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The Generator: Stories & Memories
The Generator: Stories & Memories An oral history project supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund
Stories & Memories project captures the voices, recollections and experiences of those who studied, worked and created in the historic Packe Street building over the decades. Through these personal stories, we are preserving the building’s rich creative legacy while sharing it with new generations as The Generator begins its next chapter as a vibrant community arts venue. With thanks to Institute Loughborough for their continued generous support and for providing the filming location. Click on any picture below to read or watch the full interview
020 Jemma Bagley
A Bucket Catching the Drips: Jemma Bagley on Art Space's Earliest Exhibitions in the Generator Gallery
Jemma Bagley studied textile design at Loughborough Art College from 1987, and by around 1997 was helping run exhibitions and workshops for Art Space, a group still going today, in what was then a semi-derelict generator gallery. In this interview, she talks about hanging work from the building's own gantry hook, an accidental audience wandering in off the street, and how the space taught her almost everything she knows about running a socially engaged arts practice.
Interview date: 06.12.2025
017 Chris McIntyre
Turning the Power Back On by Accident: Chris McIntyre on the Generator's First Life as a Gallery
Chris McIntyre arrived at Loughborough in 1980 as a part-time art history lecturer and rose, over seventeen years, to Vice-Principal, before going on to become inaugural Dean of Art and Design at the University of Hertfordshire. Long before the current renovation, he was part of the small group who first turned the derelict generator hall into an informal exhibition space, complete with a near-miss involving live switchgear and a scattered pool of mercury.
Interview date: 05.12.2025
012 Martyn Blundell
Frederick Street had a buzz you didn't get anywhere else
Martyn taught at Loughborough for decades without ever quite belonging to it, picking up part-time hours through people he met in the pub while working full-timers' hours elsewhere: Central Saint Martins, Norwich, Nottingham Trent. That outsider's view gave him a rare basis for comparison, and Frederick Street still comes out on top. He remembers a caravan built into an exhibition, a student who locked himself behind a hand-painted glass door, and an eclipse watched from the roof that silenced the birds.
Interview date: 08.10.2025
011 Yanina Temple
Four decades of drawing, chickens and camper vans
Yanina taught in the building twice, first in the early 1980s and then from 1991 until her retirement in 2020, spanning its move from Frederick Street to Epinal Way. She remembers a building that felt autonomous and a little wild: chickens kept on the roof for life drawing, projects set with a single word like "flight," and a mentor, Pat May, who had students spend four days on a single drawing until it was right. She's since visited The Generator's Heritage Open Days and hopes to see it become a broad, open hub for the whole town.
Interview date: 08.10.2025
010 Nenagh Watson
Pushing boundaries and reimagining The Generator
Nenagh Watson doesn't mince words. A puppeteer and multimedia artist who spent 30 years pushing boundaries in Manchester, she's exactly the kind of creative The Generator was designed to serve. When the project was still in its consultation phase, Nenagh was one of the voices championing space for local artists – and she's got some strong opinions about what the venue should become.
Interview date: 20.02.2025
009 Evelyn Silver
From Greenham Common to The Generator and The Tate: Evelyn Silver's art of resistance
Evelyn Silver is living proof that the most powerful art comes from the margins. A self-taught performance artist whose work spans from the peace camps of Greenham Common to the mezzanine of The Generator, she's now having a moment of recognition that's decades overdue. Her feminist anti-nuclear posters from 1981 are currently touring with Tate Britain's "Women in Revolt" exhibition – work that emerged from streets and protest camps, not art schools.
Interview date: 20.02.2025
008 Tony Thory and Nita Rao
Cranes, clocks and creativity
In the heart of Loughborough stands The Generator – a 1930s Art Deco building that once powered much of Loughborough College. But from 1998 to 2006, it became something even more electrifying: home to Artspace Loughborough, a collective that had a lasting impact on the town's cultural landscape.
Interview date: 20.02.2025
007 David Salsbury
From sculpture student to ceramicist and founding the ceramics market
We spoke with sculptor-turned-ceramicist David Salsbury about his student days at The Generator, midnight laser escapades, and building Loughborough's thriving ceramics community.
Interview date: 20.02.2025