art graduates from Loughborough and De Montfort Universities came together to start a new collaborative artist studios and gallery, initially forming as a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee. Between 2012-2015, the volunteers running Two Queens (including all of the current senior staff) held 25 exhibitions featuring work by emerging contemporary artists from throughout the UK, including 2023 Turner Prize winner Jesse Darling.
2014 saw the organisation move to occupying our premises on a full lease, and with success at securing funding for public programme, the beginnings of a new, increasingly professionalised phase of Two Queens, including taking on our first staff member, and an increasing focus on learning at the heart of our work, including our popular monthly free family workshops, and more recently drop-in creative wellbeing sessions that seek to benefit the mental health of local artists and creative people. Throughout its time as a not-for-profit company, Two Queens always involved members of our studio-holder and artist community in decision making, including holding open Annual General Meetings and granting associate members a vote on important decisions. Becoming a Community Benefit Society was therefore a natural fit for Two Queens, which has always had a strong community of support at the heart of our work, and we converted to this new form in March 2023.
Two Queens is a Charitable Community Benefit Society, registered with the FCA, number 9027
Donations towards the costs of running our public programmes are always welcomed.
You can donate via PayPal
Purchases through our online shop also contribute to our costs
We welcome donations of second hand books on Art and related subjects, which we sell in our on-site shop, and art materials which we can use in workshops.
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In 2019 we made a radio programme for Art Licks Radio, originally broadcast via RTM.fm. The programme responds to the art licks weekend theme of ‘Interdependence’ by interviewing our studio holders and associate members about the role that the building Two Queens plays in facilitating a community. Listen below: