OpenHand OpenSpace

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From the OHOS Archives:

Early 1990’s

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Rosy Martin (& Jo Spence)
‘Phototherapy, Memory and Identity. Opening up the family album. An experimental approach.’

A Phototherapy Workshop at Open Space

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Rosy Martin is a London-based artist, psychological-therapist, workshop leader, and writer. Across her art, group work, and therapeutic practice she explores the relationships between photography, memory, identities and unconscious processes. In collaboration with the late Jo Spence, in 1983 she developed the feminist practice of phototherapy, incorporating re-enactments to explore the psychic and social construction of identities within the drama of the everyday. Exhibiting internationally and publishing widely since 1985, Martin investigates issues including gender, sexualities, ageing, class, location, dress, shame, loss, grief and reparation. Her photographic series ‘Transforming the suit: what does a le***an look like?’ (1987), exhibited as part of ‘Women and Revolt’ (Tate Britain, 2023-2024) revisits historical and contemporary tropes of identity to challenge and play with stereotypical assumptions.

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We are currently digitising our archive to share with you and to highlight the extraordinary calibre of events that have occurred at OHOS throughout its history. Our thanks go to those who kept all the flyers and documentation.

Help us save OHOS and protect Brock Keep! Sign our petition to show your support and help protect this vital part of Reading’s cultural identity.
Link in Bio to take action!

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From the OHOS Archives:

1991-1993

A5 Flyers mainly designed by Marcus Cole, for a series of talks & presentations at OHOS by the following artists / photographers.

Images 1&2:
David A Bailey

Images 3&4:
Helen Escobedo

Image 5:
David Hevey

Images 6&7:
Chila Kumari Burman
(talk given by Veena Stephenson, due to illness)

Image 8:
Tom Mulligan

Images 9 & 10:
Bipinchandra J Mistry & Santoshni Perera
(Exhibition flyer including an announcement of an informal debate, chaired by Mark Sealy)

Blood, Sweat & Tears

19.6.2026 - 28.6.2026



As part of Open For Art 2026

This year The Engine Room turns 10 on 2.7.2026

To mark this moment, join us to delve deep into our archive—of new work, of process, and of ideas not yet dreamt up. It will be both retrospective and speculative: a space to reflect, and a space to imagine forward.

The programme will unfold across a series of shared experiences. We will hold feasts, we will dance, we will plant seeds in an inch of soil.

Drawing rooms will open as intimate spaces for conversation and collective thinking—places where ideas can be sketched, tested, and held in common.

This is both a reflection and a provocation: an invitation to honour the labour, creativity, and collective energy that have brought us here—and to imagine what comes next.

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From the OHOS Archive…

Rhonda Wilson
‘WORTH PAYING FOR’
1990

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Rhonda Wilson’s project ‘Worth Paying For’ was commissioned by the West Midlands Low Pay Unit and presented at OHOS in 1990 amongst other venues.

Rhonda Wilson built an international reputation for progressive photographic campaigns around low pay and homelessness.

It is worth researching her practice. Seemingly deep rooted in her home city of Birmingham, she supported photographers and artists with a genuine commitment to social issues.

Alongside this project there was a slide talk by Arpana Caur.

And lastly a selection of Video Screenings of ‘Animated Films on Social Issues’ by the Leeds Animation Workshop’. LAW is a women’s collective set up in 1978 to produce and distribute animated films on social issues.
It is still active today.

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Image 1:
A3 poster for ‘Rhonda Wilson: Worth Paying For’, 1990

Image 2:
Hand out and information to:
‘Worth Paying For’
Women and Low Pay in Birmingham.
‘Growing Concerns’ poster work project.
Rhonda Wilson

Images 3-4:
Documentation

Image 5:
Original A3 collage poster design for ‘Arpana Caur: Slide Talk’, 1990.

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