So went our initial shaky manifesto. Lo-fi was the name of the game, as most of us were in the same dole-funded boat and between us, we fairly regularly knocked out an array of self-published books, scrappy print works, dodgy homemade music and spent long periods of time sneaking about, trying to hook up free photocopying at various local institutions.

Nottingham has always had an abundance of ‘good stuff’ going on, although it sometimes gives the impression of being fragmented in that there seems to be little interaction between the various groups which can lead to an air of it all being a little closed, or exclusive. The vague plan was to try and set up a place where we could get on with doing some work, show some work and generally hang about and have some fun.

From years of obsessive compulsive photo taking and hoarding, we decided that our first project would take the shape of an open submission ‘point&shoot’ photo exhibition, which became know by the dubious title 6x4xLOADS! It all went really well and masses of people hopped on board and helped out either by contributing photos, lending a hand sorting out the space and installing the show, getting in touch from further a-field or just swinging by and generally mooching about whilst it was all going on.

I think that this was the finest thing The Lurking Hole has achieved to date. That sense of belonging to a group who are vaguely on a similar page and even if not, are more than happy to hang around regardless.

Something that surprised us about the exhibition and subsequent fallout was the daily happenings at the space. Initially we opened up for around four hours most weekdays so people could check out the show at their own leisure. We expected them to be long, lonely hours. As it happened we became a sort of drop-in centre for friends, art students, weirdoes, lurkers, out-of-workers and the loosely interested.

We figured we were onto a strange and good thing here and were also aware we were probably on borrowed time. We’d somehow blagged the unit for half-rent and were never sure how happily we fitted into the landlord’s plans so we endeavoured to pack as much in as was possible. Film screenings, free hardcore shows, charity benefit gigs and some rare ol’ freakouts ensued over the next few months.

Between all the fun and dancing, we’d managed to collate a vast amount of zines, fanzines, homemade music and fliers and other such DIY art scraps through an open submission process which was to make up the body of the next exhibition; Lo-Finesse/LO-FI-NESS.

We were blown away by the sheer volume of people who came out of the woodwork to get involved and even more so than at the previous show, it opened our eyes to the amount of horrendously talented people out there who are slogging away in obscurity on their own projects and day dreams.

At the opening of the zine show, the Hole was abruptly closed by the market authorities. So ended the Lo-Finesse/LO-FI-NESS exhibition and that period of The Lurking Hole. Three months hard work, over 200 different publications submitted from all over the world, two whole seven day weeks, over ten hours each day and an exhibition that survived for approximately three and a half hours! The following Monday we were evicted with the added bonus of having to deal with a small industrial unit worth of art and other assorted crap.

There are some exciting plans on the horizon; a bigger and better DIY exhibition, publication and online zine directory, various gigs/freak-outs and a regular club night. Although the physical space of the Lurking Hole has gone, we are hopeful the concepts, friendships, links, and hard work will carry onwards and upwards…we’ve got youth on our sides and there’s plenty more trouble to get in yet!

Dave Bevan (Artist and co-Lurker)