A new gallery space has opened in the basement of a Brixton cafe on Atlantic Road.

Brixton Pound Cafe is allowing SPLEEN, a curator project that puts exhibitions on in alternative galleries, to use their underground artist space. The residency by SPLEEN is running until December 8, 2016.

The first artist’s work being displayed is by Amba Sayal-Bennet, a PhD student in Art Practice and Learning at Goldsmiths, University of London.

Sayal-Bennet’s work for the whitewashed cellar space is aptly named Crypt, the artwork has been created by projecting acetate prints of her drawings into the space using an over-head projector.

In each location that Sayal-Bennet works in, her art changes. The projections become site-specific, layering the translations with other objects to differ how the light falls onto the walls.

Amba Sayal-Bennet’s work Crypt uses projection for her new artwork at the Brixton Pound Cafe

SPLEEN’s unorthodox gallery spaces can create interesting situations. Georgia Keeling, a curator at SPLEEN said: “You have freedom and challenges. There can be objects in the way, crumbling walls and floors but there has to be an element of surprise. So far we have put up art in an ex working men’s club and a totally abandoned house!”

When the Brixton Pound Cafe, an off shoot of the local Brixton Pound currency, opened in July 2016 they wanted their basement space to be something different. Tom Shakhli, the general manager of the Brixton Pound said: “We wanted the basement to become an artist space. We all are interested in it, we wanted to support it as it has a crossover with what we do.”

Spleen responded to an advert they ran, offering to renovate the basement in return for a month residency. Two more artists will display their work over the coming month, India Harvey and Anna McDowell.

The Brixton Pound Cafe is a ‘pay-what-you-feel’ business set up by the Brixton Pound, the local currency used by some independent traders in the area. The cafe sources a lot of their products from businesses that are no longer a use to them.

The cafe prides itself in their community work and shaping the new face of Brixton, running art classes for children and holding regular activist meetings. Shakhli said: “Brixton does have a history for creativity, but it is becoming too expensive. We want to do something that might manoeuvre that.”

India Harvey’s exhibition UMANO UNIVERSALE opens on November, 24 at Brixton Pound Studio.