PINK began with a belief: a career in the arts should not depend on being able to work for free, knowing the right people or living in the right city.

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In 2019, curator Katy Morrison founded PINK as a one-woman curatorial project and a parallel practice: a way of testing how an arts organisation could be built with artists rather than simply for them. Her seventeen years working in hospitality shaped PINK’s approach from the beginning. Hosting people well, paying attention to their experience and making them feel welcome were built into how the organisation worked.

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PINK has grown through doing. What began as a curatorial project has become a five-floor arts organisation at Hilton House in Stockport, with more than 46 artist studios, a dedicated gallery, event spaces and shared making resources. Each stage of that growth has changed what we know, and what we have learned has shaped what we do next.

 

Since moving to Hilton House in 2023, PINK has worked to develop an artist-led social-enterprise model. We generate around 90% of our income through trading, primarily from affordable studios and space hire. That income is reinvested into PINK and covers our core operating costs, giving us a degree of independence from short-term project funding.

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Affordable pricing is a deliberate choice, but it limits the surplus available for paid organisational capacity, access support, artist development and public programming. External funding allows us to increase activity, exceed fair pay for artists, develop work over time and create public programmes without passing greater costs to artists, organisers or audiences.

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PINK is now both a place and a practice. As a place, it provides studios, galleries, event spaces, equipment and opportunities. As a practice, it continues to test how a cultural organisation can be built through artist influence, shared resources, long-term relationships and accountable use of power. Artists help shape the spaces, programmes and support that affect them, and PINK continues to change in response.

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In a sector shaped by short-term funding, unpaid labour and disappearing cultural space, staying matters. We are building PINK to last: independent enough to take the long view, open enough to keep changing and properly resourced to back artists without relying on exhaustion or personal sacrifice.