Issue 101 / July 2019

UNDERETTE
preparing to open, events like this enabled them to get a feel for
what people in the area would be interested in using the space
for, as well as being a way of bringing people together of all ages
in a fun and relaxed, but productive, environment. At Kitty’s, they
speak openly of how important this accessibility to these spaces
was. “You’d go there and have your lunch,” says launderette coordinator
Grace Harrison, “and it would be like a sandwich and a
question on a daily basis.”
For Grace, Homebaked is a crucial model for what they want
to achieve. “I think there is something really powerful about
seeing the success of all the hard work they put in, and the
degree to which it has been really taken on by a whole range
of people who now use and love that space, so I think that also
gave us a lot of confidence that what we were trying to do was
complementary and comparable.” Inspired by their conversations
on the social high street, Kitty’s Launderette are following the
likes of Homebaked in taking ownership of the spaces that are
likely to become derelict over the next few years. Rather than
being a collection of impersonal spaces, the high street in and
around Anfield is transforming into somewhere packed with
character and warmth.
Through the community’s openness and willingness to
share knowledge, time and resources, Kitty’s have been able to
build upon the work of other community-focused organisations
in Liverpool. Rather than start from scratch, places such as
Homebaked, Rotunda, Rice Lane City Farm, Squash and
Blackburne House have been happy to help at various points
from conception. As Grace explains, this is rare: “In the traditional
third sector where you are grant dependent, you end up being
in competition with people who should be your collaborators.”
A dedication to support those who ultimately share our goals is
one part of a wider ethos formed around the fundamental belief
Grace expresses. “What people can achieve together is greater
than what any one person can achieve on their own.”
In the context of growing austerity, and a government
which still chooses to pursue a ‘there is no alternative’ narrative
in favour of severe public service cuts and centralised decision
making, the UK seems to be divided on what the future should
look like. It becomes increasingly clear that elites and politicians
alike are unable or unwilling to address the complex problems
people face in the world around them.
Communities have always found ways to care for
themselves through taking matters into their own hands, and
Kitty’s Launderette is one such business hoping to pump money
back into the local community. For Kitty’s Launderette, creative
thinking is integral to the world they are trying to build a corner
of. “In our dream scenario,” says Grace, “it’s that we continue to
value creative thinking as the business goes forward and we see
that as not supplementary but integral.” In a time when funding
for creative courses is the first to be squeezed, Kitty’s are intent
on recognising the value of creative labour. “[That’s] also part of
the social impact, because, I think artists should be paid for the
stuff they do, and often they’re not – so we, as the business, can
recognise value and remunerate for creative involvement.”
It has become clear that the only way to solve some of the
toughest issues facing people in the UK is through creative
thinking and behaving with a certain nuance. It feels necessary
now, as it always has been, to properly recognise the creative
labour of artists, musicians and performers. Creatives work not
only to give platforms to voices and experiences, but to add
value and meaning into our lives. By ensuring that this business
functions firstly as a launderette, Kitty’s hopes that this will
enable them to become much more involved with a whole range
of creative activity happening in Liverpool.
Kitty’s recognise the contexts which make creativity
inaccessible to people and wants to break them down. “We
can just commission the work that we think is going to look
good, or that the artist wants to make – we don’t have to think
about someone else’s agenda.” Autonomy here is key. Through
being a self-sustaining business, they can support people. This
could take the form of commissioning artists to create a piece
of work to be displayed somewhere in the local area, or creating
more local jobs which pay a living wage; two examples where
autonomy would be brought about through income generation,
which was a big motivating factor in the early stages of setting
up Kitty’s.
The team of nine (Grace, Ehsan, Louis, Rachael, Kerrie, Kathy,
Natalie, Kirsty and Michelle) aim to ensure that the project is led
by as many people as possible through active listening; being
open to and in favour of change. This is a business that started
as a small group with an idea, but now wishes to cater not only
to locals but also those who live further afield. Figuring out how
they can begin to support and be supported by people who don’t
live locally is something they admit will start to become clearer
over the next few months. They recognise the only way to make a
space as accessible as possible is through allowing people to be
actively involved in shaping how the space functions in the future.
The Talk Of The Washhouse project is one way they have
been able to do this.. As part of their ongoing research into
washhouses as important social spaces, Kitty’s run weekly
drop-in conversation sessions for collecting local memories of
washhouses. Supported by the heritage project, this aims to
collect stories from people sharing their past experiences of being
in launderettes to produce a lasting archive. Grace describes
how this process has allowed forgotten pasts to be rediscovered:
“We were finding out that the washhouse was a site of social
life, particularly for women, and there is hardly anything written
about that. Working class women’s history is largely unrecorded
so this is a really important project for us.”
Through listening to and harnessing memories and stories
about the washhouse as a place of social activity, they hope to
produce a telling archive which not only accommodates for the
nostalgia of a shared past, but guides us along the path towards
a shared future. By actively listening to stories and the people
telling them, their enterprise continues to be “informed by the
things that people really care about. People have told us what
was great about it was this or that, and we can build that into
how we do things – that allows people to be heard, and know
their experiences are valuable and cared about.”
There is a recognition here that every interaction and
encounter, whether it be between members of the team or
discussions with the public, have all been equally vital in allowing
the business to open. “It’s really important that this business is
owned by, and led by, as many people as possible, because that
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