Build Brighton has a special place in my heart as my home hackerspace (and full disclosure, I was also one of their trustees for a few years). Fittingly for a hackerspace in the UK’s “Silicon Beach” tech capital, Build Brighton was also one of the first hackerspaces to start up in the UK way back
I’ve written a practitioner reflection piece for the Journal of Peer Production Issue 12, where I talk about the efforts that maker communities around the world are making to be more inclusive and accessible. It’s a special journal issue on the institutionalisation of makerspaces, so check it out for a bunch of other interesting papers too!
Earlier this month the Tate Modern hosted a mini exhibit on shared machine shops (i.e. makerspaces) as part of its Tate Exchange program. It featured a couple of photos from my fieldwork in the USA this summer alongside an audio piece featuring recordings from my hackerspace back home in Brighton. Read more about the exhibition here.
Noisebridge was one of the first hackerspaces to open in the USA. It’s part of the wave of spaces founded after a group of American hackers including Noisebridge’s co-founder, Mitch Altman, visited existing European hackerspaces including c-base and Metalab after the 2007 Chaos Communication Camp in Germany and decided to set up their own hackerspaces