Our mission is to support community renewal across London by delivering Arts and Creative Services through our financially sustainable social enterprise model.

Bow Arts was established in 1994 by Marcel Baettig with the kind support of Marc Schimmel, the owner of our Bow Road premises and a valued supporter of the arts. This first site, formed of two adjacent buildings, quickly established itself as a thriving artist studios supporting over 100 working artists.

In 1995 the Trust became a registered arts and education charity, then by 1998, with the further support of Marc Schimmel alongside an Arts Council England grant, we were able to build the Nunnery Gallery, a contemporary art gallery housed at the heart of our Bow Road site.

At the same time we established our now, award winning, schools education programme. The education programme, now working with over 100 schools, offers employment and training opportunities for professional artists in these schools. The artists help young people access education, improve their attainment and learn valuable creative skills.

At present, Bow Arts manages 13 different Studio sites across London and we are developing more. We also operate a Live Work scheme throughout Bow, this provides housing for practising artists who have an interest in community work. Our workspace schemes support over 500 artists with affordable safe spaces to work and grow.