Our latest interview is with Sarah from Addo Creative, who has started up a new co-working space in Gelliwastad Road for social and creative freelancers & enterprises. Sarah talks to us about why they set up the new venture, what Addo Creative is, how they became interested in the arts and the future of Pontypridd.

Hi Sarah, thanks for chatting with us, this is a really exciting addition to Pontypridd. Can you tell us where the name comes from, how the idea for Addo Studio came about and what you’re aiming to achieve?

Thanks for the opportunity to share our story.

Addo Creative have been based in Pontypridd since 2011 and have benefitted greatly from Pontypridd’s relatively central location within South Wales, the support of the Arts Development Team at RCT Council and the network of creative professionals in the area. Therefore, we have a vested interest in and are hopeful for the future of the town. As a small creative organisation, we also understand the challenges facing small businesses and sole traders in finding suitable and affordable workspace, staying the isolation that comes from independent or home-based working, and establishing a presence within the arts, cultural and voluntary sectors.

And so in September 2018 we opened a co-working space called ‘Addo Studio – Creative Hub’ at 26 Gelliwastad Road, Pontypridd. Addo Studio aims to provide desk and meeting spaces within which a creative, collaborative and supportive community may grow and in doing so to contribute to developing the social and cultural ecology of Pontypridd, as well as the practice, profile, connections and well-being of its members.

Membership of Addo Studio is aimed at those working in or connected to the creative industries and businesses with a social ethos. Membership of Addo Studio includes: Dedicated desk space & locker, Wi-Fi, Use of a shared meeting room; a communal area for lunch, coffee or informal meetings; kitchen and toilet facilities; a small courtyard for outdoor working; All utilities; Registered business address; and 24/7 access.

Our meeting room is also open for hire to non-members. We’re also flexible and open to developing bespoke packages and collaborations and would encourage people to get in touch to discuss their business or organisational needs.

As someone who has grown up locally and whose father worked on Gelliwastad Road until his recent retirement, I hope that this venture will benefit the town centre and tap into the potential of the town as a hub for creative businesses, especially given the development of the Cardiff City Region and Metro and Pontypridd’s position as a gateway to the valleys.

The ethos behind the co-working space and how we hope it will operate is echoed in o ur name. ‘Addo’ means ‘to give, bring, place, inspire, cause, add, join’ in Latin and ‘to promise’ in Welsh and reflects our strong collaborative ethos and commitment to providing opportunities for others to make and experience art in the public realm and to enhancing the wider cultural and social ecology of places and communities.

The new Addo Studio is part of Addo Creative; can you tell us how the business started, what it does and how you came to work together and how you became involved with the arts scene in Wales?

Tracy and I decided to set up Addo Creative in 2011 after working together at Safle, the [former] strategic agency for public art in Wales, at which point we had both been working in the arts in Wales for over 10 years in various roles (our biographies are available on our website: http://www.addocreative.com/who-we-are/ ).

We founded Addo Creative as a not-for-profit arts organisation specialising in developing and commissioning contemporary art projects in the public realm, usually within community, urban and rural regeneration contexts.

What are the priorities for the company and the Addo brand in the next twelve months?

Our focus over the next twelve months is on growing and ensuring the sustainability of Addo Studio – Creative Hub and on continuing to develop Addo Creative’s portfolio of work, which has to date included working locally, nationally and internationally, with and on behalf of artists, community groups, voluntary organisations, and private and public sectors partners, to deliver a broad spectrum of projects including: permanent and temporary public artworks and programmes; artist residencies; strategy & framework documents; research, evaluation and feasibility studies; and a variety of exhibitions and events in both art and non-art spaces.

What was the attraction of setting up the Studio in the town, specifically Gelliwasted Road that’s associated with Professional Services?

Being based in Pontypridd means Addo Studio is w ithin easy reach of Cardiff and the Heads of the Valleys region. Gelliwastad Road is only a short walk from Pontypridd Railway and Bus Stations and there are several cheap car-parking options nearby. This means that we’re in a central location in the town that’s easily accessible for potential Addo Studio members, as well as their clients/customers.

In addition, as you say, Gelliwastad Road has long been associated with Professional Services, which is of benefit to the Addo brand and members of Addo Studio.

What do you know about Pontypridd’s Business Improvement District and are you a member of or attend any other networks?

Victoria and James at Your Pontypridd BID have been incredibly supportive of our new venture by helping us to connect with potential collaborators and members for Addo Studio and helping to promote and showcase our services locally. As a result, we’ve started to attend some of the BID meetings and made contact with other networks in the town, such as the Jigsaw Business Women network that invite women across all business sectors to connect with fellow business women on the first Wednesday of every month, 12:30 – 14:00 at Muni Arts Centre, Pontypridd.

We also regularly attend the What Next? Valleys meetings that are often held at The Muni and are focussed on enabling people involved in the arts and cultural sector to actively advocate the value of the work they do and make connections with people from other sectors in the Valleys area. What Next? Valleys is part of a national movement called What Next? that seeks to bring together arts and cultural organisations from across the UK, to articulate, champion and strengthen the role of culture in our society.

We’d recommend the What Next? Valleys meetings to anyone interested in how arts & culture benefits the Valleys. Dates of meetings are posted on the What Next? Valleys Facebook Group Page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/214049045673241/

How supportive is the local business community in embracing the changing nature of business you represent?

The local business community on Gelliwastad Road has been supportive, with some of our neighbours popping in to Open House events we held in September to enable people to visit the space and see what we have to offer and others sharing information about Addo Studio with their networks.

I think people recognise that the town needs to adapt to accommodate the Creative Industries Sector (including: advertising & marketing; architecture; crafts; product design, graphic design & fashion design; film, TV, video, radio & photography; IT, software & computer services; publishing; museums, galleries & libraries; music, performing arts and visual art), especially since government statistics suggest that employment within this sector is growing at four times the rate of the UK workforce as a whole and could be worth £128.4billion to the UK economy by 2025, helping to create up to one million jobs by 2030 ( https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/creative-industries-economic-estimates-january-2016 ).

How do you see the current redevelopments in the town centre and future regeneration projects affecting Addo Studio?

I think the current redevelopments and proposed future regeneration projects can only be of benefit to Addo Studio, by attracting more people to live and work in the area and use the town centre.

And the final question what ways would you like to see Your Pontypridd BID and Addo Studios/Creative working together in the future?

There is a very positive vibe in Pontypridd at the moment and the BID is helping to make the breadth of services and facilities available in the town more visible and connected to each other. We are open to finding ways to support this, both through Addo Studio and Addo Creative.

Thank you for your time today, we're excited by this new venture and to have the Addo team on board and we look forward to working with them in the future.

For more information on what space is available, booking and prices email hello@addostudio.com , visit http://addostudio.com and follow them on Twitter https://twitter.com/AddoStudio.